Above the bridge

Episode 133 RELLA : Radio personality & Media Production

Thaddeus Park Episode 133

Ever wondered how a MySpace persona could spark a thriving radio career? Join me as I catch up with Rella, my long-time friend whose journey from "Pimperella" to a beloved radio personality is filled with humor and nostalgia. We take a delightful trip down memory lane, exploring the transformative power of early social media platforms like MySpace and Asian Avenue, and sharing stories that underscore the enduring bonds these connections created. From the amusing origin of her nickname to her rise in the radio industry, Rella's story is a testament to the unexpected paths life can take.

Changes in the radio industry can be as unpredictable as our daily lives. I open up about the highs and lows of her career, from the excitement of working with co-host Chris Stiles to the abrupt challenges that came with an unexpected layoff. Imagine the whirlwind of emotions and the uncertainty of losing medical coverage for your family overnight. Yet, amid the turmoil, the overwhelming support from my colleagues and the industry shone like a beacon, sparking new adventures in starting a radio station and live streaming. The journey was fraught with obstacles, but it was also a canvas for reinvention and new beginnings.

As our conversation culminates, I share the exhilarating and sometimes chaotic process of launching my own internet radio station, Rella Radio, on Live 365. From managing playlists and navigating copyright hurdles to hosting community-focused events like craft fairs, the challenges are abundant but so are the rewards. The station's success is evident in its growing listener base, plans for a dedicated app, and efforts to support local communities. Through heartfelt exchanges and cherished memories, this episode is a celebration of friendship, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of dreams.

Speaker 2:

okay, welcome to another edition of the above the bridge podcast. I'm your host, thaddeus. I hope you had a good thanksgiving holiday. Um, for everybody that's new to the show, please like, subscribe, comment on any of our platforms or youtube. It helps out a lot, um, so we'll please do that. Uh, first I want to do is shout out our sponsors.

Speaker 2:

Shout out to defend hawaii, and they got some new stuff for christmas. Go check them out at defend hawaiicom or their store in windward mall called no one. They got got crazy new drops. They're probably one of the best clothing brands here in Hawaii, especially for Christmas time. Go check them out, defendhawaiicom. If you use promo code ATBPODUPON, check out You'll get 15% off everything you order. Next, we have IREP Detail Supply and they're your one-stop shop superstore for everything you need to detail your vehicle. Go check them out. They have a store in Temple Valley Shopping Center. If you're listening from Vegas, they have a shop in Vegas. If not, go to their website, irepdetailsupplycom. Promo code ATBPOD upon checkout You'll also get 15 percent off everything you order.

Speaker 2:

Next, we have Hawaii Candy Factory and their stuff is everywhere. They have the cute packaging called Noms their snacks, local snacks. My favorite right now is the banana lumpia chocolate bark. But go check them out, um hawaiicandyfactorycom. Promo code atbpodapon, check out, you'll get 10% off your entire purchase order.

Speaker 2:

Last but not least, we have our medicinal mushroom company and it's um medicinal mushroom hawaii. It's a locally based medicinal mushroom company and right now they have four extracted mushroom tinctures and each one of these mushrooms have a medicinal property. If you don't know what medicinal properties each one has, go check out their website. It's med mushroom highcom. They have lion's mane, chaga, turkey tail and red reishi.

Speaker 2:

I take these religiously. The lion's mane is a good nootropic. I take some right before I record every podcast. The red reishi I use for sleep, um, but go check them out. Med mushroom highcom. If you want to order a mushrooms, you'll get 45 off your first tincture. If you use promo code atb pod upon and make sure it's all capitals ATBPOD, all capitals, all right, aloha. Okay, this week on my show is somebody. Honestly, since I started this show I wanted to have as a guest on my show. If somebody and I just looked this up I've known for over two, 20 years, over two decades, and, uh, I'm not trying to shout out our age, but, um, you've been my friend for that long and and someone that I really do care about, um rella from the radio. But I don't know why I'm calling you rella, because I know you're a pimper.

Speaker 1:

Rella oh my gosh, you did not.

Speaker 2:

That's secrets I put you on blast when, uh, chris styles was on my show and I'm like because you guys were together on the radio every morning and I was like, um, yeah, I know her as pimper rella. So, I don't know what this rella, shit is she's trying to claim.

Speaker 1:

But oh my gosh, pimperella, that's, yeah, that that's, that's far, far behind us. My space, oh my, yes, my space, okay, so do you know? How? Do you know how I got that?

Speaker 2:

stupid name. I remember you telling me but I forgot. But I know you told me the story, but you can tell it to me again.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so Myspace for you youngins who are watching this is kind of like an outdated. I guess Instagram, instagram and Facebook had a baby or or or had a grandfather, and it was my space, if you want to go even older. There was something called Friendster, there was something called Asian Avenue and I thoroughly. I thoroughly, in fact. I think we met on Asian Avenue. I don't know, maybe it was in the club, I'm not sure, but whatever it was um, yeah, I just thoroughly showed our age.

Speaker 1:

And I say our age, um, but yeah, there was, I think, at this one time. There was this guy. He was messaging me and he was like, so what is your ethnicity? Because he couldn't tell what my ethnicity was and so I shot off all eight, nine nationalities and he's he's like wow, he's like your ancestors must have been pimps then. And so he goes, I'm gonna call you Pimperella, like Cinderella, but the pimp version. So I renamed my MySpace page Pimperella.

Speaker 1:

And then when I got into radio I did a whole bunch of overnights and stuff like that, and I think it was I heart when I first started. And then I got a midday afternoon show, but I was just, I was the traffic person, so I would go in from one station to the other and at the time it was McCunney who was doing Island 985. And McCunney nicknamed me the Rella, like I was an object, and Makani nicknamed me the Rella, like I was an object. So, for short, he called me the Rella. And then when I finally got my own middays, I kind of just dropped the, the, and then I just became Rella. So it's kind of odd, because my husband doesn't even know what my real name was until we got married, he's like, like wait, who is this on the marriage certificate?

Speaker 1:

I'm like, oh, that's my government name, so he had no idea because we didn't call you rella, we called you pimper oh my gosh, that's right.

