Episode 150: Live at "FandomCon"(Talk w/ Ming Chen, Adassa, and more!)

0:00 Hey everybody, Uncle Dad here, officially live at one of the most interesting cons I've ever been in my life, that is Fandong Kong, that's right, I said that on purpose, I'll explain that later. I am with one of our dear friends, one of our OG guests, the one and only, the man, the myth, the legend, Ming Zhen. What's up everybody, welcome to Fandong Kong, welcome to Uncle Dad Talks everybody, anytime you're interviewing me, it means that things are going good. I agree with that, and I also feel like fun is awry, it's close to us. I mean, listen, life is short, right? So, and I don't, I see what once a year, if that. So, you know, if we get together for even one night, we got to go have fun. We have no time to waste. No time for rest. No time for rest for the wicked, right? Like you just got to be all in and that's it.

0:44 And I love that you live life very all in. What is the key to that? I think I, you know, just aging experience, I guess. Actually, you know what? A lot of it comes from when I was younger, no money, no car, no game. So i i would sit at home behind my computer watching star wars but i you know these movies you watch like you know i felt like luke skywalker i felt there was other things out there and i hated being trapped at home and even if i did leave the house you know maybe we're on a family vacation you you know you're young you have no money so you can't go up by yourself and do what you really want to do like even if your parents take you to disneyland you can't ride the rides you want to ride because you know you got to stay with the family and or you know maybe your mom gets motion sickness you can't go on one ride so it's always that long it's like oh one day man i get to do whatever i want to do and and i guess that's how that's what i'm doing now is you know you know you get a job you get a salary you get some free time you go off and do whatever you want to do but my experiences compound even more that i get to i can get into cons around the world so they they fly me out man they put me in a hotel and you know you do the con but afterwards time is yours so and and there's no time to waste so if you're in a cool city like san jose or you're in the bay area you gotta find all the cool stuff in the span of like three days maybe sometimes four that's not a lot of time it's not a lot of time but you know we do a lot of cons too and so like when we're out there we always want to do all this stuff but you never can hit it you never can hit all this stuff but i'm curious because you hit some san jose spots that i don't think

2:17 get enough love so let's let's Let's tell the audience where you've been in San Jose. Okay. Well, you insisted that we go to a really great dive bar called Trials Pub. That was your home when you lived by, I guess, still your home, right? And that, you know, I hear that. I need to go. I really, I mean, wherever I visit is based on, really based on where, I want to go where all the locals go. You know, I want to go where they live. Hang out where they tell their stories, where they make their stories, where, you know, maybe they've been there for five years or sometimes 50 years. I want to go meet those people, hang out with those people, find those people who work there. And they're also a good resource too, because you're sitting there, you're a couple of drinks in and you ask the bartenders, like, hey man, where should I go next?

3:02 Where do you eat when you get off your shift here? Like, where's the late night food? Where do you like to drink when you're not, when you're off day? And they'll gladly tell you, and then you go and it's always awesome. Yeah, I love that. And what's funny about this particular situation, everybody told you not to go to this bar we went to, including the bar staff. And that was the legendary, it is a legendary spot, the legendary Alex's 49er here in San Jose. Yeah, great place. We heard they had karaoke there every night from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., which is very rare, even in my travels. Maybe I have one or two places like this karaoke on Wednesdays, sometimes maybe Wednesdays and Fridays, but very rarely every day. And that's a good thing, because usually when we do these inevitably maybe later on it's like oh hey man where's the karaoke around here and you know sometimes the celebrities they love singing in particular i was at a con i was hanging out with patrick warburton who you might know as the tick it's putty from seinfeld as the guy from ember's new groove i mean he's been in a million things but those are the bigger bigger ones and we're hanging out at a rooftop he turns me he's like hey ming where's karaoke around here i'm like i will find it and we we found it we found this place and he loves Pearl Jam so we.

4:12 Went up there he sang Pearl Jam all night and yeah but you know any place that has karaoke seven days a week we need to visit we heard it was a dive bar and all these came true however all the locals was like oh man you don't want to go there man that places that place is either you're either they they I don't know sometimes they say it sucks sometimes they say it's dangerous or they'll just fly oh we don't go there whenever I hear that it's always raises a flag which means go there because almost 100 it's a great place so yeah almost 100 so i love that you and i sometimes i'm like are they screwing with me like are they telling me not to go so we don't crowd it or maybe it's their place like sometimes i think they're screwing with me but yeah alex is 49ers solid place and we gotta give a shout out to treskies too for our teskies teskies we went there had some was a jaeger tea or what your tea yeah so if you're ever on san is a go to Teske's you got to ask for the Jaeger tea now it's not made with Jaeger Meister it's a it's his own drink that's called Yaga tea and but we all call it Jaeger tea, Okay, because I posted it, and people are like, why are you drinking a Jaeger at a German place? Were they out of schnapps? And I was like, all right, listen, it was good. I don't know what was in it.

5:22 It was good. And a big shout out to Danny and her Black Forest cake, handmade, really good. Yeah, we were literally tipsing eating cake. That's where you know you're having a good friend. Oh, for sure. You're drunk, and you're eating a big piece of chocolate cake. It was so good. It was so good. And you can get that cake anytime you're in town. Yeah, I hit the spot for sure. So, yeah, that was night one. that was night one so again you know usually when i'm out try to like if we had three bars in one night it's pretty good sometimes you get one bar and you're like i'm feeling it i feel at home i'm gonna stay here but yeah i like to explore just see all the other ones so if we get three is very good four is good. We've done up to five or six though sure now it's sunday today and when this comes obviously time won't matter but let me ask you this are we gonna hit maybe one more bar before you leave i like do one more yeah one i want to take it to you called the doghouse okay you sent me a link to it it probably lives up to its name i love it yeah it's definitely your vibe i was thinking about in my head all night last night and i was like what are some spots that he would dig i was like that's the one that is the one there's no i think there's like two tvs it's all old it's it's no barely no parking but you know it's right next to the holiday inn like i cannot and it's open at 10 a.m every day that's awesome i saw this thing i almost bought it it was one of those like facebook ads it was like dive bar bingo like you know how you can tell a dive bar so usually like if it has the word yacht in it or yacht club it's a diet as a good dive bar there there's less than one window is a good dive bar they lost smoking

6:53 in there it's a good dive bar you know there are all these like kind of like dive bar flat like flags on it and i almost i should i almost bought it it was pretty funny so and yeah that i mean they're true to life yeah i'm gonna look that up because i'm gonna need that for when i would do new orleans because i think we should find the dive bars in new orleans yeah there's some good ones there are ones i haven't even been to there was at locals like how have you not been there and i'm like i you know i was too busy at cafe du monde i was over at the dungeon i was over at the dungeon the sazerak bar. I was over at you know lafitte's not i left lafitte's is the oldest bar in america supposedly good place or you know the old absinthe house uh you know so many great places in new orleans but um yes i i uh it was But I have family out here, so I mean, they're more in Milpitas, like a little bit northeast of here.

7:40 So I never really hung out downtown, so it's fun finding all the good gems here. I found the St. Pedro Square Market. That was cool. But yeah, last night was cool. So we started there, ended up over at Cash Only, which is a Johnny Cash-themed dive bar. Which was amazing. I think that's my place. Anytime I visit, we're going to go there for a couple of reasons. One, they have almost every cheap beer in America there, which is one of my goals is to drink every cheap beer in America. They had Stroh's and Hams, Merlin High Life, Montaki, all that stuff. But it was fun. I went up to the bartender. I was like, hey man i there's probably no shot you have a bottle of malort here do you and he looked at me like go ask the other bartender the other end his name is jay address him by name and ask him and you know it's kind of a setup right and i go up i'm like hey uh is your name jay's like yeah i was like i heard you're the man to ask to see if there's a bottle of malort here and he smiles at me and he goes to the back he moves over a couple bags of chips so they had one stashed.

8:43 Back there for anybody who asks and i was like all right i have a bunch of californians here have never had it you know malort the worst tasting thing ever invented the chicago liquor for two-fisted hearty drinkers and i yeah i got six shots for everybody and you know they hated me for a little bit and so you wait you've never had it so what was your well how was your first shot of malort i gotta be honest with you you guys were all saying oh you know i've always heard the tails right always heard the tails but i love i sound horrible but i love like that weird shitty bitter taste i guess you would call it because like i drink underbergs every day that's not a lie i drink that literally every day and so i was like you know whatever the underberg is not the best i know that and so when you gave me the shot and i tried it i gotta be honest with you man i liked it like i liked the way it tasted you're one of the rare you're a rare breed i mean i do have maybe a handful of friends that actually do like it i i met one girl who's she sips it like like it's a cocktail that's i don't know if i would do that because that seems like it might be a little i don't know that's a lot that's a lot but i have a couple of friends that either for whatever reason their palates are kind of geared toward yeah that's not my still i hate it and people why do you keep drinking it is because i like introducing other people to it and like i'm not gonna be a jerk and not do it with them so what's it's a great you know what's funny is like i've never really thought about that so hanging out with you it's like that's such a great like party starter like oh have you guys ever had this shitty alcohol we got to do it right it makes people just go, what.

