Episode 175 PACO LOCO : SPORTS MC, DJ, COMEDIAN

What does it take to turn a quiet gym into a memory people carry for years? We sit with Paco Loco—Philly-born, Hawaii-made—who built a career at the crossroads of sports, comedy, and DJ culture. From ushering the wildest sections at Lincoln Financial Field and riding with Eagles legends to announcing Kobe Bryant’s final summer-league game before the draft, Paco shows how a single voice can set the tone for an entire room.

We dive into his playbook: how to pronounce every name with respect, when to fire the arena cannon and when to switch to “library mode,” and why music programming by BPM (not genre) keeps crowds moving without crossing lines. He breaks down the reality of clean edits, the power of communal dance tracks, and the surprising songs that still explode with Gen Z. Then we explore stages you might not expect—STEM robotics finals, esports showdowns, and Special Olympics nights—where the same energy, timing, and care make people feel seen.

Comedy sharpened everything. Paco dissects writing premises, stacking examples, reading sensitive rooms, and coaching young comics to use voices and detail to make stories land. Along the way, we trade Philly lore, from the Allen Iverson “practice” moment to early Kevin Hart crowd work. The thread is consistent: excellence without an audience cap. Show up like the building is full, because someone who matters might be watching.

If you love sports culture, live events, and the craft behind a truly great in-game experience, this one’s for you. You’ll leave with practical ideas for crowd energy, music curation, and on-mic presence—and a renewed belief that the right word at the right moment can change a night. Subscribe, share with a teammate or coach, and drop your favorite pump-up song in a review.

Transcript

Meet Paco Loco: Philly Roots

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Okay, welcome to another edition of the Above the Bridge Podcast. I'm your host, Thaddeus Park. If this is your first time tuning in, uh please like and subscribe to whatever platform you're listening to. I appreciate you taking time out and listening to our show. Aloha. Okay, this week my guest I've seen at my daughter's volleyball games, and he is one of the biggest hype men on the island. He's a DJ, he's an announcer, he's a comedian, Jack of all trades, Paco Loco. What's up, man? Thank you for coming on my show. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me, bro. Uh, let's just get this out the way. I need to brag a little bit because my Niners took your Eagles out of the playoffs, and my best friend is an Eagles fan.

Life With The Eagles And Stadium Stories

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Yes, sir. Uh well, for me, I'm more than just an Eagles fan. Like I used to work for the Eagles when I was in Philadelphia. I'm originally from Philadelphia. So it's just not like I like the colors. So that I'm a born and raised homer. So I like the the Sixers, I like the Phillies, I like the Flyers and the Eagles. But uh the Eagles come extra close to me because I actually got to work for them for two years. And I got to work for them in the 2004 season when we went to the Super Bowl in the 2005 season, which was awesome because we just opened up the new stadium, the Lincoln Financial Pield. And I got to work in there. And not only did I work there, like I made several appearances on TV because the cameras like me and they always tend to turn towards me. And um, so I made like the ESPN clips, just being a uh uh uh uh and then uh they had me first being a ticket taker, and then I got a sports center, and then they just moved me up to like I actually chose to like be an usher in the roughest section of the uh of the stadium, which is like the upper levels. In the olden days they used to be the 700 club, now it's the 300 club, but uh that's where all the fights happened, and I was like, we need our best warriors up there, so I got to uh work there. But I I made an employee of the year with the Eagles, and what they gave me for a prize was like one of the most special experiences of my lifetime. Like you couldn't pay for this if you was rich. But what they did was uh they gave me an all-expense paid trip to ride with the team as a team member on the team bus, and they put me on a team with the Eagles legends. So it was like all these old school Eagles, they're all old men, and like a couple of them I recognized because uh it was like Mike Quick was there, Harold Carmichael was there, the guy that they made a movie. I don't know, you probably never watched it because you like the 49ers, but Invincible where Michael Bird.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

I seen that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Yeah, when he was the Eagles fan that turned into an Eagle. Uh, I got to talk to the real guy there, and uh they sat us with the with the team, and then uh the only thing they did less is the sidelines. They gave it we we went to the Giants stadium. Okay. So I probably so I know from being an usher that that women start 90% of the fights at the stadium, bro. Yeah, women they they start 90% of the fights, period. Exactly, bro. Like we just sitting there minding our business, and a girl gonna be in my face. And I'm uh I'm I'm old school, like I don't hit no women, and I'm not I'm not gonna sit there argue with a woman, but when I went to the Giants, I brought a woman that would fight for me, and that was my best friend who I know can fight. Yeah, so you know you gotta have a sister with you so she can handle that, and uh, but it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, and and uh I knew you was gonna come at me being a 49ers fan because of I remember that playoff game where we took out Brock Purdy and the Yes. I was like, we made I was like, we made some enemies in this game, they're gonna hate us forever.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Turn about you I can honestly say my my best friends are Eagles fan. Honestly, Eagles is my second favorite team. My dad was in Philly when I was born, so I was born in Philly.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Um come on over to the green side, bro. We like but there's no 49ers no good this year, so y'all beat us this year. That's cool.

Sports Fandom, Media, And Calling Games

SPEAKER_00 4:18

But um I know the Eagles was gonna have a rough season. Yeah. Eagles fans, they're they're legit. There's no cute, I'm an Eagles fan this year. It's Eagles fans are diehards. I always respected that. I follow your guys' stuff, and um Eagles fans are real, like they're the ones that I know, like they they've been through all the shetty seasons, they they floss the green through the shit, and even though they're losing, but when they won, it was I was kind of happy for them, to be honest. I I even threw my best friend a Super Bowl party when they won, and it was cool, it was pretty cool, and yeah, they Eagles. If it's not the Niners, I I would always uh want the Eagles to be there because it's just they they have that same kind of culture, and your guys' fans are nuts, and you probably experienced it the most being an usher, but your guys' fans are crazy. Man, we're crazy, we're passionate.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

And um, one of the reasons we have that is because we got such a good media, like we got sports stations that are 24-hour talk you can call in ring with your opinions on any of the talk shows. And I used to be one of those guys that call in with my opinion all the time. And I'm like, Paco from North Philly is in calling back for uh so I used to like voice our opinions, it's it gives us and nowadays everything's on the internet, so you get to see all the hype videos and yeah, all the internet stuff and all the brumers, and they have so much ways of covering it. I was feeling like I need to do one of these broadcasters because I see these guys that broadcast on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yeah, uh, I like that.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

I was like, I need to do something like that where just get in front of a camera and just call the game and see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Do that or make videos after the game giving your intakes. And I see uh I I follow a lot of Niner guys do that, and they get they get some hype behind them, and and they put in the work, they do their homework, and like you said, you have access to a lot because of the internet. Like, I follow all that stuff for the Niners. I mean, I watch the locker room stuff, I watch the uh practice whenever you get. Like, I love I love the access you get because of social media, but I would say do it because you got that personality that it would pop guarantee. Yeah, man. I love sports, man.

Sports As Escape And Purpose

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Sports is the reason why I love sports is because uh I say it in my comedy. Like you look, you have different premises, and I say it in my comedy that uh sports is the only thing that people do right. You know what I'm saying? Like we messed up all the school stits, especially now, or all this this this this this we mentionage list, you know. It's all it's all messed up now. But sports, you know, I mean, it keeps it even, it's like a way. It was it was my high nine family, if I could say it in Hawaii. Yeah. Uh because my dad went to I had a great life when I was until I was 12, and then something happened with my dad, got in a shootout and uh went to jail. And um, I wind up like being the man of the family at 12 years old with three little brothers, a single mom, and wind up like really having to take things seriously. But uh I didn't have too much resources growing up as a poor kid in North Philly, and the only escape was sports. So I got to high school, I played football, I was on the wrestling team and on the baseball team for all my years there, all played on varsity all those years there. And uh so I really know how important these sports are for these kids. It's just not a game, these are lifetime experiences that these kids are gonna take out for the rest of their life. And um that's why I do what I do, because I try to make it just a little bit better. Because when you hear your name being announced with some kind of emphasis and some kind of uh uh emotions, you know, I mean, people really feel it. So that's why when I go out there, like I really play the character of a Michael Buffer, the Chris Buffer. And like I really try to be like, yo, this is big time. These because they for these kids, even in a JV, for me, it don't matter. We be the JV team, the white team, middle school, I'm bringing the same energy as they felt while I was working for the Lakers. And people like that, and especially Hawaii like that, because um there's no pro teams in Hawaii. So the high schools are like the what brings the community together. Every high school, every community has their own high school, and they come out to the games and they be old people at the games. And it's just so much awesome. Every team got their own rituals and their own songs, like, oh, and I just love being a part of that. I try not to take away from the game, just to add to the game. So that's why I try to do everything just nicely and and the way it's supposed to be, like very professional. And um, they they've been doing it. I worked for like 10 high schools, just not Lady Jardin. Oh, like I worked for a lot of high schools. I worked for uh McKinley, I've done a lot of games for Guanalua, then school games for Kalani, uh Kamehameha, I've done games for Castle, Kailua. Um wow. It's more better to say the high schools that I haven't done. Hunaho, Bay and I, call me.