Speaker 2:

That's right, and I think you dropped the wrong part oh, yeah, of course, heidi renames all my friends None of my friends have a regular name. Nope, no, not at all. It was good times back then and I sent you a picture of us in Zanzibar I don't even know how long ago that was, gosh, because I was looking up old pictures of because, um, tati came up and I was looking for old pictures and that picture came up and it was you and tati and me and the. I sent it to tati and the first thing she said was oh, she didn't have any tattoos and she said she said you and I still look the same, so I'm claiming that awesome I'll take it.

Speaker 2:

I didn't realize that you didn't have any tattoos back then, I think you might have a tramp stamp or some ghetto, ever beach tattoo, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I did have a small little scratch pad, one that was like here, but of course it's covered. And then I did have like a tribal that went across my back. You know me way too well, but yeah, and that is still there, but it's somewhat like a rash it's. It's spread a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah, you went full tatted up, but it it matches you like you can pull that off like it. It looks definitely cool. Yeah, oh gosh, I do remember when you were on the radio for the um, for the traffic. I remember you. And oh, what was tati's friend's name that was on the radio?

Speaker 1:

um, shantilly did it. Shantilly, that's the one yeah.

Speaker 2:

Shantilly and I would always try to get Shantilly to play Linkin Park on the um. Hawaiian radio station and who is it a big tease. I forget what it was, but I bet them one time and I ended up owing them Jamba Juice because they actually played it on the Hawaiian music station would be him, if any, if you.

Speaker 1:

He doesn't like to lose dares, so yeah, I should have told you that ahead of time?

Speaker 2:

yeah but that was um, when we used to hang out every single weekend at Zanzibar and Pipeline Back in the day, we had, like the white, I remember going to Macy's in Ala Moana because it was white night or black night and we'd have to buy like certain color clothes and we would all every single weekend we'd be hanging out, especially with my sister and will and our whole little crew. It was, uh, definitely good times back then.

Speaker 1:

Um, definitely way more carefree and less responsibilities than we have now oh, yeah, definitely, yep, and that was before the white party was a white party. Yeah, before it was a thing. Yep, yeah, we were before our time, I think yeah, it was, it was good times.

Speaker 2:

And she I mean, like I said, I've known you for 20 years and it's been cool, I think, over over the years. Um, we always like we'll run into each other, but it's always the same Like I'll see you and it's like, oh, I just saw you last week.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, of course. Yeah, always the same Doesn't skip a beat, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I do know you also from through my friends who are racers, because you used to race. Right, you're midnight or insane, I can't remember midnight. Midnight, yeah, it was like a battle right and my boys were insane. I never got into that but I, my close friends were like frankie dem and you guys like had a squabble and they made it cool or whatever. But I remember you're known as the midnight uh girl I'm.

Speaker 1:

I'm a midnight mama. I'm the only female. I was the only girl on the, I guess, in the club before me. Their nights consisted of meeting up at Millionaire Walmart, racing to Kahala Chevron and then racing to Campbell and then racing back to Macaulay Zippy's just to have early morning breakfast and then that's it. They spread out and they go home After I came on board. So how I got with them was the guy I worked at Fluger Acura. I started dating one of the lot boys. He was in Midnight and I became part of the group when we broke up and went our separate ways. I still stayed with the group. So I was the one, because I've always been. I like to think of myself as one of the boys. So you know I'm an only child.

Speaker 1:

Growing up I was my dad's son till I was about 16, stripping, rebuilding engines. I almost thought at one point I was the ugly duckling Cause. I remember one day my dad wakes me up, he goes okay, girl, we're going outside, we're going to rescreen the screens. Today I said what, dad? He goes, we're going to rescreen the screens. I had no idea what he was talking about and I was like oh okay, so the old school screens. You could take it off of the window. You take the little rubber thing off, right, and then you cut the thing and then you go with the screwdriver and you put them all back in and he goes yeah, I teaching you this because if you never get married you can do them on your own house. And I was was like so what do you say? Who said I'm not getting married? Right, so, apparently.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, when I got into Midnight I started making our nights a little bit more interesting instead of just wasting gas. I did treasure hunts where they had a list of things like you need to get a receipt from 7-Eleven in Waikiki, you got to grab sands from the beach in Nanakuli, or something like that. You got to bring three matches from such and such restaurant or something. So it was a long. It was a long one Before I did that. I just made a treasure hunt. Whoever got the first, whoever got the best treasure, wins. I never did it again because on that first treasure hunt we had to meet up at midnight at a certain place. One person brought the mcdonald's drive-thru sign. They undrilled it, unscrewed it from the floor and brought the whole damn sign. Um, and at the time that was a whole 3d one where it's bolted into the ground Right and it says drive-thru.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Somebody came to the meeting with that. Someone came with a stolen Acura, oh, borrowed it, went back borrowed, um, and there was something else. But I never did it again because I can't trust them.

Speaker 2:

You provoke illegal shit.

Speaker 1:

I did not. I did not. I was like treasure, not stolen goods, treasure, it was a treasure hunt. So after that I did stuff like that we would do laser tag as a team, we would have picnics, volleyball tournament. That I did stuff like that, we would do laser tag as a team, we would have picnics, volleyball tournament, that kind of stuff. So and now you know, we've all gotten older, we try to have reunions every couple of years or so. Um, nobody's racing. I'm the only one with a stupid supercharged truck, but everybody else is like, you know, families, so family vehicles, and, and you know, half of some of them are cops, you know, and they've all made. They're all respectable people and here I am not, not, not like them ready for race through it was, it was good times, it was good times.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I definitely uh, remember hearing about all those and and, like I said, my friends were your guys' rivals. And then it was yeah, I heard about you before I even met you guys.

Speaker 1:

I didn't even know that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, wow, but that was a long time ago. I think that was when I was still competing and fighting, and not even that. I never, hardly ever, went to the clubs and stuff. Yep, and then there we were, and there we were in all our splendor. Yes, they're still still doing it. It's crazy. Actually, we're taking a break right now, but I don't know, things might get interesting in the near future with artists. Okay, I can't get away I want to.

Speaker 2:

It's like it keeps driving me back and it's not like I even am enjoying it nearly as much as I used to. It's just good money, and for me the creating something out of nothing is more fun than actually being there and looking at all these young, stupid kids that are learning stuff I'm trying to forget. Yes, been there yeah I just can't have an event that my daughter shows up to that's oh my gosh, I gotta well, I mean, you have you.