10:10 Why would we do it? And you make them do it and then you all laugh about it. Yeah. And like, I, I, I don't hide it. I don't trick people. I'm like, this is really bad is that in fact, it's the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth. So it just adds up. And they want to do it even more. It's like a challenge, right? But the first time I had it, I was at Dive Bar in Chicago. I was with a bunch of people from a con. So we're all from out of town. And the old bar fly was in there. It was like, oh, you're from out of town? Let me buy you all shots. It was all malort. He did it all just so you could see 10 people's reactions all at once, like cringing all at once, which for him was well worth it. And he's laughing at us. And at the time, I was like, I swear I would never drink it again. It was that bad. But famous last words. Never say never. Never say never.

10:50 Was malort worse than jaeger tea oh by far yeah oh god jaeger tea was like southern sweet tea compared to that yeah i was like oh how is this compared to like jaeger for net for net's the big one they're like how's it compared to forget i'm like man i was drinking for net all day next to malort man like for net tastes like like the best champagne next to malort yeah absolutely so you know you've been here for a little bit you know i wish i could have showed you more and maybe next time one day we'll get you out here again and I would love to do there's so much that San Jose can offer man there's so many great bars, restaurants I mean you talk about the high life Henry's high life is like a San Jose staple like it's one of the best steak houses and it's like old timey and it's in Little Italy you know like a lot of people don't even know San Jose has a Little Italy and I just think I'm so happy that you got to explore my little piece of home.

11:41 My new home because you know I'm originally from Stockton and so this is my current home and not that many people going to talk about how great this place the place is i feel yeah yeah it's really awesome i love northern california i have roots here my family's here my uncle came out hung out me at the con yesterday took me out to dinner which was cool so went to a place called china chen i was like i love china chen do you really yeah i love china chen he just picked it because of the name i'm like because i was like he's like i want to take you at dinner i'm like all right take me to your favorite spot and he just kind of picked one at random like this is your favorite he's like i I just look cool, but it's a old school, like old school, very hole in the wall, Asian, like egg noodle house. It's like, it's basically Chinese pho.

12:23 Like you know they don't use they do have a rice noodle dishes but they focus on egg noodles uh their broth is different like they don't boil it shin bones for like a million hours it's just their own chinese probably like sliced chasar pork and then you get i i got my shrimp dumplings and like all you all in it was like like 10 bucks or whatever so cheap yeah now did you but did you like it i loved it yeah i would totally go back especially i wanted something quick and like you know something that fills my soul for a little bit and you know perfect for before a night of drinking for sure yeah yeah man i love that you went there it's amazing yeah that's actually one of my so when i first moved here i used to live by campus and it's right by san jose state so i would go there like every wednesday and man it was you can get a nice fucking bowl.

13:04 Of soup for like less than like you said at the time like less than 10 bucks for yeah it was amazing i'm so glad you went there dude it's awesome i love that now you didn't go everywhere here but is there anywhere specifically you wish you could have went to like i made a map um here let me see what i have on here you can tell me if they're good or not because i usually before i go on i just go on google maps i start saving i just start bookmarking places so let's see caravan lounge looked awesome that's a great place i went to cashew paper plane i've been to before very good like. Probably one of the best cocktail bars in san jose uh like haberdasher's like the one legit speakeasy. Drinks are pretty good like maybe not like not as. Good as paper plane perhaps what else do i have here i don't know why i have the san jose flea market mapped but yeah i don't know why i have a place called falafel's drive-in bookmark i have no place is amazing it's like that was on diners drivers and dives like it's a huge it's known for one thing though it's banana shake oh dude all right i'm into that dude yeah but that was amongst yeah but you know i had you know cash rolling we hit bears dive bar we hit uh i had you know i had the high life bookmark but yeah i wish we i wish i could take you to still og man i think you would like that place and uh the vinyl bar and then i heard this way fuck him long is awesome i heard oh yeah that's what uh and then i i saw man in ale milpitas there's a 24 hour indian food restaurant there's full places that are open till three in the morning there's yeah there's type places like i love late night asian it's the best man yeah and people sleep on that out here because they always want to go tacos or

14:35 whatever and that's fine right but like sometimes pho at 2 a.m after a long night of drinking it hits the spot better than you can imagine yeah it's it yeah i only wish we could find one last night yeah yeah last night i got kind of crazy so i i got back it was two i was kind of hungry and i was like do i be a fat ass and doordash taco bell and i heard their their old school menus out now like the mexime and so i'm like screw it and i did and uh and it says gonna take about 25 minutes to arrive so i was like oh i'll just chill for a bit i end up i I fell asleep, but I woke up an hour after it got delivered and it was sitting for me down at the lobby. So, and, uh, but it would have hit the spot better if I got it hot. But you know, at that time, at that point, you don't care. But I'm here to tell you the Mexi melt is back and I hope it never leaves.

15:21 You know what? I can't think of a better way to close up on this. The mixing house is back, and Ming Shen Hosen never leaves. Ming, it's always a great time hanging out with you, really. You're the best, man. Thank you so much for taking me to your spots, for hanging out with me. And, you know, I think we did pretty good for two and a half days. And I think I'll be back for sure. So we'll go ahead. The rest of San Jose, roll up Milpitas. We'll hit Redwood City, Daly City. You know, go up to San Francisco. And then I'll be at Stockton sometime soon. Yeah, Mike Millerick and Stockton Con. always has a special place in my heart you know mr d's pub and pizza without the pizza. I know that's what i'm saying anyway we'll talk about that a different day we'll save that for when you're in stockton because that's my actual hometown and that i want to i need to take you to the winchester bar but it's called winnie's now and i have a fun story about that bar real fast we went to that that's a fucking dive son and when we went there there was one time we were there and i'll just give you a little taste of the story we're all sitting there and all of a sudden you hear this loud crash because a car literally slammed into the front entrance of the door of the bar and the guy got out of the car and said hey can i get a whatever beer he wanted that is a dive oh it's awesome that's awesome i don't want to be that guy but i but i understand yes but i understand i would take you there ming thank you so much can you just tell our audience where they can follow you on instagram oh yeah uh instagram twitter facebook mingchen 37 m-i-n-g-c-h-e-n 37 if you want to pick the diet bars food and comic cons

16:51 follow along everybody yes please do all right everybody we'll be right back after this break boom what's up everybody this is aj kirsch uh live event host mc presenter announcer i don't know i do a bunch of stuff wedding officiant personal trainer who knows ajkirsch.com if you want to learn more about me but you are in for a treat because you're listening to uncle dad talk. All right, everybody. Uncle Dad is back here hanging out with a very cool, very cool person. So cool that he has to say his name because I don't want to ruin it. So let's give it up for... Hey, guys. I'm Eddie Correa. I am an audio engineer and I work on a bunch of anime and video games, stuff like that. And that's it. Goodbye. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

17:37 Yeah, Eddie, I had to have you do that because in the history of my show, I have the worst time pronouncing last names. Specifically if there's any accent or anything like it doesn't even matter the accent i am terrible at it so thank you for saving my life there i appreciate that eddie so what is it what would you how would you like describe what you do i know like on the base level it's like audio. Engineering but i feel like it's much deeper than that and we don't ever get the opportunity to talk to somebody in your field so what would you describe like what you do exactly really you know we always joke about how it's like i'm the guy who handles all the tech work and hits all the buttons and stuff like that but really it's kind of just babysitting um and the most insane thing about it is that it's like it's kind of you know like anyone can come in and hit buttons it's like you know people will always like djs are always like the first example where it's like well anyone can go up and you know hit play it's kind of the same thing with engineering anyone can go up and hit play anyone can go up and hit hit the record button but the people that can excel the engineers that can excel is the ones that know how to handle every individual person in the room it's the ones who can get the director and the actor to mesh well make sure the clients are taken care of all of that stuff all while handling all of the tech stuff on top of that so that's really it really just becomes like a babysitting job at its core just with a lot of buttons involved do you i mean but it's got to feel pretty great still

19:09 knowing you were a part of like that bigger project right like you know you uh you worked on one of my favorite games and that's uh well i always i always want to say riverside girls i know that's right it's rivers. But it's river city girls and it's one of the one of the best one of the best like side scrollers i've ever played and i when you told me you did the sound on that my mind literally was blown because it's so perfect man yeah it's it's it's kind of nuts it's like because i i didn't do the My friend Jeff actually did the first game, which was really kind of funny. So when I got handed the second, it was like this weird little thing where we're like, oh, okay, cool. We both, but it's, it was really weird working on River City because the director, Christina and V and I have worked together for years and years at this point.