Hawaii High School Hype Culture

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Call him. I definitely can attest to what you do. My uh daughter, the first time we got to see you was uh last year. My daughter played JV for Laser Dawn. And you had that team hype and just announcing their name. And uh like as a dad, like, oh that's that's cool. You know what I mean? Like, hear your daughter's name in the gym and loudspeaker, and everybody's listening, and they wave. And my uh friends, I was live live streaming it on my Instagram, and all I got my friends hit me up as soon as you announced it, and he's like, Brah, who's that guy announcing? I said, I don't know, like I've never seen him before. It's my first time. And and uh I pan into you, and the first thing my my friend is a huge wrestling fan, and your laptop has the WWE belt on it. And yeah, he was like, Bruh, that guy is is the the best hype man ever. And through through last year, and then my daughter made the Vars team this year as a sophomore. And the hype you brought to these games is just it's it's just fun. And I never had that. I mean, when I was in high school, and it it it's uh it's different, like it, it it really changes the feel of the game. And I I had so many questions. Okay, I want to take this short moment from talking with Paco Loco and shout out our sponsor, Defen Hawaii. They've been my sponsor from the very beginning. They have a store in Winter Mall called No One. But if you go on their website, defendhawaii.com, they have some new drops for you right now. Give them a look. They have some cool shirts, uh, hats, accessories for girls, they got all bunch of stuff. Go give them a look. Defendhawaii.com. If you use promo code ATB Pod upon checkout, you'll get 15% off your entire purchase. Let them know ATB Pod sent you. Aloha. For one, how did you even know you could do that? Like, what was where where did you come up with the idea that you had this skill and how'd you get hired the first time?

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Well, the first time I got hired, I was 19 years old. I was a sophomore at um at Cheney University where I graduated from the Wolves, and uh, it's a Division II school, and it's a historically black college. So I was the lightest thing in there. I was Puerto Rican. My name Paco actually comes from racism. They call me Paco, they call me uh uh uh Marcos, they call me Jose, and then it just stuck that Paco. But I joined a fraternity there, that's why I got my fraternity. I'm in a fraternity with Michael Jordan, is in my fraternity, Shaquille O'Neal is in my fraternity, uh Jesse Jackson who just passed away, wow, is in my fraternity. So once you get up into these fraternities, then that's one of the things with the advantages of going to college is that the fraternity life is really where in the mainland is that, because that's the royalty. Like if you want to get into these doors and get uh get places that you need to get on, you join the fraternity, and all of a sudden these doors start opening up for you. And uh, if anybody that's anybody looking history are in some kind of like fraternity, and uh we're not a gang, we do good things, and uh because we're all we pick the cream of the crop and the cream of the crop, and then we give them an emphasis on working for the community, being soldiers for the community, being leaders in our community. And the first time I got asked, uh I just joined the fraternity, and uh the athletic director was my fraternity brother. And I'm always the loudest, I'm an Eagles fan, so there I am at a basketball game doing what Eagles fans do, and I'm taunting, I'm heckling. Like anytime it's super quiet, you're gonna hear me, Mr.

unknown 13:14

Mr.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Like I'm doing everything possible as a fan to be annoying. And then uh my the athletic director, who was a fraternity brother, uh came up to me and was just like uh his name Andrew Henson. He was like an all-American uh football coach and football player. He actually got to coach with John Chaney, who was the famous in Philadelphia basketball coach. And uh he was like, Why don't you be quiet? You're embarrassing us. I was like, No, brother, you can't tell you can't tell me to be quiet. Like, I'm expecting he's like, Well, how about better this? Get on the microphone because you got a lot of school spirit. And then he gave me the microphone, and I just came up and just trying to do back then. I was trying to do an impression of um a video game. You remember the video game NBA Jams? Oh, yes, I spent many hours on that thing.

SPEAKER_04 14:02

Yeah, he's on fire!

Sponsor: Defend Hawaii

First Mic: From Heckler To Announcer

SPEAKER_03 14:04

Yeah, I used to do all that double dribble. Oh yeah. I used to do all the I try to do a thing, but then after years, uh, that's how I first got on the microphone, and then they put me on. And then a second year, they actually made it a course credit as a internship to be the announcer for them. And then I just kept on doing it for years and years. And then after I graduated, I started working for Temple University. And they had this league called the You know, Temple, Temple's a big school, like the biggest school in Philadelphia, but uh they got this league called the Sunny Hill League. And on a Sunny Hill League, they match college players with top high school players that they know are gonna go to the college level, and they match them and they have like a it's kind of like like what if they got my Noah, the summer league. Oh, yeah. Like if if the summer league was supported by a UH, it's kind of like that. When you get like give me what got the college players messing with uh high school players, then uh the story from that is that uh I got to MC Kobe Bryant's last high school game. Oh wow uh before he went to the to the to the got drafted by the NBA. And that was like my first day there. There was a whole lot of media, that's how I know. There was a whole lot of media, media everywhere, and I'm sitting there and I can just, you know, and uh at that league, I had like 10 basketball games today. So it was just like a job. Let's give me the names, let's do it. But this one, you remember because it was so much media, and every time he stepped out to the floor, the cameras were clicking, and then uh like a week later, that kid wind up being Kobe Bryant, and everybody knows the name. And I got to do his last high school game. Well, not even a high school, you're a summer league game.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

So that's pretty cool. Or you ever got nervous doing that stuff? Like, or you just like I'm just gonna let it fly.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

If you uh yeah, you just let it fly, like you gotta get into like the character, and like you gotta uh you gotta get into it like where nothing bothers you, nothing's gonna make you stumble. Like, yeah, you even if you do stumble, you just laugh it off and keep going, and people understand the mistakes. Like, people actually love the mistakes. Like, if you make a mistake and just own up to it and festival, they'd be like, okay, because everybody makes mistakes, I'm not perfect. Oh yeah, it's okay. And if well, God forbid you say somebody's name wrong, though. Oh, they go.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Oh, yeah. I was gonna that was why people gonna talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that because some of these kids' names is it is not the easiest to pronounce.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

Oh so you sit there and you try to work it out in your head, and you gotta break it up into syllables, and then sometimes you just gotta ask, like, how do you say this? Like, and then they'll tell you like that's kanakao, not kanakua. Like, oh, okay. It's gotta phonetically write it down on the paper, huh? Like, yeah, you gotta write it down because usually the big Hawaiian words are like two, three smaller Hawaiian words, like it's kinda akua, but when you see it kind of akua, like, oh, hold on, but that's two different words.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Uh fortunately, my daughter is Aria Park, so it's easy to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's um I was up on that one too. I remember I remember calling it Aria Park. Yeah, yeah. You did do that. I tried to say it every which way until somebody says so. That's right. I forgot about that. Oh have you never told me? Did did a parent ever get like get super mad about how you pronounce the name, or like was it ever became a big issue?

SPEAKER_03 17:43

No, usually they'll come up and tell me how to say it, and then once you tell me, I'm not hard-headed, like I'm gonna try to get it right. Like, if and it's like it's a respect of culture, it's respect respect to people's names. Like, that's what I'm there for. So I say it wrong, I tell people, please correct me. But I do not want to be saying your name wrong, and then find out it happened to me. Senior night with an HPU girl, her name was Kyra Palayo, and the whole time four years I was saying Palayo, but it makes a difference to me, you know what I mean?