Speaker 1:

You have some time before that happens. Yeah, yeah and, and hopefully you'll be retired by then yeah, definitely hope, hopeful either that or just manage it to the point where other people are running it for you and you don't have to be there anymore I, I tried that and then I get into the most trouble because my employees or the people I have working, just they're they, just.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you know how promoting goes. Some people can handle it, sometimes it goes to their head and then once you got to deal with that, it's like then they can't do it. It's yeah, and plus too I'm. It's hard to trust our reputation that not I, that I help, um, keep going.

Speaker 1:

I didn't even build it.

Speaker 2:

You know, I mean like it's ronnie and I'm legacy, so it's very important to me to keep it a certain way and do business a certain way, and I can't be letting these young kids that are trying to fuck chicks and do drugs.

Speaker 1:

That's what it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh my.

Speaker 1:

God.

Speaker 2:

You got to do it discreetly. You know what I mean, maybe not the drugs, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you can't. You can't be a full fledged man. Whore, you got to like keep it under wraps somehow.

Speaker 2:

It's got to be a secret, so you don't look bad.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's funny. Be a respectable man, whore. You gotta, like, keep it under wrap somehow. Yep, it's gonna be a nice man, you don't look bad. Yeah, that's funny. Be a respectable man, whore. Yeah, piss everybody off and then nobody wants to come. Oh gosh, yep anyways. But, like I said, you've been on the radio for such a long time and I really enjoy listening to you on the radio and throughout the years I've always been a fan and and watched your career and once you had that morning show at cristal's, in my opinion that was the best because you guys both together were like the perfect storm. You guys played off of each other super good. I know both of you personally and I was like fuck, that should have been done years ago, because you guys honestly worked the best together and that was that was something unique. It's like lanai and and augie t. It was like one of those gems that was. That was just there. And how did you like working with chris every morning? Because he.

Speaker 1:

It must have been good fun to wake up knowing you be working with him in the morning you know, I had so much stuff going on that at that time, when they asked me to move over from bomb to high 93 and do mornings with him, they hadn't even asked me the full question yet and I was already saying, yes, yes, I'll do the morning show, yes, I'll switch over. I couldn't wait and I didn't need. At the time I didn't need the job either. Island Craft Fairs was doing well. I had some other things that were, you know, I had going on on the side. So if you don't need the money, what's going to keep you going back to a job that you don't consider a job is that you make it fun and that you look forward to being with the person that you're working with.

Speaker 1:

And being with Chris was. It was family, there was nothing fake, it was we played off of each other really, really good to where it was, to the point where we would have people come in for interviews, or the comment was always wow, you guys move really fast. Because in radio I was always told you don't have dead air, you don't stop talking, you don't say um, I say I'm all the time, but you don't. There's certain things that you don't do, right, and, uh, you don't talk about poop on air, you don't sing a sing to a song, and we broke all the rules. Oh yeah, but it was very. He made it comfortable.

Speaker 1:

I looked forward to getting up at 3.30 in the morning to go to work for just a couple of hours, and it was. I liked it. We fed off of each other and it was a good. I think I liked that it was organic, that we knew each other for a long time too and that we could do something together. And we had the same idea, which was making it a family show, at least until the kids go to school.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that's what I kind of liked about it.

Speaker 1:

So I enjoyed working with him.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, shout out to Chris Stiles. Unfortunately your time at the radio was cut to an end and super disappointing as a fan, and I'm sure the radio station got bombarded with like what the fuck and I don't know what happened. If you want to talk about it, sure.

Speaker 1:

So I thought I was getting called in for another reason September 30th it was a Monday I got up, went to work. About an hour into work I had sent in a vacation request for the end of the month, for the end of October. Every year I travel and I go to this Great Dane National Dog Show. It's a dog show, just Great Danes. I'm the vice president for the Great Dane Club of Hawaii, so I go and I represent Hawaii and I, small kind, look for dogs that I may or may not want to bring home or look at the line. So I know when it's time to breed, because I only have girls. I know what popsicles to ship back and popsicles are like frozen straws yeah, that's what I call them. They're cute, I didn't want to call it like.

Speaker 2:

That's some Heidi shit right there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know what? Then? That's the inner Heidi I have right now, because I didn't want to call it dog jizz. So I'm still, I'm still in like radio mode, right, so I gotta be careful on what I say.

Speaker 2:

So say whatever you want on this show.

Speaker 1:

I know I can tell you drop F bombs and everything but um what's your call?

Speaker 1:

So I see the dogs that I like and I, you know, order, and then the popsicles come in on a cryo tank and then you can store them for so many years until you're ready to use it. And then the popsicles come in on a cryo tank and then you can store them for so many years until you're ready to use it, and then it gets AI'd. But I sent in my vacation request and I sent it to my immediate boss and I sent it to HR. Within 15 minutes I get an email from HR and they're like can you come see me after the show? I thought because I didn't have any more vacation. I thought my boss was going to deny my request.

Speaker 1:

So, that's what I thought it was. So I went in during a halftime part of our show and they're like you done? I'm like no, I got one more hour but I don't have to be back on for another hour. They said, oh, just come see us. After I said why are we going into another office? She says yeah, and I said did I do something wrong? And she's like no, I don't think so. I said okay, so I did the rest of my show. So I did my midday and then I went into the HR's office. She's like okay, let's go. So she grabs this big, thick file and I follow her. She passes my immediate boss's office and she goes into the general manager's office.

Speaker 1:

The first 30 seconds of our meeting I thought it was fake. I thought he was joking. But I go in the office, they close the door. Hr passes the folder across the desk. My boss looks at it, puts it aside. He says I have very bad news. I said yeah. He says unfortunately, sales didn't do their job and we have to do cutbacks and you're part of it. And I said okay. And he says I didn't want to do this. We're going to pay you to the end of the year and he slides me this envelope. He says this is your paperwork for Cobra. I said all right. He says I'm really sorry. Again, let me know if there's anything I can do. I said all right, short and sweet, thank you. And I walk out.

Speaker 1:

I get into the studio, I start packing my stuff and I tell Chris I said all right, short and sweet, thank you. And I walk out. I get into the studio, I start packing my stuff and I tell Chris I said well, I'm done. And he goes you quit. And I said no, I got laid off. And he's like what? And I said did you know? And he never said no, he kind of just stared at the screen and he looked shocked and he's like I told him what happened and he's like that's why so-and-so from sales was saying that they weren't making their mark. And I said yeah. I said it's fine, it'll be okay. He says what are you going to do? Are you going to go to another radio station? I said radio is a dying breed. Listen to all the morning shows there are out there. I was like there's really not much. You have one that's already syndicating a show from the mainland.