19:56 And she was the director on it. And working on the project was super weird because like, you know, I'm like, we're working on it and partway through, The client, we're like introducing a new character or something or we're recording something and the client's like, yeah, so this is actually one of the Double Dragon characters. And it kind of clicked in my head that it's it is Double Dragon. It's just it is literally just the Double Dragon universe, but from like a different angle. So it was always it just kind of blew my mind to be like, oh, I worked on Double Dragon. Oh, it's so much cooler now. So we're working on this stuff is always like really weird because we never really you know in the moment we don't understand how impactful it can be stuff like that you know every once in a while we get something and it's like oh my gosh this is going to be like amazing this is going to be so great when i worked on the devil may cry series i was already a huge fan by the time i had gotten in that seat so when i worked on that it was it was like you know mind-blowing it was dream come true really you tell the audience which ones you worked on oh so i worked on the special edition for dmc4 and then i worked on dmc5 yeah and working on those was just like you know dream come true because i was i've been a fan of the game the series since the first game came out in like early 2000s that game was the game changer i mean it changed the way you could play action horror right yeah yeah absolutely and and just working with like

21:28 the capcom clients were always really cool and through that i worked with on a bunch of other things for those guys but yeah so it's like you know you never really sometimes you go in and you're like oh this is going to be so amazing i can't wait for when it comes out but every once in a while you get something like you know like like fire emblem three houses was like one of those were i i knew about fire emblem You know, I played Fire Emblem. I knew about it. But, you know, in Nintendo's eyes, they were like, hey, this is if this doesn't like do good, it's just we're going to be done. We're not going to do any Fire Emblem anymore. And it was such a huge project. It was like a nine-month project or something, that one.

22:08 And going through the whole thing, we're like, man, this is so massive on our end. We really, really hope it does good. And when it came out, it exceeded every single. We were all completely dumbstruck with how well it was received and how well it did financially. And you know so much so that like fire emblem was like cool we're gonna keep we're gonna keep doing more every year now and so now there's been like another three or four fire emblems that have come out since then but that three houses games is perfection absolutely perfection so good it's so good and i know i know i'm biased as all hell but but it was so good and i got to work with a lot of very close friends of mine on the project so it was like it was such a fun project to work on but.

22:54 Would have never known how successful it would have been until it came out and we were all just like um okay in many ways too you're kind of like the the silent heroes of this world right because a lot of people always think voice actor whatever director whatever they don't think about the other group of people that are all part of making the game so you should i i want you to know we always try to do our best to be cognizant of that world and i'm so thankful that you were a part of those games man because i love those games man those those games mean everything to me like three houses when i played that game my mind i couldn't tell you like i couldn't stop thinking about that game for a long time like my choices everything but the sound is so important because it it envelops you in that world. Yeah and you just did the work you did on that your team everybody you guys should be so proud and thank you and honestly i'm so thankful that i've gotten to meet you and be a part of all this so my question to you though now is what's coming out what you got going on can you talk about anything no that's always a tough one i can tell you there's a couple things because right now I mean of course we're in a video game strike right now there was a thing though that's pretty that's that'll be that'll be pretty noticeable when it when it comes out that I'm really happy to have worked on it's from a series that's been going on for a long time so I'm like very happy to have worked on it it's on hiatus right now we were working on it and then the strike started and then it kind of just like stopped so I don't know if we had just happened to finish right before the strike or if the company had been

24:25 like oh we're gonna like put that on pause and wait out the strike which is like a dick move but like you know whatever so yeah if that when that comes out i'll be all like hey i worked on this but right now because the industry is very just all over the place at the moment i'm mostly doing a lot of like adr. You know, like random things, nothing that's like anyone's going to recognize necessarily. But I did work on this like little indie game called Corrupt. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's like this fighting game, this up and coming fighting game. I think they premiered at like GDC or something like that this year. And that was just like one of those random little things. There's a friend of a friend was like, hey, I need a guy.

25:07 And I was like, cool, I can do it. And so we, you know, brought in a bunch of people and did the thing and just made this little fighting game. Which is so weird. And I think the funny enough, the only reason as they announce things in the corner, the funny enough, the only reason I got that is because I had worked on blaze blue and soul caliber years and years ago. And someone, and they just happened to like, see some, like someone had said something offhanded and they were like, Oh, he worked on that. Oh, I want that guy. And I was like, yeah, okay. You got it. Sure. Let's do it. I love it, man. So, you know, and I always like to end these interviews with like great, not great. I shouldn't say that about myself.

25:48 Fun questions, I should say. So let me ask you this. What are your top three, your top three fighting games of all time? Ooh, my top three. Well, I Super Smash Brothers is always like probably my favorite. It's the one I played melee religiously when that was around. I actually played it professionally or not professionally, but I used to go do tournaments and stuff like that. in all the opens back when that was a thing. And of course, Ultimate is now just like, it's so fun. I have such a good time playing that with people. I love Smash. I'm not like a big fighting game person necessarily, but I love Smash.

26:29 And somehow, I don't know how or why, but my brother got me stuck playing DOA years ago. It's a great game though. It's great. but it's like hard to be a doa fan without people being like yeah uh-huh you know you know because it's like yeah it's doa but it's like that's it's actually a really good fighting game it's got like really solid mechanics and i played i played four and five a lot for a long time and so doa was like my other like go-to fighting game i did some like tournaments and stuff for that but i think those are the only two that i like really you would say you love that i'd like love to play i mean marvel vs capcom 2 was also like fantastic but i'm also like not good at that game at all skull girls also like fantastic also totally ass at that game i'm like i'm like cool i'm like good at smash brothers and good at doa any other fighting game you would not catch me dead what about brawlhalla you play that i don't know if i've played that one you should check that out If you like Smash and the art style of Schoolgirls, it's very similar.

27:36 Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I play, yeah, I haven't. Yeah, I did. There was another Smash-alike that was really cool. Was it Rivals of Ether or something like that? I can't remember. But that was like the Smash-alike that came out on Steam or something a while back. And that one was pretty cool, but I was also not good at it. That's so funny. Yeah, there are certain things where I'm like, my fingers don't move as quickly as they used to, I guess. I don't know. But yeah, Smash was my jam. DOA is my jam. All the other fighting games, I'm just not good at. I'll take it. That's still two great answers. I love that. So I don't know if you want to, but do you want to tell the audience where they can connect with you?

28:17 No worries if not. Yeah, you can find me. I'll have to like slightly look at these things. But my normal thing is the artist formerly known on Twitter. Artist formerly known as Twitter. You can find me at T-H-E underscore L-I-L-L-Z at The Lills. And i believe it is the same for like blue sky and i think instagram might just be like eddie correa or something like that i can't specifically remember yeah blue sky stole the lils, instagram i think is either the same thing or it's just my name those are those are kind of the places but yeah awesome please go follow this this person is so you know what it really struck me a chord when i got to meet you is that it was very you just felt very inviting welcoming and just human.

29:07 And right now we need that more than anything else. So just so thankful for you taking the time and chatting with me, man. And your work is incredible. I mean, be proud of it, man. I love it. It's great. And next time I see you, I'll bring a copy of DOA just for you to sign it. Even though you weren't a part of it, but just sign it. I don't know. I'm pretty sure I worked on DOA. The Dreamcast one? Not the Dreamcast. I'm going to bring that one. I think I worked on six. Okay. I think whatever the most recent DOA is, I worked on. Because the studio I was working with at the time, they did... It was like BlazBlue, Soulcalibur, DOA, and I think there was one other fighting game.

29:48 And I can't remember. But I've worked on so many random fighting games, and it's super weird. It's like Kira Buckland and I are neck and neck on how many fighting games we've worked on. I think Kira's now got me beat because they just got Guilty Gear or something. I think it's Guilty Gear they just got. But yeah, all the random stuff. All right, everybody. Uncle Dad is back hanging out with another superstar at the con. Let's give it up to the one, the only, Karina Betker. Did I say that right? Yeah, you did. It's me. How are you? Just really fast if you can. Can you tell our audience kind of what you've been in and what you do? Yeah. My name is, as they said, Karina Betker. I am an autistic non-binary voice actor.

30:32 I voice Paimon and Genshin Impact, Tatsumaki and One Punch Man, Mizuki and I, The Somnium Files, Sailor Tinienko and Sailor Moon, and lots, lots, and lots more. I love it. Now, I have to give you a basic question because we always have to start with a basic question, and that is, how does one like you get into voice acting? Have a weird obsession with Jim Carrey when you're five years old. Tell your parents that you want to be Jim Carrey when you grow up. Get mad at them because you decided they lied when you say you can't magically turn into another person. and be like, you told me I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grow up, you lied! Have a whole meltdown over it. Then come to the conclusion with my parents that you can't turn into a different person, but you can be an actor like him.

31:18 And I was like, okay, fine, I guess that's close enough. Honestly though, because I started so young, my parents were the biggest help in my life when it comes to that. One of the biggest support systems I've ever had. They're not perfect parents, but they really did were implemented like, you know, like this is what I wanted to do. And my mom was like, okay, let's do it. Found me classes up in Seattle. I did my first like community theater thing when I was five years old after I had that whole thing with them. And I was like, yep, this is actually what I want to do for the rest of my life. She found me classes. She found me auditions. So I started professionally working as an actor since I was eight years old.

32:02 Yeah, in theater. And my first voice acting job was also when I was eight years old. Wow. What was that first role? Who am I asking? It was a promo for Resident Evil 2. Really? Wow. So the OG Resident Evil. Yeah, the OG Resident Evil when I was a kid. And I actually didn't know that. I had no idea that that was what it was because I was eight years old at the time. My mom was just like, Like, yeah, it's a scary movie or scary video game. And they're going to promo it at like some convention. So it's not going to be like it wasn't a commercial nationally or anything. It was literally just shown at a convention that was basically PAX before PAX. And it was shown in Seattle. And I think the convention was for trying to bring more Japanese game devs into the American scene when it came to making video games, especially because Nintendo of America's headquarters is up in Seattle as well.