Kobe’s Summer Game And Nerves

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, somebody couldn't let you go at least halfway through the first year, you know what I mean? Told me senior night, bro. Senior night. Oh man, you tell me this whole time. Um, how do you read the energy in the crowd when you're doing what you do? I don't even read it, I spark it.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

That's what I gotta bring the energy. Yeah, yeah, you gotta spark it because if I come off flat, they come off flat. And uh, if I come off with the energy, like every time I gotta bring the energy every time, then everybody else come out. Like I'm the fire starter, yeah. Then I'll tone it down. If I see the crowds tired, sometimes the crowd just there, you know, then you then you calm it down. But in the beginning, it's like a real I got two different styles to through our one histories. One is I got like the big event style, and then the other one I call uh being in the library. So you so you just make an announcement smooth jazz style, like, oh yes, that was Barry Apart with the best.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Do you um you play in between sets or like because I'm I'm only there for the volleyball, but I you play music. It you the music hypes the crowd too, and that that can be a job in and of itself just because a lot of the music out there now is full of swear words and stuff. Like, how how many times that you accidentally played some some stuff that you shouldn't have?

Names, Culture, And Getting It Right

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Every once in a while, because I usually pick the edited music, but they'll edit like the first like verse, or they might let N-word slip by. Yeah, and N-word at La Jardin is not a good thing, bro. They're gonna say something was a Jenna Cruz is on her job. Yeah, they're gonna be here. She is on her job making sure everything works properly. But um, that comes from being a discipline of just a whole different discipline of being a uh a real DJ. Like I've been a real DJ since I moved here in Hawaii. Like I've done like I do a lot of weddings, I do a lot of birthday parties, I do all kind of uh uh backyard events, uh done like all kinds of like sporting events or or just where they need a DJ where I hardly say anything. So and that comes from also I worked 13 years in radio in Hawaii. And uh Oh, really? And it wasn't like, yeah, I worked 13 years with Stateland Radio. I don't think it exists no more. It's been a long while. But um, I worked for them and I worked with the country station, I worked with the uh the Christian music station, the fish. I worked with a lot of the I I uh produced a whole lot of radio shows in Hawaii. So with there, you learn how to be the setup guy yourself. You know, if something breaks down with the wires, I know how to fix it myself. But then I also trained myself where I could sit there and I got my laptop is uh uh actual DJ program where I can actually mix the music. And um, usually I know the classics, but uh it's crazy because the uh I don't like a lot of the music I play, the kids like it. Yeah, I'll get into that soon. You come ask me for the music, and I'll be like, and I listen to it and then I was like, well, I'll do the clean burger. But uh it's funny, like the kids always tell me it was hot, and then that's when I read the audience. Like if this song is hot and I see people dancing to it, like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna play this. And I think the most popular song that gets a good pop every time I play it is uh baby by Justin Bieber. Like as soon as those kids hear that every kid like if he walked in a room, like whoa, wow, this music got power, bro. And so I've got to play that at special times, like where they can hear it and dance it out. I play a lot of dance music that gets the crowd to move around, like so like the cha-cha slide, the shit. Shuffle, something like choreograph dance to it.

unknown 22:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

So they can all dance to it. Whatever's like super hot today. I think it's what's super hot today. It's like the demon hunters, the old dance, k-pop music. They love it. As soon as they play that.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

That's crazy. I think uh we'll get into your DJ career because uh I have a lot of uh insight to DJs being uh I've been in a nightclub promoter for like two decades. But um when you're announcing and doing your thing on the sporting side, like what would be the biggest moment that you remember where it's like you just witnessed something super cool? Like what what did you see being an announcer that kind of took your breath away and was like, oh broh, this this was super cool to be around, like a championship game or something something.

Crowd Energy And Two Announcing Styles

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Oh, I've done a lot of championship and all-star game, but uh, I think the most biggest thing for me uh is two things. One is when when Hawaii had an ABA team, the Hawaii Switch, and being part of a semi-pro basketball team where I was like the major announcer and DJ at the Blazed Dell Center gave me so much hope for Hawaii to have a professional team. But it was just really like like like local guys, local brothers that got they pitched their money together and try to get the league. But uh COVID killed it. Like when COVID came, it just stopped everything for a long time. And now the guys that uh they lost a lot of money because they had a lot of money in building funds that they didn't get back. And um, but uh besides that, uh another bunch of I used to MC the uh the robotics championships. Oh, and they used to have like these robotics STEM uh award, like STEM uh projects, and they had I worked with them for like three years, and that was at the uh convention uh at the uh Stan Sheriff Center. Oh, yeah. And it was like all these top companies, they paid me a lot of money. I was like so thankful. Like, bro, because working working for radio is not fun. I love them people, it's a great job, but the paycheck wasn't it wasn't nothing to live off of. You had to do your side gigs. But um, yeah, I did the robotics championship for like three years, and the production level that they had there, like the the the they had like local ones, then they had regional ones, and they actually had like the world championship of robots there when there was all these different countries going on, like at the right here in Hawaii, and I got to be the MC for a couple years, and then COVID killed that too. Oh, it was just COVID killed. So was that like Battle Bots where they battle each other? It's a lot like Battle Bots. They had like different games where like either they had some of them like they had like collect things and they put it in a stack, and they all had like they had to build their robots from scratch and the different designs, and they actually took the different designs, and like it was sponsored by like NASA and like Tesla, like all these corporations that they this is where they got their talent from as kids. If they had like picked out a kid that got an act for this, and they wind up funding them and funding them, and I'll these kids are probably selling robots to Mars because that was the intention to get these kids. That's it was amazing, like to be a part of it. And for me, how I did it was just give me the names.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

I don't know. Let's go. That's crazy. I I wasn't expecting you to say that at all. Like that that would be hard to hype up. Uh well, I guess so.

DJ Discipline And Clean Edits

SPEAKER_03 25:25

No, those kids is hype, yeah, they got teams, they got colors, they got numbers. I'm like, give them number 4893, and then and then they have a list of the setting is same energy, bro. They loved it. Pay me big money to do those gigs. Another thing I got to do that was real interesting was uh esports, and that's video games. Oh, that's coming huge, huh? Competitively, yeah, yeah. HPU got it, and like there's a whole lot of high schools that got esports teams that are sponsored just as much as the uh as the sports team. So this is like a whole different brand new world that I think is gonna mess around, take over what's what we see as professional sports today because yeah, I love football, but the way they tackle in, the way these the way the Pro Bowl look, I see that's how football is gonna look. Where it's just gonna be flagged football.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

I know I've got a lot of concussions from playing football.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

And I think they're gonna take it over and like when they just uh develop these kids' minds to play in these video games, and like uh HPU got a bunch of events, and they hired me to play like the music in between times and to announce the team as they start. They never could get me to do play by play because I don't know what's going on. I'm 49 years old.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

That's crazy. Um, have you ever, in your opinion, changed the outcome of one of these games by your hype? Like, like help these teams get picked up and change and be like, okay, I caused that. Like I made their motivation change or shift the the outcome of a game just by your hype and music.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

In my head, and my ego says yes, but in reality, I I worked for a lot of losing teams where every trick in the book did not work. HP like last year went 0-22 in volleyball, and every trick, everything I got was laid out, and uh, so sometimes I think when the game is close, I got like a little piece of music where I'll play Rocky music. Oh, okay. And I do that because they they do that at Eagles games, like right when the game is tied, so intense, you play that Rocky motivational thing when you be like life rate all sudden shot and rainbow. And that gets me hype. So I try to play that for them and then mix it in with uh with some Eminem and lose yourself and oh yeah, I'll hype them up. But but if a team gonna lose, if you ain't gonna lose. I try my best.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

I ain't so yeah, you can't want it more than they do.