Speaker 1:

I said there's not much. I said but don't worry, I'll figure it out. He goes you want to do a podcast? We can do a podcast. I said I don't know. I said I'm considering this vacation for the next three months and then I'll figure out what I'm going to do. He's like, okay, so he helps me with my stuff. We go downstairs, he hugs me by, I leave and at first in my head I'm going ah, it's fine, you know, it's a, it's a vacation for me. Sometime that night something told me to open up the envelope and I've never been laid off before, so I didn't know about Cobra paperwork. Well, this paperwork says your termination date is September 30th. You have till September 30th to submit this paperwork in order for you to continue medical. So the next morning I woke up with no medical for my entire family. Holy shit.

Speaker 1:

So then I went from being okay to being pissed and I was in. I was. I wasn't pissed, I was in panic mode because my husband has had two surgeries on both shoulders in the last year. I have a heart condition, I have diverticulitis, so every six weeks I'm having to go into emergency so I can get my meds. My daughter just had surgery on a torn ACL. She goes to PT twice a week.

Speaker 1:

So I'm like what the hell am I going to do? So I was panicking, called HR. I'm like, hey, I have no medical. How are you guys going to cut me on the last day and I only had hours to fill out this paperwork. Me on the last day, and I don't, I only had hours to fill out this paperwork. She's like oh no, you have a week to do it. Um, but I called Kaiser and Kaiser was like no, you don't have medical. So I had to figure out some things. Um, the other thing was I tried to apply for unemployment and I couldn't because the severance pay that they're paying me is in the form of a paycheck. So it looks like I'm getting a paycheck, like I'm still employed. So that kind of screwed me, because when they let me go.

Speaker 1:

All my endorsements stopped. In addition to my salary I also had cricket wireless as an endorsement, navy federal. I did some other stuff, so that cut all that extra income. So throughout the next week, um, the sales from that company called me, called me, text me. They're like we're sorry, we didn't do our job. Um, you know, we were shocked, we didn't think that they were laying you off. Um, they said, uh, other jocks from other stations called, other jocks from our stations called and text to you. Know, check on me, see how I was doing. And um, I found out, probably about two days later, that the same time they let me go, they let mj go from the bomb but she was part-time.

Speaker 1:

So they let her go and didn't give her any notice or anything either. She was a lot more upset than I was about it. Um day after that my dad finally calls and this is how my dad knows if I'm okay or not. If I'm not on air for two days and I didn't tell him I'm on a vacation, he starts calling me. So he's like um, I didn't hear you. The last two days is everything okay? So I kind of told him what happened and then this is where the anger set in. My dad says, wait, sales didn't do their job, but you did your job. I said yeah. And he says but you got, let go. And I said, yeah, he goes. Why didn't the sales managers who are in charge of the sales pit get let go?

Speaker 1:

yep I said I don't know, but now I'm mad about it. So you know, first week went by, nobody noticed because the listeners thought, oh, she must be on vacation, maybe kids got tournament. Week and a half goes by and then that's when all the people, all the listeners, start texting me and they're asking what's going on. Three weeks later somebody took to reddit and went to the hawaii division of reddit and asked where I was. And that's when somebody had said oh, you know, rela and mj, they got fired. And I was like whoa, didn't get fired, got laid off. There's a difference.

Speaker 1:

You get fired when you do something wrong yeah, so I ended up going on instagram and I was really nice about it. I said thank you, reddit. And yes, after 18 years, um through uh, visionary related entertainment to ohana broadcast to pacific media group. Due to cutbacks, I've been laid. So thank you for the messages, thank you for helping me with two number one morning shows that I've been a part of, a longstanding number one midday show that I've been a part of and I'm excited for what's next. So everybody's telling me do a podcast, do a live stream.

Speaker 2:

I even told you to do a podcast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm like oh man, I don't even know how I'm going to do this. I don't have any materials for this or equipment or whatever, and I know he's going to watch this, so I'm going to put it all out there. And this might be the wrong place to put it because he doesn't know. But everybody contacted me, everybody from the station contacted me Um and for three weeks, chris Stiles didn't contact me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, after we said our goodbyes in the parking lot, I never heard from him, um, from what I hear he had some other things going on. So I understand, um, but three weeks later, to emcee an event at my daughter's school and he saw my daughters, and only then did he send me a text message that said boy, I saw your two things. But I didn't reply because the only reason why I feel he sent that text message was because he was worried he was going to run into me and feel guilty that he didn't check on me for three weeks. But now you want to send me a message making like it's okay. So that happens, you know, you wanted to know. I'm telling you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so the end of October I go and I go to Wisconsin, I go to this Great Dane Dog Show and two days in Wisconsin a listener sends me a message and goes, somebody put the radio station on blast. They picked up a live phone call and they asked where you were and I said oh, yeah, she goes. Yeah, but they declined to say anything. They kind of danced around the subject and I said oh, I said yeah, they probably. Um, chris doesn't like to put my business out there unless he knows. It's okay with me, so he's probably not going to say anything. And so she was like well, they're probably going to replay it at nine o'clock and I said I doubt it. I'm sure there was a lot of people who were calling and saying stuff and it wasn't aired. But sure enough, nine o'clock comes and they air it again. I'm in Wisconsin so I'm not even paying attention. I'm looking at dogs in a dog ring and this listener sends me a screen record of the nine o'clock hour and it's my cousin, osna with Stacey, and somebody calls and asks where I was, and he was. Chris basically said you know, I'm not at liberty to say all I can tell you. Is she good? That number one ticked me off because you don't know if I'm good. You haven't checked on me, so that kind of ticks me off, but it wasn't too bad, I mean it's minor. And then he was like, yeah, you know, know, um, you know, just know that she's good.

Speaker 1:

And my cousin Osna jumps in and he goes yeah, you know, might sting a little bit, because you know, her cousin me is sitting in her seat right now taking her place. And I was like, oh, okay, but it's all for jokes, right, they're making fun. And Steezy's like you cannot say stuff like that. And he and osna was saying you just had me battle rap, so I'm in that mode, so it was valid. And so steezy goes. Well, you know, if you don't already, you can follow her on the radio, on instagram. She does island craft fair. She's out and about every weekend. And osna chimes in and says, oh well, maybe she changed her name to Rella off the radio and again. So another dig towards me. But I know he's making jokes, I'm not taking it personally. And Chris is again telling him come on, stop, you got to stop doing that. And then he says why she's not listening? Anyway, she gets to sleep in. So after that I came home I said I showed my husband the video.