32:51 We call it Treehouse because it's surrounded by trees. But yeah so yeah i i did that wow that's that's amazing so you know obviously time has passed and now you're doing all these great things which is great for you and i'm i'm so happy that we got to cross paths today but i got a very serious question to ask you because i see your shoes i love dinosaurs i can tell you i love that you do too so we're gonna play this game not really a game, but you're going to tell me your top three dinosaurs of all time. Denonicus? Compi okay i can't pronounce the full name but those that are in the dinosaur world know what i'm talking about when i say a compi and a dilophosaurus okay why is dilophosaurus number one i like how they were completely utterly lied about in jurassic park i mean jurassic park i love that movie by the way when i was because it came out in 1993 i was three years old my parents were like you like dinosaurs let's bring you to this terrifying movie i remember this because we almost got kicked out of the theater because I was screaming at the theater.

33:59 Now you might be thinking, oh yeah, because you were scared. No, I was screaming dinosaur facts because they were getting them all wrong. So the T-Rex is not a hunter, it's a scavenger. And we know that because the bones in the T-Rex skull, it resembles vultures. And vultures are scavengers. And basically, with the nose of a vulture, it has all of these cavities because it has different cavities for picking up different smells. Scavenger's sense of smell is so great, which is interesting for a vulture because most birds actually have really bad sense of smells. I have two parrots at home, terrible sense of smell, but vultures have a really good sense of smell and so do chickens. And chickens are the nearest relative to a T-Rex that we have because those that think that dinosaurs went extinct, they didn't. They live now. They're all birds.

34:47 Birds are actually dinosaurs. Crocodiles are not. You know, some people think birds aren't real. Also fair. Because I got two government spies in my house. Oh, there you go. But so the cavities of a T-Rex nose sinus area is the same as a vulture. And also consider this. You even see it in the movie. You can see like the waters start moving because every time the Tyrannosaurus Rex makes a single step, it shakes everything and it makes a big booming sound. How is that a hunter? Any dinosaur in the area would feel the vibrations and go bolting. It doesn't make any sense. But a good hunter will, like, hunt an animal.

35:35 And then the T-Rex, being a big boy, can just be like, yeah, you're going to fucking move or I'm going to eat you because I'm going to eat this instead. So that's the Dilophosaurus. Oh, did I even say that right? I'm probably confusing it with a different name right now. The one, I confuse a lot of names sometimes because my brain is mushy. I apologize for any dinosaur enthusiasts out there, but you know what I'm talking about. The guy with, yeah, he goes. The one that kills Newman. Yes. And squirts venom. They didn't squirt venom. Really? No. No. They didn't do that. Also, half of the dinosaur, no, like 90% of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the first movie, were in the Cretaceous period, not Jurassic Park. Not Jurassic.

36:17 Really? I don't think I ever knew that. Oh, yeah. Most T-Rex is Cretaceous. Velociraptors are Cretaceous. Also, Velociraptors in the movie are actually based off of the Dononicus, not the Velociraptor, because a Velociraptor is actually more of a size of a chicken. Really? Yeah. The... Dononychus is about five feet tall, shaped like a velociraptor, but the five feet tall version, full of feathers, and found in North America. And that, so basically, they, there's two theories to what happened with that. There was this paleo artist who actually confused the Dononychus in his book with the velociraptor, called it the velociraptor.

37:00 So that was one way people thought, oh, maybe that was why they confused the velociraptor, the Dononychus. The other theory was Velociraptor is easier to say than Denonicus, so we'll just call it a Velociraptor since they're cousins. Sure, close enough, right? I love how passionate you are about dinosaurs. I don't think I've met somebody as passionate about dinosaurs as you. I love dinosaurs. And again, I might be wrong about a lot of the things that I said right now, and I encourage any paleontologist to please come to me and talk to me about it. Please. Open invitation. They want that. They want to be able to dive into that with them, right? Because I mean, could you imagine you're at a con and that person comes up to you and all you do is talk about that? Yeah. No, I one of the things that I have learned about me being interested in the things that I study is I love being wrong.

37:43 I love when somebody comes to me and says, actually, you got this factly slightly wrong. This is what actually happened. I'm like, that is so interesting. Thank you for telling me that. And it creates conversation. And we both learn in those moments, you know, because there's a lot of misconceptions about dinosaurs for several reasons, mostly Jurassic Park. But like even back in the day when paleontologists were first putting these dinosaur bones together, they would put pieces together and be like, I think this is what it should look like. And so, for example, a lot of the dinosaurs we see, we see them almost very skinny. And a lot of paleontologists are like, that's called shrink wrapping.

38:25 What they did was basically they looked at these dinosaur fossils. They're not bones. They are fossils. The bones are gone. That's why they're fossils. There is a difference. And to imagine what these creatures would look like back then, they didn't include any muscle, any fat, anything like that. So we also now think that these creatures were much pudgier than before, especially based off of the climate. Because there were three periods of the time of the dinosaurs. Did you know that we are closer in the timeline to a T-Rex than a Triceratops? Whoa. Yeah. I didn't know that. Because that's how long the dinosaurs were on this earth.

39:10 Also, there wasn't just one extinction period. There were several. So people think, oh, a meteor hit and then all the dinosaurs died, which they didn't. Again, they're birds because birds exist. Birds are dinosaurs. But there were several different extinction periods, which is what created several different types of evolutionary possibilities that happen, which, of course, develop theropods. Theropods being the one that evolved into birds because birds are theropods yeah wow i i feel like i'm talking to what the study of that is is it okay i feel like i'm talking to a paleontologist then because you seem so educated on this does that just come from just fascination or from schooling where does that come from strictly fascination i and and again i encourage everybody need to fact check on me. I am okay with being wrong.

40:02 Please, again, if I'm wrong, please tell me. And because I love learning. I love learning about different things, especially those things that definitely interest me. And the idea that these massive creatures once roamed these lands and the discoveries that we make about them. For example, a lot of dinosaurs back in the day, we've discovered cancers in them and discovering cancers in them could help us potentially cure cancer now. We can create vaccines based off of things that we knew existed back then because we can see them in the fossils. So bird flu existed back then because it affected the dinosaurs.

40:45 And now we have different strains of bird flu, of course, and I have to be careful of that because I have two of them in my house. And based off those fossils and how it evolved, because the But one thing that is really cool about vaccines is that like. We basically have to make a vaccine that's not just good enough for the illness right now. We have to have it be good enough for when it evolves too. And seeing how it evolves over time helps us create those vaccines. Wow. You have probably arguably taught me so much in this small time that I've ever done in any interview I've ever done. Again, please fact check me. I could be, I'm not a paleontologist myself. I am also not a person that studies vaccine. This is strictly based off of my own personal interest in it. So please fact check me.

41:33 Well, before they do that, though, where can our audience learn more about you and all the work you do and all the projects you have coming out? I obviously have a Twitter. It's called at the bird Zulu, which is one of my birds. I have a Blue Sky account, which is Karina Betger. I also Twitch stream. You can find me there, Karina Betger. I have a TikTok that I post a lot of stupid stuff to. And and you can see my birds on there and my dog and my dog who we're training to be my service dog eventually what kind of dog is it it's a standard poodle oh yeah she's really cute and really smart so you know this whole weekend obviously we're here at a con where you know just like myself you're a con expert we do all cons all the time what has been the highlight of this con for you getting drunk and high at a bar do you want me to keep that in oh yeah i don't care i spoke i am a disabled person we live in california we are currently in california it is legal yeah yeah oh keep it real i love it i absolutely love it corinna i can't tell you one of my highlights i mean obviously sitting with my friend ming chen is great but getting to meet new people and meeting degree meeting getting to meet great new people is what i why i love doing this job so much and i'm so thankful we got to hang out this weekend so just thank you so much for your time your participation and all the work that you do I mean you're in so many great things and I'm sure somebody listening is a big fan of yours so just thank you I hope so thank you so much for having me this has been really fun awesome I'm so glad you think so but before we go,

43:07 before we go you got to play a game real fast and that game is what do you think is my favorite dinosaur. Oh, no. Can I think of the name? Okay, I can describe it. It's the armored one with the tail that looks like it has a spiky ball at the end. It's like almost, it's on all fours. Oh, gosh. Is that a stegosaurus? No, it's not. Okay, stegosaurus is the right one. Oh, okay. I believe that was in the Triassic period. I could be wrong. Okay. Yeah. Okay, well, you can fact check her and send those messages to her platform. God, please send me messages to talk to me about dinosaurs. I will gladly be fact-checked any day about them.

43:48 I love that. Check them out. Absolutely. Just so thankful for your time. And we'll be right back after this break. Hey, what's up? This is Suli McCullough. Crazy legs from Don't Be a Menace to South Central while drinking your juice in the hood. And you're listening to Uncle Dad Talks Podcast. That's right. All right, everybody. Uncle Dad is back, and I'm hanging out with a superstar. Believe me, this is a superstar. And I'll tell you why I believe that, because I feel the energy radiating from her, and I feel it entering my soul, and I'm so excited. But I just remember one thing, you can't talk about somebody specific, but we'll get to that end of the point. Let's give it up for Adasa. How are you? I'm so happy to be here.