What Songs Actually Move Kids

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Yeah, then you know you're gonna lose, you just disattach yourself and just you know, you don't the heartbreakers. It's funny because uh they call it the inner zone. And I've been there a couple times at the games when the games are super close, and like it seems like the louder the crowd gets, the more raucous gets to me. Everything quiet down and I focus in on what's the game. And uh so when people talk about the the that mode, that gob mode, like I've been there, like I know exactly what you talk about because like when the crowd is just going nuts, rah everything. My girl said that's uh attention deficit disorder, but I say it's the guys either or bro.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

That's funny, bro. Okay, I want to take this short moment to shout out our sponsors, i rep detail supply. They're your one-stop shop superstore for everything you need to detail whatever vehicle you have. They have a store in Temple Valley Shopping Center, they also have one in Las Vegas. Uh, go to their store, their staff is amazing. They know everything you need to know about what products they have and how to use them and what's what would be the best for you to detail your car. If not, go to irepdetailsupply.com, promo code ATB pod upon checkout, you'll get 15% off whatever you want. Aloha. But like, how do you do that though? Stay positive when like the games are you like you know that they're there to get beat and that it's not gonna look good for the the team that you're kind of out there for. Like, how how does that work? Like, how do you stay positive?

Biggest Moments: ABA And Robotics

SPEAKER_03 29:43

What you can tell is the difference is how I announce the visiting team, like they'll score and do something amazing, and I'll be like Roger, Roger again. And then anytime we do anything, it sounds like they made the winning basket at the end of the day, and just get all hyped up whenever they do something. Because I work for the KCBL too. Uh is a uh pre a summer league, it's a preseason league, and Kailua, the Kailua Community Basketball League, uh they got kids from like eight to like 12, 13. And uh it's a developmental league where like every kid gets time. Like they make sure like every five minutes they have substitution to put kids in. So uh that way you get to see a lot of bad basketball. So you gotta get hyped up anytime they score. Yeah, anytime they do anything, you gotta get hyped up, say their name. And just for the crowd to say their name, like just saying somebody's name properly, even if it's a foul, like they're just so proud to hear it. So I just make sure I'm there to pay attention, like pay full attention to the game. I don't be on my phone, I'm not talking to nobody. I'm so focused in on the game, and the most thing I'm concentrating on else is what next song I'm gonna play. And I got that all on my laptop. Yeah, what's all lined up?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

I got what would what would be like your pregame routine? Like, do you gotta get in like beast mode, or like you is it's just like okay, I got this, I've done it so many times, or do you gotta like physically, mentally lock in, or it's it comes second nature to you?

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Um in the beginning, it's felt like uh when it's pretty like a couple hours out, I'm super relaxed. But when uh like when it's like game time, the last three minutes of the game, you I get hyped up as if I'm playing. Like you're gonna see me shadow boxing behind the table, you're gonna see me dipping and diving, like getting ready, like if I'm gonna go out. Because I try to prepare as if I was an athlete myself. So when I come and when it's my turn, like I'm hyped up. I don't drank a whole big old sip of monster or some kind of energy drink to get all hyped up. And then uh I'm super quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet. And when it's my turn to talk, I just let it all out. And uh, I already know what I'm gonna say, so it's like that's all confidence. What you're gonna say, and just saying just even if you mess up, say it with confidence. And as you put on the show, like you are the game, you put it on. And yeah, uh you mentioned that I had uh uh a wrestling belt on my laptop. I'm a huge wrestling fan. Oh like I love wrestling. Yeah, so I actually I try to implement a lot of wrestling intros in my uh in my in when they announce the game. So like you might liable to hear Roman Reigns music or John Cena's music or HPU. I play. We even do uh if you've been to an HPU game for the men's basketball team, we turn out the lights and bring the fireflies and actually play Bray Wyatt's music.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Bray Wyatt, that to me, that was the best intro. He would always have the lantern. Yup, that's I have that on my phone. I get hyped to that. That one and the old Wolfpack NWO uh Wolfpack in the house. That like that one Bray Wyatt was always my favorite, though. He'd be like, whatever CD he's in, he'd be like, um, Philly, we're here, and he'll blow out the um the candle, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then whole the whole place turns dark, and that song comes out. Yeah, Bray Wyatt's walk out was my favorite. But yeah, rest in peace.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Rest in peace to Bray Wyatt, bro.

Esports And The Future Of Sports

SPEAKER_03 33:17

Like, yeah, he was wild because yeah, he took the whole spooky death thing, and then it happened for real, though. Like, so that's what was crazy. Like, was it K Fay? Was it but now he really passed away and he was all into it. But uh, I loved it. The whole spookiness of it because I was a big Undertaker fan. The Undertaker was the sole reason I was emo in high school, bro.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

For real.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

I had the black jacket, uh, you didn't darken the eyes. Uh darken, I had dark hair, no stayed out the sun. I don't I thought I was the Undertaker, bro.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Uh I'm gonna get into rest. Okay. I I had this question because I I'm a grew up a huge wrestling fan. And I don't know if you've seen on uh Netflix, they have this documentary called uh Unreal or something like that. Where they I heard about it. You never seen it? No, I heard about it. I heard a lot about it. Yeah, it's talking about all the behind the scenes stuff. They show it and they show how they do it, and like I mean, it is lit legit, but they they pull the curtains back and you they they pretty much kayfabe is is you they break kayfabe big time. And I I didn't know how I felt about it. I enjoyed it because it was cool to see, but I'll I mean everybody knows it's not real, but I for them to actually show how they do do it was kind of like it was cool, but it also wasn't cool. I was I was gonna ask your opinion if you if you ever got to see it or it was it or heard about it. I know what you talk about.

Can Hype Change A Game?

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Yeah, I know what you talk about. Uh like K-fave and wrestling, they gotta be a uh uh a certain wall that you got just so that so we can have some type like if they're gonna expose everything like this, yeah. Because they already done it before, and I like what they've done, and they just made like superheroes that like the Undertaker used to shoot lightning out his hand. We know he wasn't really shoot lightning out his hand, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Uh but sometimes they gotta keep vacation because I actually met Razor Ramon in the Philadelphia Spectrum. I met him, they had like this parking lot where the all the all the superstars exit and they gotta stop at the gate where you get to see them. And I got to meet Razor Ramon, and that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 35:37

Turns out he was a real bad guy, like he was really rude, he was really mean to me. I was got into a fight with him. He's a big dude, though. He's a big dude. I was just mad what he did, like he was so disrespectful, and I was like, yo, I'm a fan.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

He was like, older late homes, like, oh bro, and he seen him they used to do that all the time. Yeah, in the clique. But uh, you know, I think that they're gonna uh I love what wrestling's doing. Like, I I'm always thankful because growing up as a kid, like wrestling was like as growing up as a Puerto Rican, like Puerto Ricans got like our own division of wrestling, like in the whole Latino world, got a it's super important to us as uh just for the escapism part. Like instead of sitting at home talking about our problems, talking about what's going on in the world and all this craziness, we sit there and talk about what the rock did, you know. I was upset. I was so upset when I found out that the rock was sexy, bro.

Staying Up In Tough Losses

SPEAKER_04 36:38

My mom told me, oh, I love rock. He's so I'm like, what the rock is like he's cool.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Don't take that from me.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

That's hella funny. You know, I used to like wrestling. Uh I used to like uh I still love snakes, but you know you can't have them in Hawaii. But when I was home, I used to have pet snakes, and that was because of Jake the Snake. He made it look so cool. Jake, yeah, definitely. So it was very influential in my life growing up. I actually tried to join local wrestling out here. Oh, really? They got oos. Yeah, ooh. Oh, you'd be good at announcing that. Bro, they had like an open call for it, and I tried out, but I made a mistake. Like, I got AI to write my my my interest letter, and so the AI done wrote it all real nice and proper, and I said that to them, and I got rejected. It was like you got too much experience, we can't afford you. Wait, wait, yeah, I'm telling you when not to know letter, just like let my talent talk for me. Yeah, hopefully I miss a train on that because I still want to work with them guys like oos wrestling. Call me like call him. I could take a punch of everything, bro.

Routines, Focus, And Switch Flip

SPEAKER_00 37:57

You could use me. My friend Alecky Alecky was uh he was like the champ for those guys, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:05

Yeah, yeah, that's how some people make it, bro.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

You know, I grew up in Philadelphia, so we had ACW wrestling, which is it turns out that it was monumental, so I remember like the backyard stuff, so keep it going.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Back in the day when we were young, they had Polynesian wrestling, and that was huge. Like they they had this thing, and I think I was like eight or nine, and we went, it was at a Aloha Stadium, it was called Hot Summer Nights, and they brought like uh Andre the Giant and they had Ric Flair, and they had all these big wrestlers competing against the Polynesian wrestlers, and yeah, the yeah, it was super cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was his mom who put it together, Leah Maivia. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Hawaii was a big hot spot for the independent wrestling scene. So we gotta keep it going because uh the the the the Polynesians could really wrestle, like they could do anything they want. Yep, exactly. Um I actually got to do some boxing too. Uh the boxing was I might do some boxing coming up in the future. I met a boxing promoter, I forget his name, but uh he went to an HPU game, he was super impressed. He's like, bro, you got the experience. I was like, I'm I want to do boxing, I want to do MMA. Um, I've done boxing in Philadelphia. Oh, okay. And it was working with true to life, it was with uh with Joe Frazier.