Speaker 2:

he was not happy um, and someone you want on their bad side, yeah, yeah he's like I'll go broke his neck. I was like no, it's okay, he's family alone.

Speaker 1:

You know, he's 130 pounds, soaking wet, just it's fine. So my son comes in and he's like okay, you want to do this podcast, this live stream. I said, yep, I want to do it on these platforms. You know, just during the morning ride and he's like, okay, and we came into some kind of issue, some kind of problem, and so he did a couple, a little bit more searching and he was like I found something for you. And I said, okay, he goes, you're going to love it. I said, tell me already. He says live 365. It's a radio station, it's a, it's a full fledged radio station. So you can be live like a radio and it's just, it's yours. You can name it whatever you want and you can do this and that. And I was like, oh, you know what I do, love it. So we started it and it's crazy.

Speaker 1:

I didn't realize all of the work that it entails. I didn't realize that it is a bare bones station. So when I bought it I was like, okay, let's get started. I'm going to put music in here. There's this little search tab at the top and I'm like, okay, search for music. So let's put in this title. Nothing comes up. Hmm, okay, let's put in this title. Nothing comes up. I go to the frequently asked questions and then I realize that this is a bare bones radio station that has no music I have to install. I have to upload my own, which will only be my music. This live 365 gives me copyright protection, so whatever I play is copyrighted under them. But when I upload the the music, I need to enter the correct spelling and info as far as artist title, release date, album date and the album cover. That way, that system will pull what I'm playing and submit the royalties to the right artists okay so that in itself was crazy.

Speaker 1:

That took me a lot to a long time to do, still didn't even do it. I didn't realize that the minute I uploaded one song, it instantly made my radio station live. Oh wow. So if I didn't upload, if I only upload one song, you would hear that one song on auto dj just playing.

Speaker 1:

That'd be the shittiest station ever and this is this is me, not just as a listener, but someone in radio my pet peeve has always been through decades and decades and decades of music. Why do we play the same freaking song every 70 minutes? Okay, I get it because such and such record label is going to play. You pay you extra for certain amount of spins, which I'm not supposed to say because that's illegal. I think it's called payola, whatever it is, but that's what happens. Oh, you know, we'll pay, we'll give you extra money for this concert you're going to throw if you play this artist so many times. Well, guess what? I'm not getting any payola. I, I can play whatever the hell I want. So I finally get a chance to listen to whatever music I want. It's like listening to my iPod.

Speaker 1:

But I started to upload the music and I'm like, okay, I got to do different genres, I did different genres, but I wasn't. I couldn't organize. I have OCD, so sometimes my OCD will kick in and there is a certain order that things need to happen. So the music got to go in when the music goes in. Okay, I got to schedule a log, but I need to have sweepers saying this is Rella radio, listen to this at this time we got to do our morning shows. What are we going to talk about? And until I get a log in like a schedule where I schedule the song, the sweeper, the legal id talking in between, another song talking in between, until I get all of that done, my play, my library is just going to shuffle music.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I was like, oh my god, it's bipolar, it's going to play all kind of, it's going to shuffle music. And I was like, oh my God, it's bipolar, it's going to play all kinds of. It's going to go from Marilyn Manson or it's going to go from like Lincoln park to, I don't know, willie K down to like I don't know um black 808.

Speaker 1:

It's like oh my gosh. But after listening to it for a couple of days I was like I kind of like this mix of everything.

Speaker 2:

Remember Radio Free back in the day. Radio Free Hawaii. That's exactly what that reminds me of.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I liked it. But the new stress then became I feel my ears getting red. The new stress then became that if every song, especially the new songs nowadays are like three minutes, I need 20 songs. I need 40 songs for an hour. I need 480 songs in order to cycle through a 24-hour period.

Speaker 2:

I didn't have anywhere not replay a song.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and not replay so that's my thing, right? I don't want to play a song.

Speaker 1:

I want to replay a song in 24 hours. I want all different stuff and I was like, uh, I only got 200 uploaded and it takes a while to go through all of that and make sure everything is right. So at this time I probably only have like 700 of and after the first four days of us being up kind of sort of fully, at least having the morning and the midday show up, I'm already over to songs. So I got to find more music. But to find more music I need more hours in a day, because I've got soccer games to go to, I've got island craft fairs that we're doing, I'm going to school right now to be a personal trainer, so I have two classes that I'm taking right now. So it's a lot to handle. And then it's the added stress of I don't have this extra income coming in now, so how am I going to pay for the house I just bought? So it's it's.

Speaker 1:

It's been the last, the last, I guess. Two months or so have been crazy, more so since we launched the radio station and I don't know, you know what. I can say this. And going back to the radio, I'm very careful in what I say I would never disrespect any of the companies that I'd work for. One because you don't want to burn bridges. Two, because it's just, it's a corporation and that's what they do and no matter how much a company says, oh, we're family oriented, you're family oriented, but you let go of somebody who had a family to feed, and that's because it's mainland owners. And 30 days after I was let go and at their track record they've been letting people go on the last day of the month.

Speaker 1:

The general manager that let me go, letting people go on the last day of the month, the general manager that let me go, got let go on October 31st and I don't know if he knew it was coming probably not, but you know he was just doing his job. I don't know whether I was chosen or not. I do know that the week that I was let go that something was said by my general manager and said it was something to the effect of we need to look for younger so-and-sos. So there was somebody that replaced MJ on the morning show and she was a younger girl and they said that they needed to sculpt for more young girls like that because they work for cheaper. So I don't know if that had anything to do with it. Probably not, but I wasn't relieved. It didn't make me feel any type of way when the general manager was let go. When I told my husband he got mad, I was like why are you mad? He says don't you think they should have let him go before letting go the talent meaning you guys.

Speaker 1:

And I said yeah, yeah. So then I got mad all over again. I was like you're right, you shouldn't let him go. I can't be angry all the time. Just I've let it go already. Just let me try and concentrate on this godforsaken station.