44:29 Sorry that was too long of an intro. No, not at all. I just try to make them a little fun, but sometimes it can be a little, I get in my own little head, and I'm like, oh, what do I do? But I think I went somewhere. Adasa, let me ask you this. you're part of the movie, a global phenomenon called Encanto. What was that experience getting to that role like? It was wonderful. They actually sought me out through my YouTube channel and asked me if I would audition. Now, I never thought I would get the part. But then when I did, I was like, oh, my goodness, dream come true. I've been wanting to do something with Disney since I was nine years old. And so this was like full circle after doing music for so many years and working with Pitbull and Daddy Yankee and Flo Rider and so many greats to be able to do this again and then work again with Luis Fonsi doing the Oscars.

45:12 And that was just wonderful. Yeah, it's like those experiences. is we never think they're going to take us to where they do, but they do and they feel so surreal, right? What has been the most challenging moment getting to that point, you think? I think the most challenging moment would have to be just waiting. Sometimes the waiting process of being able to get that last little dream that you want, but at the same time, it's really rewarding because you grow and so you're ready for it when it comes. So for those of you out there listening, if you have a dream and you've been pursuing it, don't give up, just get better. Get better at your craft, get better at what you're doing because when the opportunity comes, which it will if you don't stop before that moment comes, you will be ready for it. Yeah, I love that you said that because we talk a lot about on the show about passion and how when you're passionate about something, if you just keep pushing and you keep pushing, it may take you 20 years, but at some point you will get there.

46:00 And that makes all that work worth it. And so I can only imagine like when you finally got and you got through all that, I mean, it must feel surreal to this day that you're a part of something so big, right? Absolutely. I think that all of us, a part of this cast, feel like this was such a wonderful moment in all of our lives because it was a culmination of not just who we are authentically that you're seeing on screen but also of our culture so to be able to celebrate being latinos and seeing so many of us that are such different colors and from different places within even colombia to be able to have that and and cherish that moment we really feel like a familia now you know absolutely and what's so great about that movie is that you know all latinx you know people we i think we all kind of got behind it like i'm Mexican myself and you know even watching that movie being so connected to just you feel the love the culture and I don't think we get enough of sometimes I feel like we don't get enough Latinx you know.

46:52 Representation in that world, especially in the world of like animated film. So just seeing that represented so well, it means the world to me and my family. So, you know, for that, thank you for being a part of that, you know? And so with you doing all that, what has been the most wildest part of all this? Like, have you done anything crazy since then? You have to do one crazy thing, right? You know, what is that crazy thing? I think I've taken my family too many times to Disney. That sounds like a dream come true, if you ask me. Me, there's never too many times, but you know what? I think that it's a story that doesn't just resonate within the Latinx community. I feel we are seen and heard a lot more, but I think it's just family story. And so it doesn't matter if you have a Latinx background or not, you understand the story of a family and that everybody has a little.

47:37 We don't talk about Bruno in our own family. So, you know, those Brunos in the closet, that really makes you really think. And even to your own ancestors, why did they have to go through some things or why is your grandma so like grouchy? Well, she went through things that you'll never have to go through. And so we have to have a little bit more grace for those who came before us and understand they do it out of love, even though sometimes love feels a little tough. Oh, yeah. I can relate to that for sure. So I know what you mean. So, you know, since Encanto, like what if you can talk about it, what's kind of coming out next for you? What are you working on? All that good stuff. Absolutely. I've been actually working on new music so I'm really excited about that releasing my music it has a little bit of a country pop feel and you can get an all platform so on Spotify or anything please follow me and that's official and you'll be able to find me there on Instagram Spotify, YouTube, Facebook and now we have the new upcoming tour so we'll be doing that next year as well as more appearances and comic cons so I will be able to do meet and greets with you guys in a city near you I love that. How many cons have you been to? Have you been to tons of cons?

48:42 I have I actually never had done one until Encanto came out. And since then, I just love it because we can really come and be with our fans and be able to enjoy that moment and sing a little. We don't talk about Bruno together. And then I get to talk about my experience and answer questions for the fans. So I just love it. We really can just connect in that way. It's beautiful. I love that, too. So what's for this particular con? Sorry, not this con. What's the next con coming on your train? Oh, so my next con is going to be in February, and that's going to be here in California. So I'm really excited about it. Can we say where? No, not yet. Not yet. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure. Cause I got to make sure the uncle dad family comes out and supports it. You know, that's what I'm saying. So my last question, cause we've got to keep it a little fun, silly.

49:25 What are your top three country songs of all time? Oh my goodness. Well, I got friends in low places. Come on. You got to do that. Yeah, of course. Yeah. That's an amazing one. Yeah. I don't want to sing cause I don't want to scare our audience away, but I love that. That's amazing. Okay. So. One we got two more oh my goodness well i have to have reba mcintyre in there i gotta put in one of those songs because i love it and then i would say walker hayes oh wow walker hayes that's fun that's actually i actually think walker hayes is great that's amazing so talking about country really fast and you probably your music you're working on do you find that country is kind of going through a huge resurgence right now and if you do who is a current country artist that you're kind of really feeling right now i definitely walker hayes is one of my favorites i think what he's doing with country music is really unique.

50:11 Shambuzy as well. I think Shambuzy is doing a great job being able to blur the lines between hip hop and country music. There's some great and talented people, even Beyonce herself just stepping out of her realm and not, I mean, if you hear her say it, she's like, I'm not country, I'm Beyonce. And you know what I mean? She's doing her twist on country music, but then honoring those like that are part of the movement that you just, you know, the Dolly Parton, you know what I mean? Being able to give a nod to her and be able to to do that but i think that if we just bring our authentic selves to what we're doing like i love country music i live in nashville but i you know i am a southern girl because i was born in florida so i grew up with a little bit of different styles of music but to me it's just like in honor of how wonderful the style of music is but i do bring my authenticity to what i do i absolutely love that you answered that well you passed the test so thank you for that i appreciate it one last time can you tell them where they can follow you all the good stuff Absolutely.

51:04 Please follow me on social media at AdasaOfficial, and you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, all of the good stuff, and Spotify as well. All right. Uncle Dad is back hanging out with a superstar, an icon, a legend, the one and only Saffron Henderson. Saffron, how are you? I'm fine. How are you, legendary Uncle Dad? Oh, thank you. I love that. I never get called legendary, so it's kind of nice to hear that sometimes. For those who don't know who you are, can you tell our audience kind of some of the roles you've been in and what you do? Well, I'm a voice actor primarily. I'm also a singer, and I also did some film and TV when I was younger. The film and TV part is Jason Takes Manhattan, Friday the 13th, Part 8.

51:49 And I was J.J. Jarrett, and I got kilt third. I was the third one to get tapped by Jason with my guitar. Yeah. Right? So that, the weird thing is people remember that and I barely remember it. So I'm like, I was over pretty quickly, but the character is hilarious. And the movie itself is kind of goofy. So, but voice acting, I don't tend to get maimed or, you know, killed or assaulted. Less fun. Less fun. Yeah. Yeah. There's like, in cartoons, people don't necessarily die. They just fall over a cliff and go. Right, right, right. So, the roles that people identify me with the most are the original English dubs of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, and the roles were Kid Goku and Kid Gohan.

52:38 And they're two sweethearts that I can't believe we're still celebrating now. We did those way back in the early to mid-90s is when we were recording those, and up through, you know, like early 2000s. And that's the ocean dub. Ocean dubs, you know. Wow. Yeah. Wow so when you have these i mean i would argue these are legacy characters 100 you know and specifically as we're talking about the you know being jj what i find about horror the horror audience and people who love horror they will never forget their first death you know i'm saying when when they've seen like i guarantee you that's i'm sure you know this that's so much it's somebody's first horror movie they've ever seen and when they connect to it they will never let go and so i think having that legacy of horror it's in my opinion it's a little bit more important sometimes because horror is, to me, the crowd is so strong.

53:29 I don't know how many horror cons you've done, but they're so strong. I'll be honest with you. I went to my first horror con like two weeks ago. Monster? Chiller Theater. Chiller, okay. In New Jersey. And I was in Parsippany, New Jersey. I was too scared to go to horror con. So for years, people have been messaging me and I'm like, nah, nah. And like, it's too scary. People are going to be scary. I don't like killer clowns. Everybody's going to be really gross. People are going to chase me around with an ax. I'm not into it. But the funniest thing is they were the nicest people and the kindest people. And I had no idea that that many posters for Friday the 13th party were ever printed.

54:09 No, it's crazy. Because, you know, honestly, like I like anime. I do. I like video games a lot. But horror is my first love. I love horror. And when I meet horror people in this industry, they are always the strongest, most kindest people, and they will have your back in everything. And once you're a fan, like they're a fan of all, you do 10 horror movies and nobody watches them, I guarantee you at least one of them did. So funny, because that's my only horror movie, but it's a strong link to the community, apparently. I mean, that movie will always, I mean, that movie's genius to me. Like, I love it. And if I remember correctly, that's Kane Hodder too, right? Yes, it is. Kane was amazing. He was really nice. A wonderful, gentle soul running around with my guitar, chasing me down the stairs, and then suddenly appearing at the bottom of the stairs, which is impossible. For sure.