SPEAKER_04 39:28

Oh, yeah.

Wrestling Intros And Inspiration

SPEAKER_03 39:28

I went to Joe Fraser's gym. And Joe Frazier had a gym in North Philly, and it was like right by the subway station. So I stopped one day, I studied all about him. Like as I had the tape, so I was watching a lot of Muhammad Ali, who's my hero. But being that Joe Frazier's right down the street, let me go check out his gym. And I went to the gym, and then I'm sitting there looking at it. It looks like a boxing museum. Like there's a ring there, but they got like all these all these articles all over the place and all this news. And then uh all of a sudden, this old man walked up to me and was just like, Hey, how can I help you? And I turned around and it was him, it was Joe Fraser. That's super so back then, you know, you had to have your elevator spill, like you explain what you're doing and why you want to meet him. I was just so I turned him like I'm a young guy for North Philly, like I'm a sports announcer, I'm doing all these basketball games, I want to jump into uh boxing. And he was like, I know exactly who to call. And then he called this lady who was in charge of the Blue Horizon Gym. And the Blue Horizon Gym was uh it used to be a TV show on Sports Center or or the ESPN called uh Tuesday Night Fights.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Oh, yep. Yeah, Tuesday night. That was on USA. USA, yep. Tuesday nights at USA. I grew up watching that. That was religiously. I seen all the big boxers fight on that thing.

SPEAKER_03 40:42

Yeah, so a lot of them fights were at this was at this place called the Blue Horizon Gym in Philadelphia. Yeah, and what it was, and from the outside, it just looked like four houses from the outside. But what they did is they kept the outside look, and then the inside was a a little arena, made me feel like a thousand people. So they had me. So uh he introduced me to the to the lady who owns the place, and turns out she was in a sorority and and went to the same college I went to. So uh, but she was way older than me, way older than me. She was like in the 1670s, and so she was like, You okay, I'm gonna give you a chance. And then they she put me to do this league called Um, I did like five events for him before I moved to Hawaii. And um, the events was called uh, and I think this could work in in Hawaii, it's called a white-collar boxer. And it was boxing for amateurs, so it was like you know, no ring skills, no boot and ring experience, no boxing classes. It's just you gotta sign up for them that say you and Shake, and you're gonna go against somebody that got the same level of experience you got. And for it's in a ring, and say, with a referee there, you're gonna get an intro, like you a wrestler, because usually we're gonna say whatever your your occupation is. We're like, here he is a UPS driver versus a mailman and have him fight it up. The best one was like a career felon versus the police sergeant. That one was oh, that was that might have been cool. But that's what was it? It was just at uh exhibition, so they never announced a weak you know who got their ass whipped. Yeah, that's funny. But I think that'll work in Hawaii because Hawaii loves scraps. Oh, yeah. You just take those scraps that's going out there and then put them into a nice ring and and really production-wise, put it up, and then those guys get three one-minute rounds, boom, get it out their system. Yeah, big pictures, boom, that's a memory, like bucketless. Yeah, you may not want to be super life into it. Yeah, one or two times, like bucketless, bro. I know a lot of guys will sign up for that. Especially in Hawaii. Oh, yeah. That's one of the things I love about Hawaii is the scrap culture. Like, you get into a fist fight, but you can walk home after a fist fight. And the fill in mainland, it's a lot of guns. In Hawaii, there's a lot of guns. It's starting to happen. Starting to stray away from that. Yeah, we don't need to we need to go back to this to the scrap where we're like.

Kayfabe, Razor Ramon, And Legends

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Back when we growing up, we get into and scrap, and you end up nine times out of ten, like the guy you scrap with becomes your friend eventually. And yeah, it's kind of a respect. Yep. There's a respect vibe. Yeah. Um, being that you're a DJ, I wanted to get into a little bit about that. Uh, being that the music is changing, and I ask this every time a DJ is on my show. How do you feel about the new music now compared to like the old stuff? Because the old stuff, in my opinion, had way more heart, way more soul, way more depth, way more poetry, I guess. I don't know. That could be my opinion because I'm older, but in your opinion, going through these generations, what do you what is your feeling on the music as it is now? The new stuff. It's poisonous. It's gonna go on the radio.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

What I wanted to hear is it's poisonous, like it's it's not good for the people. It's a lot of booty shaking, it's a lot of not a real, like just mad vibes, and they do it for a reason. So like I really try to tend like I'll play some of the music, but I'm not gonna be like all the time. Like I really try to go for a lot of the positive song, like happy for real, you know what I mean, type vibes and just dance music. Uh, because a lot of this stuff is just like, oh, this is I've I've got sour to it when a toddler came up to me one time. She must have been all the three, four years old talking about I'm sexy and I know it.

SPEAKER_04 44:32

Like, oh no, like no, you're not go home. Like, oh why are you clean? Why are you this close to me anyway? Go over there. You're sexy and you know it. You're four. You don't know nothing. Yeah, like grow up first.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Like, so but um it's crazy because like if you really want to go for lyric writing and and for soul, you gotta go to country music, bro. I work for the country station.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

I can't do country, you gotta vibe, bro. I know it's getting big in Hawaii, too. But I don't like it's huge, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

I just don't everything, everything out of this, out of the out of Honolulu area is country. Like when we used to work for the country stations, like our biggest events used to be anytime we like country station come out, like hundreds, thousands of people come out, support they know the lines. I don't even know the line there. I'm the producer, but I don't I don't even know the dances to it. But look, what it is is that they still got the vibe, they still talk about real issues. It's just a twing twang twang, you can't get along.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Yeah, I can't I can't get into that. I am me personally, I I'm a rocker, I love rock, and I grew up with yeah, yeah. I I love Metallica, I love like all that stuff. But country, I grew up what is that?

SPEAKER_03 45:51

I grew up loving Metallica because we had uh M TV, that's all they used to show when I was a little kid.

Boxing Roots And White-Collar Bouts

SPEAKER_00 45:56

There's Metallica videos, headbanger's ball. Yeah, headbanger's ball, yeah. That's yeah, I used to love it.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

Um I still incorporate it as long as it's a radio hit, uh, and it's on the radio and the kids are singing along to it, and I'm like, okay, and they got a little dance to it, I'm gonna play it. And but I also include uh the classics. Uh when I DJ, it's more about the beats per minute, more than the genre for me. Like because I would throw some Migos right next to some disco, next to some Elvis. Like it was if it's matching the vibe, the whatever type. Because I usually it depends on the team. Like, if they're a good team, I start off with a high BPM. And that's like club. Is that but if they're not too good, I start off with the 80s, so it's like doom, doom, doom, like you know, get your thing together first before we hack it up.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Yeah, yeah, that's super cool. The um, yeah, the music nowadays I I'm disappointed. What gets me kind of excited is my daughter. She listens to a lot of the old stuff, like she'll listen to stuff that I grew up with, and it's on her Spotify playlist, and that makes me happy because it makes me think my generational music stand at the test of time, and they the kids now can relate to it. I don't know if that's gonna be the case with this new stuff. Like, I it comes and goes, I don't see it lasting, or like I don't know. It could be because I'm old and my parents probably said the same stuff about my music, but uh, I just feel like like we grew up, we had Tupac and poetry, like depth, like singing about something that mattered. And I don't know, nowadays I don't get that feel from the new stuff. It's kind of silly, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

Yeah, they got some good rappers out there, like J. Cole is a wild lyrics. Uh Kendrick Lamar, people, it's popular he got lyrics, and uh you know, uh Drake even got lyrics if you listen to him if people if you like them. But uh a lot of this, a lot of this stuff with like real gangster culture, bro. And I really worry about the kids. Yeah, they really listen to this like it's like shooting somebody, it's it's it's fun. Like, and it's not to say that I didn't listen to that stuff when I was little because uh I listened to Onyx when I was little. Oh, yeah, and that was real, and that was real scary for the kid.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Wu Tangs is the yeah, like yo, I like that.