Speaker 1:

That I thought was going to be easy, and it's not, because now I'm the station manager, I'm the program. I'm the station manager, I'm the program, I'm the music programmer, I'm I'm the production person that's doing all the sweepers and everything, because I have to make it legit. You know, I am, I'm the DJ. This is not what I signed on for, but on average, since we started the morning show, devin from, who used to be on Kumu, devin from 94, seven Kumu. He got laid off July 29th and he's been doing the morning show with me. He's been nice enough to drive all the way from Kailua, come to my home and do the show here. But since we've been on I don't know since November 7th or so we average about 500, 600 people within the 24 hour period. So we have people listening and the analytics is cool. The system I have, it pings where everybody is listening from. So we have like listeners in Albuquerque, vegas, california, texas, kansas, maryland, and then, of course we have big Island, maui and a lot of people on Oahu, so it was nice to see that people have followed me or just curious listening in, seeing you know how I'm doing or if it's any different than regular radio.

Speaker 1:

And, like I said, radio is a dying breed. So now that you can listen to your Spotify or your iTunes on your phone, people don't listen to regular radio. And if you want to listen to talking, you can listen to a podcast. We can listen to you at any time of the day. So mine is a live radio show, but it's internet based. I have less overhead, I have way more stress, but it's. I mean. I love it for the most part. I love having the control over being able to play what I want to play and I can make it. I can make it explicit if I want to, but I still want it to be family oriented and I still want kids to be able to listen, and so my hope is that this will be a regular thing, at least when the families are driving to school, and we can reincorporate.

Speaker 1:

When I was on high 93, it was my thing which was the whose kid is this? Because the one thing my husband had said when I was on the bomb with Ding Dong, he said I cannot listen to you. You I got the kids in the car. You guys are doing stupid, second date updated, talking about this and that and it's inappropriate for the kids. So when I moved over the number, one thing I wanted to do was make sure that it was family friendly and parents didn't need to worry about having to um, having to change a station or being worried if we were going to say something inappropriate. So I'm still going to take that avenue and once I figure out the live stream thing and being able to well, not the live stream, but being able to take calls on the system that I'm using, then we're going to get that whose kid is this thing? Started all over again so the kids can participate.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's super cool. So, how proud are you? How proud are you to get this thing started? Because, shoot, I've seen you at one of the craft fairs. What I feel like was a month ago and I was trying to talk you into doing a podcast, and now you're doing this, which is 20 times more your, but it's, it's in your wheelhouse. This is definitely way more rela than a pot, just a podcast. This is you and it's all yours. It is all yours. So you have creative control, you have the marketing and you will be able to get your own sponsors and it's all yours. And able to get your own sponsors and it's all yours.

Speaker 2:

And shoot one, you're getting 500 listeners a day and you've been on how many times like since november 7th, so like less than a month, less than like three weeks. Yeah, you gotta be proud, like I'm proud for you. That's um, thank you. That's pretty remarkable and from that it's gonna grow, because I assume once people listen to you, then they're always gonna listen to you. That's just how your shows are. If, um, you can grow now, it's not just in hawaii, people driving from hawaii, it's people driving all over united states and probably the earth. If it's internet based and I didn't even know, that's, that such a thing existed.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't do it because everybody would be listening to Metallica all day there's nothing wrong with enter sound man yeah but I would be my own listener no, I mean it's being proud.

Speaker 1:

No, I, I do get excited. Like the first day I was like, oh, there's 30 people listening and then, like you know, the morning show will end and it'll go down to like 12 and then I'll have like a steady eight people that listen all day and now it's like a steady from the morning show throughout the day. I have like 30 something listeners that listen all day and now it's like a steady from the morning show throughout the day. I have like 30 something listeners that listen all day long. And how I make my money without getting the sponsorships or the paid advertisements yet is there's already commercials that are scheduled in there, and every time it's listened in I get certain amount.

Speaker 1:

I it's split, it's like a 50 50 share with me and live 365. So if I've got 20 people listening for 24 hours, that's for, you know, 480 listening hours or whatever the heck it is, and they're listening to four minutes of commercials each time. Every time I get like 20,000 commercials that are listened to. It's not much. I mean it's like YouTube. You get like I don't know 20 bucks, whatever it is. But just with that alone and only having maybe 30 listeners on a After a month it would pay my one-year subscription.

Speaker 2:

Oh nice.

Speaker 1:

So it adds up. But what also adds up is they have different brackets. So if I have more listening hours, they put me into another bracket. Oh, you need to pay more for this, but we'll give you this and we'll give you that. You need to pay more for this, but we'll give you this and we'll give you that. So, for example, I've already surpassed in the first week I surpassed my regular amount of listening hours, which is you shouldn't get more than 1500 listening hours in a week. In a month I did that in a week and it might have been me and my son listening to the show, I don't know but or just my relatives, I don't know, or just my relatives, I don't know, but we surpassed it. So I had to upgrade. But with the upgrade it gave me better quality music that I could upload. It also gave me I forget what it's called, but it enables Alexa to let people search for me.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow so you can go.

Speaker 1:

I just submitted a little paperwork for it, so it should probably be up and enabled in a couple of weeks. But basically you would just say, um, alexa, enable live three, six, five. And then when it says live three, six five opens, you go um, alexa, play rela on the play Rella radio. And it'll Go playing Rella radio and it plays. And if you're like on, if you're on the computer or whatever, and you're Doing Alexa, that way too, you Can search for it and, like my, my graphic Will pop up and stuff like that. But that's being worked on. A Rella radio app is going to be worked On. So instead of having to download the Live 365 app, you Download. The Rella radio app is going to be worked on. So instead of having to download the live three six five app, you download the Rella radio app, you click on it and hit play and then it plays it. So kind of cool, that's super cool.

Speaker 1:

I thought my oddly enough, my most exciting moment was okay, my OCD right, I gotta be a full fledged station. I got to be legit. I don't want all these other docs who were happy that I got laid off or whatever. I don't want them to downplay what I'm doing. I don't want them to discount it, so I need call letters. Is that like a real thing? So I looked it up and you can buy call letters for your station, radio station, internet radio station. You can buy legit call letters that make it your own and at the top of the hour, like how 939 is KIKI, high 93 is KQMQ, and by legalities you're supposed to announce that at the top of every hour. I bought mine, so I searched for, I searched for K Rella. So if you're on the West coast, everybody's call letters start with the letter K.