54:58 And the grad cruise boat is like on the lake. Now it's in Manhattan. There must be some sort of underground waterway. I don't know. It's pretty crazy. But would you consider The Fly 2 a horror film, or no? I'm going to be honest with you. I've never seen The Fly 2. So I have another very important scene. I last even a shorter time in that movie than I did in Friday the 13th. So gave birth to a larva and died. I know about that scene. That's you? Whoa! I've never seen it, but I know that scene. Just because it's always talked about. Because it's like the craziest thing ever.

55:40 So what was that experience like? It was very funny because I think we shot it for a day probably and they spent hours and hours on it because I wanted to get it just right and okay so I'm sitting in a table imagine this I'm sitting in a table they have a fake belly going over the table so like you can't see me from like the the shoulders down or chest down or something it's all yeah probably they made like fake fake boobs and fake belly and then and fake legs and then a guy is under the table under my hollow belly with two sticks and he's making the belly undulate by making the sticks go up and down and like we didn't have cgi we didn't have big special effects this was 1988 or 87 even i can't remember and and so she screams and and a little larva comes out and the guy the actor said do you know that's the same stuff they use in sweet and sour pork.

56:46 I would have been like, don't tell me that, please. I've never had sweet and sour sauce again. I believe it. Because that would like make me like just change my thought. Like, yeah, I know where that comes from. It was so gross. The whole thing was really gross. And then I get up after this. I get up after this exhausting scene and I've been screaming and yelling and sweating all day. I get up and like with the gross hospital gown, just all sweaty, stuck to me. I start i walked toward the door and there's mel brooks sitting at the back of the room just he was staring it was like staring at the whole thing and i was so exhausted i didn't even try to meet him i just walked right by him he didn't say anything i didn't say anything i was out of there and i was like wow this is my life i love that so you know obviously time is fast and you know isn't it always surreal how you know whether it's the anime stuff whether it's the horror stuff how your fan base just, they just love it.

57:45 They love it. Meeting you is probably one of their dreams come true. What is that experience like still to this day? Well, you know what it's taught me is that because I'm still blown away that anyone knows about those roles or cares about them or was reached by them. Because at the time you just don't know you're doing the work and you're And all that. But what it has taught me is you just don't know how far your ripples will go when you do something that seems at the time like it might not be that important to anyone else. You just don't know who is going to reach, how far the ripples go, how big they are. And when I travel around to a convention and I meet someone from like a different corner of the continent and they've had an experience with my work, I'm blown away.

58:35 And it makes me never want to minimize an interaction with a person or a piece of work that I'm doing or proud of. And always remember someone might be reached by what you're doing. Right? I love that you said that. That's kind of what we live by too. It's like, you just don't know where this is going to go, whether it's your acting, voice acting, or even just art. You just don't know, right? Like, I love that. So do you have anything right now you're working on that you want to talk about or promote at all? There's really nothing that I'm allowed to even that happens all the time to us. And half the stuff that we work on might not even see the light of day, but we're under NDA. I'm just basically working as a voice actor, which I love.

59:19 And I teach voice students as well, like who are into voiceover, which takes a lot of time. And I get to work on video games, you know, helping in voice production for video games. So that's been fun. Yeah. I love that. Are you a gamer yourself, actually? That's okay wait i fall off rainbow road in mario kart okay so no so no skills no skills hey but you have a good time that's all that matters you know i i used to walk downstairs and yell at my children for playing cod you know get off your you're wasting our internet turn off the swears i love that i love that before i wrap up i did want to ask you a question but i'm a little worried about the answer because i have a feeling i know where it's going to go so i'm just going to ask because you're you're you know in such a a legacy horror movie and i'm a horror fan i have to know what are your top three horror movies of all time again i think i knew where this was going to go okay i will share with you which i've shared with many people that i did crawl out of the premiere of friday the 13th part eight after my character was killed off because i didn't know how the rest of it was going to go and I was terrified. So I left.

1:00:34 Like I just left. I don't know. Did I ever have the whole script for the whole show? Probably not. I didn't even care. But I was like, oh, and I as soon as JJ was killed, I realized this could be scary. So I crawled out. But I will tell you, my cousin, rest in peace, used to drag us to her birthday sleepovers to watch horror movies at her house. And the one that broke me and made me never want to watch a horror movie ever again was children of the corn children of the corn whoa that's not even that i mean that's it's not that i feel like during that time there was definitely more aggressive horror movies no but it was deeply disturbing oh it's just super disturbing and i might have had a little chucky moment like i that again just really disturbing and like yeah maybe there was a little bit of oh what's the one with what's the one where she comes up off the bed or is she not the exorcist yeah the exorcist okay i read the exorcist see that i read the books i read flowers in the attic i read the exorcist i read like carrie i read that stuff and it scared the key rap out of me i couldn't watch it like when i watch something scary i go home and i feel scared for like a month well then that means horror horror works and i love it so i'm just really fast i want to touch something you brought flowers in the attic.

1:01:53 I have not heard somebody reference that book in ages. And the fact that you just did, awesome. It was probably written in the 18th century or something, but I do remember reading it. I totally remember that. In today's standard too, it's a very controversial book. So I think it's amazing that you read that. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. But- Where can our audience learn more about you and connect with you? All that good stuff. Oh, on Instagram, on Instagram. I'm on Tik TOK as well, but I mean, I do try to stay engaged with people. I have a small account. So, you know, if you follow me and hopefully we'll get to interact and stuff like that.

1:02:34 And I just like, I love coming to obviously to conventions and signings and stuff like that. And getting to actually meet people that has been really fun. Yeah. So I'll see you around, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Can you just tell them what the name of the account is? Oh, yeah. I am Saffron.voice. Easy, easy. Especially with that voice, so easy. I love it. Saffron, thank you. You were such a delight to talk to. I don't think I ever could have imagined speaking to one of my favorite deaths of all time. I'm not lying. The whole time, I was like, I know I know that. Where is that? And then it hit me, and I was like, and he goes, oh, yeah. Ming Chen's a friend of mine as well. And he goes, yeah, that's the one that got killed. He goes, I think I'm Manhattan. And I was like, I knew it.

1:03:19 Yeah. That really meant the world. Let me give you a present. Oh, thank you. What she gave me, everybody, was an awesome, a very just as beautiful saffron from, what era would this be? 1980, right? We shot in 1988, and it was released in 89. That's right. And that's J.J. Jarrett. Yes. With her fully crimped hair. Yes. And her little leather jacket. Look at that do you still have the jacket i'm so embarrassed to say i had it for a long time and i don't know what happened oh bummer that's like history man at the time i was just like what am i gonna do with this yeah whatever right thank you so samran thank you so much it was an absolute pleasure and everybody please go support your your favorite your favorites doesn't matter who it is just go support because without each other who are we as humans we need to help each other so So thank you.

1:04:10 Thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Yo, what up? This is Jesse Hernandez, the Urban Aztec, and you're listening to Uncle Dad Talks, not your mama. What's up, everybody? Uncle Dad here, hanging out with confirmed, tarot card confirmed, the sexiest one out of us two. That's right. We are with Just Mike, or should I say Just Sexy Mike? What's up, man? Is that going to be my new moniker, Just Sexy Mike? I don't know i don't know if i want that what was that like getting confirmed.

1:04:51 I mean you know i guess it's just it probably is what it's like when you get verified on social media it just means it's you're locked in you know i mean just that's what it's probably feels just like that whatever that feels like for those who don't know what i'm talking about go to our instagram please go to our instagram please give us a follow at uncle dad talks and if you do you will see one of our guests karina betker she is a voice actor also a a i shouldn't say she i'm sorry her pronouns are they them my correction they are a tarot reader i guess you would say and they did a read for me and i wanted to ask a very specific question because the audience wanted to know so they found out the audience was everyone was just hanging on the edge of their seat for for some time to know this exactly exactly exactly you know you know what's up, the the requests were just flooding in for this answer couldn't handle the amount of uh intake.

1:05:59 Exactly exactly and that's why the universe said my captain is sexier than uncle dad maybe physically but internally boy i know well that's a different question for another topic for another time as they say exactly so mike what we're talking about is this wrap-up for this episode everybody just heard all the great interviews we did we were hanging out at a comic-con that i kept messing the name up and i kept doing it on purpose and that con i'm gonna to reveal is FandomCon. And Mike, I just, help me explain this because I never want to disparage a company or a brand or anything like that.

1:06:39 But honestly, man, this thing was so horribly organized and the amount of. I don't how do you just i don't want to say failure but like i'm trying to find a way to not say that so aggressively i mean just let it fly man just let it go chances are if it was that bad it won't be back so it's probably safe all right well i'll just tell you this man this is the most unprofessional con i've ever been to in my entire career doing doing press and being a con attender and maybe maybe it would have been a little different but just being somebody who's worked in press and doing this for a while now and you know i know you're a veteran in this we're doing it for 20 plus years so let me explain to you my experience and you tell me your thoughts what do you think well let's go so mike was not there because mike was taking care of some puerto rican babies in the rainforest am i correct yeah i mean we weren't supposed to talk about that but now the world knows so yes i was taking that's exactly what i was doing.