Scrap Culture And Respect

SPEAKER_03 48:25

So when the Wu-Tan came out, it was kind of scary, but you know, you just gotta each I go for the what's the hits, like what's on the radio. I'm a real people pleaser, so like my whole playlist, like I could just let it go because everything on it is a radio top 10 hit, yeah, or a sing-along underground song. There's a lot of underground songs that I feel sad for the artist. Like whoever made cha-cha slide, like it get played at every party, and he's never got a dime from it. Like every DJ owes uh DJ Casper, I think his name. Uh we all owe him money because he played him like that cha cha slide. But uh, I don't ever remember hearing cha-cha slide at a concert or some of his things.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Yeah, even when he goes up and blazed though for that.

SPEAKER_03 49:18

That was like when we had Teddy Swim. Uh you remember when Teddy Swim came to Hawaiian? Yeah, and it was everybody was sad because he only sung one song. I'm like, that's all he got. Like, what else did he got?

SPEAKER_04 49:29

Like, yeah, yeah, we just sing us somebody else's song, sing his hit, and we good. That's uh that's all he did.

The Music Debate: Then Vs Now

SPEAKER_00 49:38

We left. That's funny. Okay, I'm gonna take this short break from Talking Apaco to shout out our sponsor, Medicinal Mushrooms Hawaii. They're a locally based medicinal mushroom company, and right now they extracted five different mushrooms and they put them in these tintures. They have lion's mane, chaga, turkey tail, red reishi, and the newest one is cordyceps. I take all five religiously. Uh, if you don't know what these medicinal properties for these mushrooms are or what they do, go to their website medmushroomhigh.com and it'll explain to you how these work. Uh, I'll take pretty much all of these in the morning. I'll take the red raishi at night and quarterceps I'll take before my workout is a good pre-workout. But medmushroomhigh.com. If you use promo code ATBPod upon checkout, if you're gonna buy one, make sure you use all capital letters and you'll get 45% off your first tinture of extracted mushrooms. Medmushroomhigh.com. Aloha. Speaking of funny, you're a comedian, and I know I had some comedians on my show, and it's a rough gig. It's not it's not something that's super easy. That takes a lot of balls to do. How has your comedian career been going here in Hawaii? It's it's rough if you're not good.

SPEAKER_03 51:06

And you go up and bomb every time, and I'm not a bomber. Like I got I got jokes, I got the I got the the stage present to it. And it's a certain, it's a certain uh, there's a several different remedies of how to whip up a crowd. You gotta talk about yourself, you gotta be self-deprecating. Uh, you gotta speak of the obvious, the elephant in the room, as we call it. There's uh there's actually classes that you can take on the internet that teaches you like the art of comedy. Like when you make a premise of something that you find absurd, you you state the premise and then give three examples of what how what makes you feel that way.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

One of my premises is like how I think of how I think of basketball referees cause all the problem in our world. It's because the way the coaches be talking to the referees, they be talking all kinds of dirty to the referees that everybody just if you sit at a basketball game, bro. It don't matter if you're the littlest or the biggest, the coach is gonna yell at the referees. And I'm like, see, that's the reason why you got problems because people think you can just talk to authority like that, and they wind up talking to the police like that, and then the police wind up beating them down and like, see, that's not a referee, that's a cop. That's you're gonna be talking to people like that. It's just taking things and just seeing explaining it the way you see things.

unknown 52:28

Yeah.

Programming By BPM, Not Genre

Sponsor: Medicinal Mushrooms Hawaii

SPEAKER_03 52:28

And if you do a good job, people laugh. Even if they don't agree with you, they see what you see, and the the and the human emotion is to laugh. So, and it's awesome to take like scary things in our society, absurd things, ironic things that just point them out to people. And just as long as you're a good orator and you know how to uh have a light spirit about you, like you can make anybody laugh at any point in time. And uh, I've always had that since I was little, I always was a class clown. Like I always got in trouble for speaking out and saying the wrong thing at the right time, get everybody laughing. Uh, so I always had it. So being a comedian in Hawaii is tough if you're not funny. But if you're funny, the gigs just come at you. Like, and when I first came in here, like I already had like mad years' experience MC and DJing. I started when I was 40, so nine years ago now. And then back then, we actually had like a huge comedy scene. Like we had an open mic every day of the week somewhere. So we had uh King's Pizza was on Fridays, we had uh Wednesday nights was um was uh uh Anna O'Brien's Tuesday nights was like another place on on uh it's called uh on stage. Then we had stuff at uh on stage was on Kapahulu, then we had uh Downbeat, which was on uh on Chinatown, uh Chinatown area, yeah, and then uh the dragon upstairs used to have open mics, all king. Then we used to have this thing called open mic invaders, where I'll grab like five open uh guys that do comedy, and then we'll go to a poetry open mic, and then all sign up together and then completely take over. Because you know, poetry, poetry is different crowd. Oh, yeah. If you're good at what you do, you can work with any crowd, but like poetry is good, sensitive. So you gotta explain like this is the art form to free thinking, you know what I mean? So enjoy like I mean our perspective, and we're trying to make you laugh. And if we don't make you laugh, you can boo. As long as we get some kind of reaction, we're not musicians, we need crowd reaction, and you get people to join in out, just have like four or five guys, and uh actually one of us made it really big and actually tours with with Tamua. Mike Rail used to be part of our open Mike Invaders. Oh, okay. If you go to any Tamua show, the the fat guy that opens up before him, that's my friend, Mike Raya. Oh, nice, and he was part of it. You do stuff with comedy you like those guys? I do a lot of stuff with comedy. Comedy you is a big step, and a big reason why we have comedians because he consistently have open mics, and uh he used to have like comedy award shows where I got uh awarded uh the uh the best host in Hawaii. I got nice awarded that. And um, and uh I used to run my own comedy show on Fridays and the On King. I might bring it back. I just took a break from it uh to concentrate on sports, but uh in the offseason it'll come back. And uh but there, like these open mics, you get to develop your talent. You come up with new materials, see what works, see what don't work. And then comedy you will have paid gigs for you. They'll give it$20,$10, depending on how much you can do. Once you get good at doing the uh Anna O'Brien's and the Hawaiian Bryan's, we do uh the Blue Note is a big one.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Yeah.

Comedy Craft, Rooms, And Risks

SPEAKER_03 55:41

And then we'll have either local comedy showcase or they'll hire you to open for somebody else. And then or you could just catch the wave like Tamua did. And Tomorrow just got super hot online and just now he's selling out all around the world. Like, I really think Tamua, I ran into a guy like this in the past in Philadelphia, and um, I was doing basketball games at Cheney University, and this guy came up to me. He's like, yo, I got this comedian that he wants to do comedy. And I'm like, comedy at a basketball game? Like, I don't know if that's gonna work. And they like trying. So I I gave him a try, he got on, he got he started roasting the crowd, started getting a bunch of laughs, and it turned out that guy was Kevin Hart Swear. Oh shoot! Swear, like that was Kevin Hart. He went up there and just started like started cranking on the crowd. And uh, but that was when he was like 19, 20 years old, too. And uh he was just young and hungry, but he had a producer, and the producer can't talk to me. And I worked with the producer before or other projects, so I was like, go ahead, hack time, you got it. Like he went up there, and like a year later I see him doing specials, and like I'll just be running to all these Philadelphia. I even met Alan Iverson one time. We want to hear that story. Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, if you go to you, you know basketball, so Alan Iverson is known for that one speech, the uh practice speech. Remember? Practice? He's talking about practice, and that was all his Hall of Fame, like his Hall of Fame uh video. It was like practice, practice. I talked to him that night before he did that. Oh I was MC in a I was MC in a concert at Cheney's homecoming. And uh was the homecoming, it was our spring fling. We call uh uh May Weekend. And uh the Sixers just lost to the uh Celtics in the playoffs, always. You know? Yeah, he never got a ring. You know, and but he scored that game, he scored like 50-something points that game. The game they lost because nobody else was making anything, so he just started going to the rack the entire time. Uh later on that same night, I'm emceeing a concert, and they was like, bro, we need you at the door. You wouldn't believe who's at the door. I get to the door, it's a whole line of white, pearl-white escalades with the spinning rims. And it was like Alan Ironson's over there. So I go over there, and it's just like all these super tall dudes, which turns out they were the Sixers, but the only one that was in my height was Alan Ironson. Yeah, these my heights that we eye to eye. And then uh, so then uh when I went up, I went up like, I mean, I'm an OG of this campus, and somebody told him, like, yo, this the OG of the campus. So they always like give you like you know, street cred. So you come up, stay high. You got all trained of the whole campus. So I ran and drank a uh a Heineken beer with him. Sit there and drank a beer, and I and I talked to him about like, bro, like you hear what they talk about you in the news? He's like, No, man, I don't listen to that. I said, Bro, they talk about you practicing, not you what you do in the game, practice, practice, bro. Not not in the game, and then the next day I seen it with my words coming out his mouth.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Oh my god, he's running your material, he's running your material.