Speaker 1:

If you're on the East coast, I think all your letters start with like a W or something like that. So I was looking for call letters that were like K-A, k-r-l-a, but there's a LA radio station that already has it, so I named my station K-R-E-L, k-r-e-l, so I bought it and I'm a legit radio station with call letters and everything via the internet with less overhead, and so that was. I was proud of that. I was proud that I had call letters and that made me legit is, or at least in my mind.

Speaker 2:

So that's all that matters. If people were to listen to it, going like, say, if I want to listen to it in the morning, the way I got it was it was on Instagram. You posted it and I went to your link and then I followed the links, but if I were to want to listen to it while I'm driving to work, how could I do that?

Speaker 1:

Okay, so there's a couple of ways. If you have a newer vehicle where you can activate your Android Auto or your Apple CarPlay, you already have Live 365 on your dash, so you can do that. Live 365 on your dash, so you can do that.

Speaker 1:

You can download the live 365 app from Apple, the App Store or Google Play, okay. Or you could log on to live365.com. You don't have to sign into any of these things. You can go to the website, you can download the app. It never asks you to sign in.

Speaker 1:

Once you're there, in any of those three outlets either the website, android autoplay on your car or the app on your phone you just go into the little search box and type in Rella, r-e-l-l-a, and then you'll see my little icon pop up that says Rella on the radio and says K-R-E-L because I'm a station, and then you press it and you hit play and then that's it.

Speaker 1:

So that's live, um. And we've also been doing video because I invested in these cameras that thank you for suggesting um. And now I'm forced to use it because I'm like, okay, well, we still have to do the video and I'll get it up on my YouTube page when I get it, and then we'll do it to all the platforms as soon as I figure out how to make sure, you know, the videos match the voice and there's no latency, cause I don't want to be, I don't want Devin's face to be showing and it's my voice coming out of his mouth and it kind of looks odd, although I do have a deeper voice than he does, so so, um, but yeah, so I have to figure out that part. We'll still be able to. That way, people can re-watch the shows like a podcast yep, so and you?

Speaker 2:

can upload it right now upload auto audio to all the podcast platforms, like you. Just pull the audio off and I use buzzsprout, and I put it on buzzsprout and then boom, it goes to everything. It's just nice yeah, I'll teach you how to do it. But it if you go on buzzsprout, I'm sure you could figure it out. But they give you a rss number. You plug it into each one and it's all on the website. You plug it into all to each one. When you launch it, boom, like you go to sleep.

Speaker 2:

You can schedule when it launches, it's like it's there in the morning and that's what I've been doing and you. You have the content. You just pull off the audio and like then people can listen to your audio without the music. With the music don't matter, it's um, it's what? Uh, like you said, that show um on one of the stations that's outsourced to the mainland, the woody show. They pull off all their audio and put it as a podcast and people listen to it as a podcast yep, yep.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm super proud that you're doing this. I I thank you. I knew you're going to do something cool, but I didn't know it was going to be this cool. I thought it'd be just a podcast and people can listen to it and, of course, you outdid my expectations. So that's kind of the trend. Having your own radio station is definitely something I could see you doing and running and shit. In one month you've been less than a month. This is how far you've come. I want to talk to you again in about a year and see what happened. And yeah, my dream when I was a little kid was to be a DJ, dj. So I want dibs as one show at one part or moment in your uh week yes, on your radio station that would be sick and I get to pick the music, that's right that's right, super dope.

Speaker 2:

Wow, I didn't even yeah, and I'll be the only one listening to it. I'm so proud of what you're doing. That's super amazing. Thank you, Wow, my mind is blown. I didn't know. I didn't even know that was a thing I didn't Like. Fuck all these other radio stations Like you have your own Like. Why wouldn't you Like? You know how it runs, you know what works and doesn't work. You have no corporate overhead or boss or anybody to answer to, and you're the fucking talent. You're the reason why people listen anyway. So it just makes sense. You know what I mean. Why should someone above you control the reason why people are even listening to the radio? That you can do it all? That's, that's sick. Wait, do I tell Heidi what you're?

Speaker 1:

doing so. I saw her when I flew out to Wisconsin. She was in the United Club Lounge. They were going to the Philippines.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, yeah, they just came. Yeah, they just came yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I saw her when she was flying out and I didn't know I wasn't doing the radio station yet because I hadn't heard that clip about my cousin clowning me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I told her about the podcast thing. I told her about the podcast thing. I told her about how I ran into you and, um, all the suggestions that you made and everything like that. And she's like, oh, you're doing really good and it was nice to see her. We gotta do lunch now but, um, but yeah, it's, uh, I'm, I'm waiting to be able to.

Speaker 1:

I think the great thing about being in radio for that long was I learned how it was run, how they ran it. I learned about the logs and how it should be scheduled, um, and I learned what not to do. So I'm not a pro at it, um, I've never had to schedule music at the radio station when I was there, but now I'm forced to because I decided let's make a radio station. So, but it definitely helped me being there all those years through all those different companies. It's definitely it was. It was a good, good thing to learn, a good experience, and now I can apply it in my own ways.

Speaker 1:

And once I have gotten the log thing down pat and I have all my day parts and all the everything's, all the everything scheduled the way it should be, I need to wait. Personally, I want to wait for 30 days and when my analytics shows this is how many listeners I have during this time from these areas of you know region of the U? S and UK and Canada and everything, um then I'll feel comfortable going to solicit, to sell ad spots and have people advertise on the show and get sponsorships and all that kind of stuff. Until then, doesn't matter how long I've been in radio, I'm still nobody. Nobody knows how much listeners I get and how long they really listen for, and if it made a difference if I was on the High 93 show or on the bomb show or having a number one morning show when it was me, sam and Ryan and everybody else.

Speaker 1:

Now, now I have the reins, which I can say this as well, because it's not frowning on the company, it's frowning on who my immediate boss was. Every time it was posed that my name should go first or maybe I should be the lead, the response was females are not leads in morning shows. So now we'll see what difference that makes. I'm doing it all now. I have no choice. It's not what I wanted to do, but we'll see how. We'll see what happens.

Speaker 2:

That's super cool, I'm yeah. I definitely we'll see what happens. That's super cool, I'm yeah, I definitely want to see what happens. Wow, that's, that's huge, and I didn't even know that that was a possibility like that's. That's insane how the internet works and yeah you.