1:07:43 So phantom con starts off on a friday this past friday and it's in san jose california and you know we have a good friend attending you know we became much closer this weekend but we have a good friend named ming chen who's also on the show we just heard big fan of kevin smith convict man you know he's he's technically kind of been in and out of our entire podcast career for the past five years so you know it's very fortunate we know because if i didn't know this guy, we would have got nothing and we would have been just completely left in the cold so let me explain we walk up the first thing you ask anytime getting your ticket is what hey where's the press sign up right where's press registration i'm trying to get my press badge multiple people looked at me like, what is a press badge what are you talking about i've never even heard of a badge which is insane, So then I, there's this woman who looks professional.

1:08:39 She tells me, Hey, you're also looking for a press badge. Who did you speak to? So I got, I got approved by a guy and I'm going to name him because boy, his name is booster. Like rooster. Yes, but he boosted me, if you will. And he allegedly gave me. Me and another person waiting for press badge approval, but never followed up on the secondary. Now, usually in this world of press, to give people a backstage look, usually there's always the initial, hey, we can give you this. Do you want it? And then they give you, you say yes or no. And then they say, okay. And they give you the confirmation.

1:09:19 Now, they didn't give us the confirmation. But in my experience, when you're told, yeah, we have passes waiting for you, that usually is kind of all you need. So when I went there and we're waiting, they couldn't find us. They couldn't find anybody. that couldn't nobody knew who booster was like booster right and well and mind you the guy who owns it his name is galaxy that's not even a joke are these burning man names or like actual names no because burning man people would actually care yeah yeah okay so she leaves and i'm not kidding you mike she's gone literally for almost two hours and we're just sitting out in the cold waiting because they're not letting people in their computer systems broke down there's a line from the opening of you've been the san jose convention center so the front of the san jose convention center all the way to the sidewalk there's a never-ending line because they can't check anybody in not even attendees anybody not even attendees yeah they just can't because they had no system i guess which makes no sense to me but that's a different story so i'm waiting i'm talking to this other person they were great they were really really awesome and finally this guy comes down.

1:10:31 Slender, tall, white guy, seems to think he knows everything because immediately when he tells me, first thing he says to me is, what are you doing here? What's your thing? What do you want? And I go, okay, we're just waiting for press. Me and this gentleman here, we're waiting here for a while. What's going on? Can you please, well, we don't have press here. And I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense because I have an email verifying that I was. Accepted for this and also it even says on your website that you have press registration so why would you not have press well who gave it to you and there i said the name and they go we don't know a booster i don't know who that is and i go okay well i have verification of these emails and then the other guy had emails shows them and he goes well i don't know what you're i don't know what you guys want for me so let me go see and he disappears so that's already a bad start so just that part alone what do you think about that mike well yeah i mean first of all the way he approached you like what do you what who are you what do you need like what are you what are you doing here what i mean i don't know very welcoming yeah that's that's exactly how if you are a new con how you would approach how you would approach people sounds totally great as a new convention yes yes good job that guy so slender man it's all slender man right so but before he laughs, one of the comments that stood out to me, he goes, you know, I told him, I go, you know, I'm not trying to make a big deal about it.

1:11:58 Just, you know, I live here so it's, you know, I can leave. It's not that big a deal. But I go, this person came all the way from Sacramento and bought a hotel for the weekend, you know? And he goes, I get it. I get it. I work in press too. I work for food and wine. Okay. What is that? Right. Like if you, okay, so you get it, but we're still out here. Okay. Whatever. Yeah. And you're, and you're, and you're approaching us in this tone when you know we're out here waiting for press. Exactly. Like, get out of here. So he leaves. And then, mind you, this whole time I'm texting with Ming Chen. And he's asking me, he goes, what's the problem? What's taking so long? And I go, dude. And I explained everything to him. And he was like, all right, man, if he's not there in a few minutes, I'm just going to come get you.

1:12:40 Now, again, if I didn't know Ming Chen, I wouldn't be in, right? And I'm thankful that I do. And that was very kind of Ming to help us out. But the guy comes back and Ming just walks in. Now, I'm not kidding you, dude. He looks at me and he looks at Ming and he tells Ming and me specifically looking at Ming first saying, you know, you guys can't come in. So what we're going to do is we completely banned press. So I'm only going to offer you just a free Friday badge. That's all I can do. And Ming goes, I'm the guest here. He didn't even know that that was the guest. Wow. Okay. So then what happens? So he goes, and now he's telling me and the other guy that was also waiting.

1:13:23 Now that guy's upset because he's like, well, that's not fair. It's very misleading because... I came from Sacramento. He has a crew of two more people with him. So they'll give him one badge for Friday. Now, mind you, Friday is from 5 to 11 p.m. At this point, it's already 7 o'clock. So how much time is that guy really going to get, right? And secondly, his other team, he wouldn't give him a discount or nothing. So he had to buy tickets. And he goes, well, I'm not going to pay for that if I can't even get interviews. Because then he says, you guys can come in. The Slenderman says, you guys can come in, but you cannot, absolutely not interview anyone because press is banned from this event. Hmm.

1:14:04 Banned? Yeah. And then Ming goes, what do you mean banned? He goes, I don't know. I can't talk about it. So nope, no interviews. That's it. Nope, no interviews. He goes, so this is all I got for you. And then the other, and again, you know, Ming came, he gave me a whole, a whole like, you know, guest pass. So I just left and I could hear the other guy talking to him and the other guy goes, well, can I change it for a Friday to Saturday? Can I at least do that? And he says, nope, this is all I got for you. That's it. And so, you know, Ming takes me in and Ming is telling me too, like, and he knows I'm talking about this because I told him I was going to talk about it. And Ming goes, it's crazy. I've never heard of a con. Your first con, why would you ban press?

1:14:47 Yeah. Like, why don't you want people to know about this con? Like, I've never even heard this con existed until you said you were there and so the thing is too right it's like and he actually had a great point he goes they didn't you didn't have a story right well guess what now you have a story to tell and it's not the story they want out you know what i mean and i'm like you totally like why would you treat people one why would you treat people like that in general and two you know these people have some sort of press representation so why would you, know no matter if it's a big circle or a little circle right word always gets around why would you do that so anyways that was my initial walk-in i'm very curious about your overall thoughts on this well you know i my my my initial thought is that you know whoever you were speaking to dropped the ball at some point and so this guy like they probably don't have any credentials to offer you.

1:15:44 It's a new convention. Like I said, I've never even heard of it, so there probably isn't a lot of people applying for press. You said there was one other dude? Yeah. So... They probably don't have anything to offer you. So this guy is just trying to come up with a way to give you something to get rid of you. Sure. You know, and he's putting up the hard, the hard wall. Nope. That's all I got for you. That's all I got, you know, and like leaves a zero opening for a conversation to go from there, you know? Yeah. And I mean, obviously that's, that's horrible customer service. That's a horrible way to represent your brand, you know, but I, I do, I just think it's, it's, it's a mess. If it's a first time convention, I don't know if these people put on a convention somewhere else under a different name but it's yeah but it sounds like it just sounds like completely.

1:16:30 Disorganization oh totally and my thing was like could you imagine you know mike like like you you know you you're currently based in northern california right we're talking about sack all time you came down here and you got a hotel room just to you know to help me out and be part of this or help each other out right you'd be fucking livid wouldn't you well you know yeah and hotels in san jose aren't cheap and you know you drive down from from you know it's it's it's over a couple hours to drive from sacramento to san jose yeah i don't i wouldn't just take that and, and then leave like i would i don't know i don't know you know you never know what you're gonna do till you're in the situation yourself but i don't think i would just take tall slender man's that's all i got for you is one friday pass you know you're not gonna get what are you gonna get from 7 to 11 on a friday anyway probably not especially if they say you can't interview anybody like why why is press banned you know who is this person on my email like yeah that's just that sounds disgusting dude and it's also weird too how are you guys not aware of who this person is like he has an official it's an official fandom fandom con email so why would he not how do you not know right how do you not know yeah you know and so they're owned by a company called Spoiler Media, and for those who go to Comic-Con all the time like we do.

1:17:50 San Diego Comic-Con I'm speaking of, they always have a group of people walking the streets handing out free magazines. I don't know if you've ever seen that before, but it's always a free magazine, like some comic book magazine. That's their magazine that they always hand out. Okay. I don't know. I'm looking at them right now while you're talking about them, because honestly, I have never heard of these guys ever. Yeah. And there's something wrong with being a new con, right? We all have to start somewhere. Yeah, but the whole thing was ridiculous. And so what we ended up finding out, the word around the street was the reasoning why we were getting denied or Prescott denied, allegedly, is because it's a union thing. What does it mean?

1:18:31 That's literally the only answer I've been told. A union thing? But it doesn't even make sense because, let's say, because there is technically a video game strike happening right now, right? But even still even if that's the case you could still do press there because you would cover the event do you know what i'm saying you wouldn't cover you wouldn't do interviews but you could cover the actual con you could talk about the experience of the con and then you could also even interview like small press right like you know like the small time artist sure yeah i mean there's still opportunity okay yeah i i don't know how that would if there's a video game strike well on video game developers well the voice actors they're on strike yes okay so remember how there was they were like that strike when we went to the san diego comic-con, yeah yeah same thing okay so you just don't talk to the video game people exactly that's it right.