SPEAKER_03 58:53

Oh, he did it on stage, and now he's to this day, they still bring that up about him. Like, oh wow, that's he had no idea. Like, he's totally oblivious to like any kind of feedback. He ain't listen to that.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

Oh, yeah, for sure. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

Never never want to meet your idols, bro. Never think go mess up their life.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Yeah, that's true. So, do you so you still gig comedy then, right? Like you you do. I still do comedy, yeah.

Open Mics, Community, And Breaks

SPEAKER_03 59:22

I do uh I've done uh a bunch of shows, uh the the Jerry, uh Sailor Jerry, Freeze Fest, Machu Waldo, T Club. Like they pay me, I'll come out and do gig. Nice. So then when I do the open mice, it's more about me uh teaching other guys to do it though. Yeah, uh when the new guys come up, like I'll tell them what's working, I feel like sometimes they'll be doing things and they don't even know like what they're doing, and I'll tell them what you're doing. Like, bro, like you do great at the voices. Because the whole thing about storytelling and comedy is getting into the actual situation and like put the other person in the first person view. By that I mean like if you go talk about somebody, try to imitate them. Like try to make the sounds or the things that you hear, like be very animated when you talk, and people find that real funny. And I've been super blessed to do it. I I get to talk out all my my conspiracy theories, which turned out to be true, schmeck mean tiles.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

Yeah, that's crazy. I definitely gotta come trick out your comedy. I think um I had I had uh Tamur on, I had um James Money on my show. Tomur, I had uh oh what is his name that that runs comedy you um Jose Jose Dynamoite Jose Dynamo I had him on and he had me uh he had me judge uh comedy show contest one time at Juan Bryant's, and so I got to judge that. And I was impressed with the local comedy. I had some had some people who bombed, but I mean it takes some balls to get up there, but they there were some funny ones that had me dying, and it was it was a lot of them, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was super cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

There's a lot of them, and uh they just need the chance to get on stage to get to the big big stages. Uh, one of the ones that come uh Kenny Kusaka. Whenever I got a gig and they need a comedian, I call on Kenny Kusaka first because he's a local guy, local kid. He's super funny, super young. And uh I always say that he used to take all my Aquaman chicks. Like people used to say I look like Aquaman, but he looked more like Aquaman than me. So he gets all the chicks. Uh, there's a whole bunch of them that's really, really talented. And all they need is a break, all they need is a chance to get on the big stage. And I know they could be just as big as Tamor, if if you know what I mean, and uh, so we just we just go to the shows, we need people to come to the shows. Yeah, it's hard to do comedy nowadays because people are so sensitive. We get a lot of old school guys like us. We had we had comedy central, we had the man channel, like we're not so easily offended as that woke culture now.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Is that woke culture, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

Like you gotta do it. Making everybody so sensitive, yeah. You're right. Yeah, so I tell people like some trigger warning, like you we might say something that you ain't gonna like, like, yeah. That's funny. You gotta let them know. Like that I get my pronouns. My pronouns is dude, homie, and bro. Like you're gonna refer to me. That's what you refer to me as.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

If you can just pick your pronouns, I'm gonna be Superman, Wolverine, Batman.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

Like if you can just pick up then get mad when people don't refer to you as exactly.

Kevin Hart, Iverson, And Philly Tales

SPEAKER_00 1:02:37

I was like, bruh. Yeah, I don't play any of that. Um, yeah, well, we've been going. What is that? We've been going for an hour. I had something that kind of hit home reading on your Instagram, and it was something that I kind of pride myself on, and reading it off of your Instagram was pretty cool. It was like uh deliver the best you performance regardless of the size of audience. It's uh and it was uh you were referencing you were at a basketball game or something, and and you're just doing your your spiel and being yourself doing it at a at a level that you're delivering no matter what it is. And like you said earlier, you got uh picked up by a boxing promoter or an MMA guy, and those opportunities are there because it didn't matter what you were doing, you're doing it the best of your ability and showing the passion that you have behind what you do, and like you said it on the post, you never know who's watching, and that hit home because that's how opportunities happen when when you create a moment for somebody to see you shine and you don't know who's watching. You like oh, you could be in there and say, Oh, there's like 10 fans here, and nobody's hype, and I'm like, and you give off your energy and and and do you and they give you opportunity. And I always tell that to my daughter, like whatever you do, do it your best. Like, even if it's practice, even if it's you're warming up, you never know who's watching, you never know who could be checking out a different player, and eyes fall on you. Like, you you'll never know. But if you're doing everything that way, like how you describe, then opportunity might happen, and that hit hit hard with me because that's something I always did as a um competitor and also as a dad is what I reiterate to my daughter. So I I thought that that was really cool.