1:19:29 That has nothing to do with press being banned it means this is happening we're not talking to these people okay exactly that's it cool that's it yeah right like okay fine we can make something work right so insane but i just got to say this and i there's another story i want to share with you before we wrap up but the next but the next thing i want to say just huge thank you to ming, because really if it wasn't for his kindness and for him being a part of our our show and our alumni and him being so into what we do honestly i would have gotten nothing and because of the connections that we made through him we were able to get four phenomenal interviews uh one is from a a massive colombian pop star and in one of the biggest movies of current time and canto you know what i mean i never would have thought we would get her on so that's amazing right you know right and who i'm talking about is adasa who plays dolores in a canto and for those who don't know i mean she averages about 2.4 million plays monthly on uh spotify it's pretty crazy right, Mike?

1:20:29 Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot. Well, good. I mean, yeah. Shout out to me. I, you. I actually wasn't dealing with Puerto Rican babies in the forest. Is that what you said I was doing? The Amazon. Something. I was working an event. You know, I do have to work. I wish I was there to experience this calamity with you. But yeah, thanks. Thanks, Ming, for sure. Yeah, he really helped out for that. But there's one last story about all this weekend. Two stories, actually. The first one is, again, going back how shitty the con is. So there's nobody there. This whole weekend was empty, right? Like, there's barely anybody. But you've been to those cons, and there's like nobody there, right? I was going to ask what the attendance was like. Oh, it was horrible.

1:21:11 It was horrible. And they had Ming in the very farthest corner imaginable in this convention center. I wonder why. Why would you do that to your guests? Exactly. Because they pay for the guests to come. So why would you do that to them? Well, you would think so. Oh. So something happened during the event that kind of gave us some light. So, you know, Ming's not really making any money, right? And he knows that they're supposed to pay him or something, but he didn't really know what was going to happen. And so he's kind of doing his thing. He's like, well, fuck it. I'm not really making any money, so let's have some good times, right? So he left. He would leave, talk to people, and schmooze. Be Ming Chen, right? We all know Ming Chen's the smoozer, which is awesome.

1:21:56 So he comes back, and I see him later, and I'm hanging out with him, And he goes, the owner, Galaxy, reached out to somebody that's representing him saying, hey, can you please tell Ming to go back to his table because people are asking for him? And Ming goes, who the fuck is asking for me? There's nobody here. Yeah, right. There's nobody asking. He goes, you know why they're doing that is because he's going to use that against me to not pay me. Ah, right. You weren't at your table. People were there asking for you. Exactly well yeah because i'm sure there's a guarantee right like you get a guest either you pay them to show up or you give them a guarantee yeah.

1:22:40 Or you at least just pay for their, their way, you know, which I know that part was, that was paid for. That's why he came. But, uh, you know, I think, I think it kind of sounded like the money was going to come from the attendance, right? But there was no real attendance. So where would that money come from? Right. Well, yeah. Right. I mean, the, the vendors, you know, the exhibitors that pay to be there, there's, I'm sure there's an artist alley, they pay to be there, you know, and so that a lot of that just goes straight to paying for the venue which i know that the convention center in san jose isn't a cheap venue you know i know you do like even if you are an exhibitor there you have to use i think we talked about this in the past you have to use the union to load in your stuff yeah and you have to pay them and you don't find that out till you get there yeah yeah and so if there's no tickets though yeah there's there's no money yeah and and that was the thing like you could see it on the exhibitors you can see it in this dude i felt so bad there was one woman there who was in the what'd you call it artist alley she came all the way from vancouver dude on her own dime and i can imagine she didn't do that well i mean the whole thing was just a mess man and you know i've been asked multiple times about other talent like if i was going to talk about it on air and i was like you know i really think i have to because we promote a lot of cons.

1:24:03 We go to a lot of cons. That's kind of our niche, I feel, nowadays. You know, we also come from a world of going to cons, right? Like you went as a fan and then now you do it as professional and I, you know, I kind of do it semi-professionally. So it's like, I would hate to do, go to a con and just feel like I got, didn't get my money's worth. You know what I mean? I'm like, I didn't get to enjoy, enjoy really anything. I mean, the panels were cool, I guess, but you know, they were all in the same room. The panels were hosted in the, in the convention center, the small convention center part too, you know, you know, it's like, and some people didn't even make a single dollar like i had heard multiple vendors say they didn't make a single dollar so was were you saying like say on like peak midday saturday was there just like no one in the aisles was it just like could you like lay down on the floor in the aisles it was that empty i mean you could definitely yeah i wouldn't say it was like like no one like literally zero but i would say you could definitely snuggle on the ground and no one's any care, yeah yeah well you know that's again like again i i've never even heard this convention was existing i mean you probably wouldn't have unless you lived right near there like you do you know and i think a lot a lot of things now people just assume they put on an event they put it on instagram.

1:25:22 And i don't know maybe they paid for some advertising in the city of san jose and that people are just going to come and people are just going to show up but that's not the case you know it's just not anymore and it sucks because it's like there's so much great great cons out here i mean and you know your man steve white puts out some puts in my opinion puts out put out a 10 times better con than fandom con did and they had endless money technically right yeah well it just goes to show like you know money just because you have money doesn't mean you know how to put something together and you know obviously steve white he's he did big wow he was a super con he's But then multiple cons, Bakersfield Comic Con, which will be at soon, you know, he knows the industry.

1:26:05 Inside and out, you know, and some of these people, they, they just, like, like you said, they have some money they want to put on a show, but they don't really know like how to do a show. And they probably won't be back. I'm imagining. I don't think so, man. I definitely don't think so. But the good thing is this, what you guys just heard is the only interviews ever taken at this convention. Yeah, well, you ban press, and one of two of the press get in, this is what you got. You're doing them a favor, right? I'm doing the talent with them. Right, that's what I mean. Yes, them. Yeah.

1:26:49 And we're doing the fans a favor by telling them if this con ever does come back to not waste your time. Yeah yeah or at least think about it but yeah so i did have another story but you know what i'll save that one for a different time i'll save it for a one true three. There you go cool because it involves a night out let me tell you but you know in the end i just gotta tell you thank you to all the guests that we've interviewed and who came who were so welcoming and so just they were just awesome man big thanks for the tarot reading to realizing that mike is sexier but let's be honest we didn't even need a tarot reading for that no it's just good this is good for entertainment right because we all know we don't i mean i don't do we know i don't know do we know but i guess let's go through before we wrap up let's go through some announcements because this comes out not monday uh we will be at designer con november 14th through the 17th right 16th 16th no right no it's the it's the because there's the preview night oh the preview night right okay you're right so the 14th through the 17th we will be there please come say hi we don't have a booth we're just there as press we got some fun stickers mike you want to tell about the fun stickers you made yeah so you know it's in vegas and we like to do a little, twist on wherever we're traveling to with our logo.

1:28:15 And so I did a little twist on the welcome to fabulous Las Vegas, except it says, listen to the fabulous Uncle Dad Talks podcast. Which we're rebranding. We're going to rebrand with a different name soon, correct? Yeah, we're going to be the Uncle Dad Talks show. The show, wow. Yeah, what do you guys think of that? I love it, dude. What that means is you guys are going to see some new content from us. I've been playing with some new changes. You can't see it right now, but we've got a whole new lighting system on mine. Mike will get that soon at some point. We are going to be doing more video-focused things, and we're going to have unique looks. That's right. We're going to have specific looks. Mike's going to be very shiny, and I'm going to be very cowboy. And we'll see how that goes.

1:28:59 Yeah, we'll see how that goes. We'll see how it goes. I'll give it a shot. I'm doing it for you. I trust your vision. I hope so. I hope so. We got to the Design Con. And is there any other announcements you want to give? Yeah. And then, like I mentioned earlier, we'll be at Bakersfield Comic Con the following weekend, Sunday 23rd and 24th of November in beautiful, sunny Bakersfield, California. Yeah, so beautiful. Yes, yes, yes. And Uncle Dad will be at Fan Expo SF at the Thanksgiving weekend. That's right. I will be there. And I might even be doing a live show. So once I get that confirmed, I'll let you know in the live episode, the next episode.

1:29:44 Tasty. A little prize wheel show. We'll see. but and i want to do a shout out really quickly mike if we can i would like you to do it can you please do us a big solid and shout out our good friend the bracket monster released a new book, yeah that's right today is finally out brandon bracamonte aka the bracket monster on instagram he was on our our episode 149 of with our fun game yeah he just released his comic uh fear city, hit them up on Instagram if you're interested in purchasing one and we'll also have those for sale at Bakersfield Comic Con, that's amazing, yes please go support them because everybody here is part of our family they're part of your family so please support them and last thing about support, thank you to everybody who donated for the Asheville support during our Halloween special, huge thank you to everybody who donated, seriously I can't tell you that enough, you're going to see later on today or when this comes out There'll be a post already out of thanking everybody who was involved. So thank you for listening.

1:30:47 Thank you for being a part of it. And thanks to all of our guests. And of course, thank you to Mike for being so cool. Yeah, so cool and so sexy. And I honestly can't think of a better way to cut you out to get out. So Mike, any last words? I think that was it, right? I mean, that's the way out. You just said it. You're right, you're right. I know, but I'm just having it. All right. We're not uncles we're not dads but we're just someone you can talk to we'll see you all next week Cincinnati baby.