Do Your Best: Opportunity Watching

Teaching, Stealing Bits, And Growth

SPEAKER_03 1:04:49

Yeah, um, that's because somebody told me that, and I believed it, and it's been very, very important, and uh, it's and he's just not sports, it's everything, and like we're gonna do it, do it. You guys, so basically you don't got and it's crazy because the kids' culture nowadays like kind of downplay trying hard. And I don't like that. That's not good, bro, because that's just something they feed in American kids. Because the other countries, they teaching their kids to be the best all the time, give them the best, give it till you exhausted, and when even when nobody's there, like you you perform how you practice by yourself. That's what I really believe. So even when you just don't push ups by yourself, give it all so you can't do no more, and keep it going because that's all we got. Like it's our effort and what we give this life, and then and it and not only that you don't know who's watching, I know this through comedy because I got a lot of comedy games. And um, usually when we come on, there's like three, four people in the audience, but that person might need a uh uh a wedding, uh, a wedding DJ, might need a birthday DJ, just want to have a back. We do backyard comedy shows, so we've done a lot of backyard. comedy shows but we'll bring them right to your little while right to your birthday party set up your mic and set up talk dirty jokes but we got plenty jokes too but um but you never know so that's why i say like and uh i'll if you don't know everybody has the camera you don't know where that camera is who's recording you you know i mean because uh somebody like because i s I swear joe coy stole one of my jokes i'm not saying i'm not no proof of that but he talks about like how how the how the music is like back in the day is not the same the different i'm like bro i've been saying this for like night since i started and now joe and now joe coy does it so now i can't do it because they now just say i stole for him like i did it years ago bro but it's okay you never know who's watching still give your best effort even if people steal it if they steal it that means you're doing great just come up with more and uh just reproduce it every time and i tell the kids all the time bro like like this is one life to live and like you get to choose it how you want to live it and how you what kind of how you want other people to think about you it's your decision how you bring up the energy to them so um I let other I thank you for all the compliments you've given me because yeah I can't go around talking about that I'm the best sports announcer ever because then that sounds cocky but when somebody else says I'm like thank you bro I appreciate it bro definitely because I'm real in real life like I'm really like I'm super introverted like so people think when they see me like off camera like I might be real it's just like no I'm like super introverted like I'm super quiet like I'm really not the the loudest guy in the room until I had to be and then uh other than that like I'm super helpful super thoughtful like but uh the kids is the future and we gotta pay attention to the kids yeah and uh because that's all we got like in the future they're gonna take care of us yeah I really believe that so future wise where would you like to see yourself in the future and what possibilities do you think you could have doing what you're doing now uh I say it all the time loud and proud I want to work for the NBA but and uh but first I would like to work for the for UH because that's it's gonna be hard for me to get to to h to the to the Lakers without going to the UH Warriors but uh I've been I think I've made a legendary mark at uh HPU is gonna be 20 years next year. Yeah so um I've been with them and then they gave me a lot of uh uh uh uh leeway to do my thing and how they never have no input they just because I'm always surprising them with something new and um so the future is like I really I'll still come back to Hawaii live here back in Hawaii but uh I really really would love to do what I'm doing for like a really professional even if it's uh I see uh WMBA is doing a lot of big things nice I would not mind working for WNBA team because I actually think the WMBA be more suitable for my style because they're trying hard you know they're really trying to make people come yeah and uh the NBA's been doing it forever so they're not really trying hard and it's the same thing with UH I'm not mean to talk state but they got a lot of old guys over there that don't want nothing new don't want nothing that's that's different and I bring all the like they like smooth jazz I'm hard rock you know I mean I bring in I bring the energy I bring the the the comedy I bring uh it's being the the the presence of it and making the game better and I've been to UH games and it's quiet and yeah they got a step they got a 70 year old announcer and they could tell like so God bless him because that's hard to say because I think I've I've met him at the uh Howard he's a good guy like he's a good guy yeah but I've met him and he tried to tell me oh bro you can't do that like you can't do that I'm gonna do a somersault I'm gonna do a somersault hop back up and say hi to everybody right on I got to do some good things this year every year it gets better so like that's why I keep really doing it because every day I get more and more clients I get more bigger and smaller just incrementally bigger taking small steps to get to where I want to go to working it as a professional team uh this year I got to work with not uh Nana coolee was a big one uh but a nice one was uh Kona Wina oh they they hired me to go to do a Kona Wina game I did four games for them they flew me out in an airplane they gave me clothes like the Kona Wina shirt nice put me in a hotel or elite e drive and this was I was like the experience I really like I love doing this and um I was actually if you I do I if I don't do it too much in volleyball but you see a lot of basketball I could play basketball like a Harlem Globe Trotter. I was this close to being a Harlem Globe Trotter. Like I got recruited I did one game for them I went to Atlantic City for the all the tryouts and everything but they wind up taking somebody else and uh that's why I do one of the reasons I do it in a style that I do is because I try to recreate Harlem Globe Trotter's game for everybody. Like just that massive fun interaction with the crowd and that's what the Harlem Globetrotters do. So now I just it's the Hawaii Globe Trotter like we'll just go to different high schools and you know bring in every game. My next gig is gonna be tomorrow well I don't know when this is coming out but they got me doing a um let's like the Special Olympics okay special kids on the spectrum they have basketball games called uh Friday night lights and they do the full production of uh of basketball but for the special kids you know and uh it's it's actually cool because like I give it the same energy the same respect as I do a real game and but they just be special kids then it's like the first time they hear their name and they say yeah I mean then it's a real cool because uh I'm doing it at McKinley tomorrow and then next week I'll be at Cologio doing it for Cologio and then I did it before with a couple other schools but that's who got me this time so nice that's what I've been doing now and like every year it gets bigger and better until one day I'm probably gonna be fully grade I don't mind by the time I get to the FBA or it'll happen overnight. It could be somebody's owner in a crowd at an HPU game and but like I want this guy.

Goals: UH, WNBA, And NBA Dreams

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

Yep like you said you'll never know who's watching um social media wise where can people find you if they want to uh check you out on social media or try and hire you uh instagram I'm Paco Loco underscore comedy uh it's it's the Spanish wing P-A-C-O-L-O-C-O uh underscore comedy um and uh Facebook Paco Loco um also got my fan page is Paco Productions um and then um I recorded like hundreds and hundreds of hours of open mic comedy now it's rough okay but I actually when we well we used to do when the pandemic hit we was doing I think this needs to be a a Netflix series but when the pandemic hit like all the um we started doing illegal shows at my friend's house full production full production we put a background there we had likes we recorded everything for YouTube every and it was the only show in town so we got all the comedians to come out and somebody's live we put the the this this the road the seats in like in in rows so we got like a real feel and we so we had like it's hours and hours of all this footage but it's on um wow uh YouTube Paco Local Hawaii and it's hours and hours and I would recorded like I think like some of it could like it tag that the whole story of it should be a YouTube series like all right I would definitely check that out we even had the cop it could be a YouTube series that like the cops came trying to shut down I was about to be a I was I was the only one willing to be a martyr because I was the only one without a criminal record I was like they they'll let me out I'm a pillar of the community the cops love me every time I see a cop in Hawaii they recognize me from doing a game with uh yo you probably did their kids' game guaranteed hey bro you you haven't seen my kids' game bro I love you bro you can you go in right on and and for us as always you can find us on Instagram above the bridge podcast on YouTube our website is atvpod.com and my Instagram is daddy daddy high well I look forward to seeing you at oh I wanted to ask you bro you were at TransPac and that volleyball tournament was crazy and you were there all freaking day and I don't know how you did that because I was there half the time and I was dying it was super long and you you bring that energy and you like to get through that whole production three days is is seems like a a long one and you're hyping up the championship games and everything.

Globetrotter Vibes And Special Olympics

SPEAKER_03 1:14:56

Yeah it's um that started uh the owner of 7 gen used to be like the head uh volleyball coach at uh at LeJardin Ed Chun and he started off being there and uh when he heard me it was the same thing like I was just doing a high school game he heard me and it was just like bro I'm doing this I'm gonna be producing all these games and at first I thought he was just talking talking junk you know putting it out there but because I've heard this a lot you know people got plans for you I'm doing this I'm doing that and then I was like all right all right but then he invites me to one event invites me to another and then next thing you know it we've been doing it for almost 10 years in a row doing all these huge events the seven gen seven gen is the coach seven gen culture and they pick me up to be like their spokesman and they pick me up to be their uh their main announcer so anytime they have any events they hire me for the whole event and um they they they mission is awesome because they think it's not only setting it up for now but setting up for seven generations to last. So they're doing all this thing but we also like had kids programs teaching them what we do so like when we when we get older pass away there's already a whole bunch I'm training other announcers now I'm training other and DJs so like we we could branch off and do other games we can have people come in and replace us and so we could keep the culture going. So I love that about them but they hired me and it's not only that it's the stuff you don't see because I also like I'll set up two computers and I set up a computer to play music on autopilot and then I emceed the girls jamboree basketball game at that Mufi Hanneman throne and I was so if you I'm not there I'm not relaxing I'm actually somewhere else yeah I actually had to do a HPU uh basketball game and during one of those days and then come right back and go right back to transporton so you just gotta give make sure you gotta stay energized the entire time it's more about being healthy in your diet and uh because I used to be a like a big caffeine guy and sugar guy and then you just gotta learn you can't do that. You gotta eat fruits eat real food drink water and don't don't abuse your body with with with chemicals when you got natural products that do the same thing. So yeah is that's all about that like longevity and being healthy.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:14

Yep I'll see you next week at the uh shave ice is that the one that's coming up we're gonna be there but all weekend yeah center yeah shaka or whatever shave ice shaka just passed we got the shave we got a uh uh uh uh let me show you something real quick like but I just this is my restroom this is exclusive y'all this is behind the scenes I've I've collected every medal oh shit you got something oh yeah you know they got those wrestling notes yeah but these are like all the medals that are MC championship games that they oh nice extra medal I took it so that's super dope that's super cool that's just a little something to keep me motivated to know what I'm doing like you know I've been doing it for a while so yeah exclusive back from tour mtv cribs right on bro well um I appreciate you taking time out and coming on my show you're somebody I wanted to have for a while and um I've been a fan of you since day one since my daughter's first JV game and uh I feel like the stuff you're doing is making memories and moments for these kids and that's immeasurable especially as a parent and uh keep doing what you're doing. I would love to see you in a MBA environment but I'd be stoked to see you at UH doing your thing and it'd be I'd be there.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:52

I'd be fun you know I mean that'd be cool yeah I'm working to put on I actually talked to Don Robbs the other day and he was like he's gonna put a good word I'm like please do bro put a good word in for me I don't even let me just fill in I don't need because I wish all the best for Billy Billy V2. He's a nice guy but I want him to be famous and make movies and let me go ahead and get you a Right on man we'll shock us for the camera right on we're out shout out to the artist network.