Speaker 2:

You did your work, your son helped you out. Like I'm blown away. That's like a full-on radio station. That's, that's gonna be something, and leave it to you to be the one that fucking tells me about it. That's crazy. Good for you. That's that's. Yeah, that makes my little podcast uh, freaking. Um offered to just not even be a real thing like that. That way out does that like I, I thought you'd be amazing just doing a podcast. Now you're gonna do this and yeah, that's that's crazy. You're gonna. That's I. I can't wait to see how this blows up and I want your first bumper sticker.

Speaker 1:

I hope it does. I hope it's not just a trend. I hope I don't give up, because it's a lot of work and I have times where I'm having meltdowns. I'm getting up at 3.30 in the morning for this stuff and I don't know how somebody who is unemployed takes on another job that still doesn't pay them. So you know, I'm gotten for punishment like that, yeah, so I'm hoping it's, it'll get better, um, and the reward will come, hopefully sooner than later. Uh, but yeah, and and the podcasting people still ask oh, so it's live, but can you re-listen? Because not everybody is awake at that time. They still want to listen. So it's still it. We've got to do both avenues. I want to keep everybody happy, so, but whenever you want to take on a day shift, you know anytime you let me know, because that's the last amount of time I gotta talk.

Speaker 2:

I'd be down for that. Definitely down. Yeah, that'd be super cool. As long as of time I got to talk, I'd be down for that. Definitely down.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that'd be super cool.

Speaker 2:

As long as I could do it from my house, I'd be super down.

Speaker 1:

Yep, you can do it. You can do it anywhere. As you can see, we broadcast from my house, so you can have an internet radio station anywhere. That's super cool.

Speaker 2:

I'm impressed. I know you touched on it really quickly, but I've known you to do this from back in the day and it was I forget the name something etched glass, right? Oh, it was OK so when I first started my etched glass business, it was called Etched in Hawaii. Ok, I knew it was something etched glass business.

Speaker 1:

It was called etched in Hawaii. Okay, I knew it was something etched and then I changed it and then went about three, four years and then I changed it to midnight glassworks because midnight racing yeah midnight mama.

Speaker 1:

So I changed it to Midnight Glassworks and it's been Midnight Glassworks from 2007 till I kind of sort of stopped doing it in 2019. And I stopped doing it then because I had a falling out with a promoter. I was doing craft fairs as Midnight Glassworks and I had a falling out with a promoter that treated my son terribly when he was working for me and then she tried to get me fired from the radio station. So my way and challenge accepted, so my way of getting revenge was to start an event promotions company and take all her vendors. So I started Island Craft Fairs in 2019.

Speaker 2:

That's what I'm talking about. Wait so you get fired from the radio station, so you start your own radio station. You get drama with a craft fair promoter so you can start your own craft fairs. There seems to be a pattern here, now that I think about it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a pattern.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, let me know about your craft yeah, because I see it all the time, and I seen you at the one in the mall, one at pro ridge and because of that I haven't had a chance to have my own booth.

Speaker 1:

As midnight, as midnight, glass works, I have a warehouse full of glass that's still blank. And you know, when I got let go from the radio station, I was like, well, I have time now I can make product for Christmas. This'd be the perfect time, but no, no, that would be too easy. Let's start a brand new radio station with no music in the library and start from scratch and have sleepless nights. Let's just do that, because if life is easy it would be boring. Remember that, oh yeah 100%.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, so I haven't. I haven't done the edge glass or the water bottles or you know any of that kind of stuff. I want to start getting into it again. But I need to just like with you and the promoting. I need to leave it in the hands of people that I can trust. That's not going to tarnish my name. That's going to treat the vendors with care and respect, like I treat them. Because, at the end of the day, being a promoter at least being a promoter for craft fairs and event promoter your job is to make sure that your vendors are successful. You know and like for you. Your job is to make sure that all of your people, that all of your patrons, are having a good time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And they're paying you a cover at the door to make sure that you're giving them a good time. You know, whether it be to the advertising, to make sure everybody comes, paying the DJ that's going to play good music, the servers that are in there that are going to get out good because they're doing good service. For me it's the same thing the promotions, the marketing, having good staff, buying in yes, I did, buying an ATM machine so that your old kupuna who have businesses, who do not do the little square thing or don't know how to use credit card machines and only accept cash, will have their, their shoppers, go to my atm machine and go take money out so they can go buy from the kupuna that made a little handcrafted crochet, something or other. And so when my staff, when I feel confident that my staff can do the logistics, the scheduling, run the event on their own without me being there, then I'll feel comfortable doing Midnight Glassworks as a vendor at that event and selling my stuff myself.

Speaker 2:

That's crazy.

Speaker 1:

So yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's Christmas time right now, so what events do you have coming up? Because this is like your bread and butter time of year. Right, it pretty much is it secures?

Speaker 1:

it secures me and my staff financially at least the first quarter of the next year, because it's so crazy with events and people shopping and and vendors wanting to make money too on this time of year. So, depending on when you're going to release this, we have black friday weekend at the former toys r us space at pearl ridge. Oh, wow, that's going to be november 29, 30th, december 1st, okay, um, after that we have you ready. Ali'i olani Elementary School, december 2nd. That's a Saturday. The following weekend. Every second Saturday of the month we do Kamakana Ali'i. Now this one at Kamakana Ali'i the second Saturday in December. This is our Mahalo'i Kaukumu Holiday Gift Fair and School Supply Drive for teachers.

Speaker 1:

Mahalo I ka kumu, halare gifere and school supply drive for teachers. So mahalo I ka kumu means to thank your educator or thank your kumu, and a lot of these educators pay out of pocket for school supplies. At the beginning of the year they already get paid crap, so to have to buy school supplies for the Kiki that come without that's more money out of their pocket that they can afford. They can use to. You know, supply themselves, support their families. And it's not just school supplies that these educators are buying. They're buying slippers, they're buying snacks, because some of the kids come to school hungry. They buy plain T-shirts in case the kids are coming to school with dirty shirts or ripped shirts. Backpacks, board games to play in school with the kids.

Speaker 1:

Now, by the time December comes around and all the kids go home for a couple of weeks, whatever the teachers had bought at the beginning of the school year has already depleted, whatever the school supplies were. So we're doing a school supply drive for our teachers and what we do is we target the schools that just missed a cutoff. They have this thing called Title I funding. I'm probably going to get this wrong, but I think it's if there's at least 44% of the students are on Section 8, then the school will get this Title. I funding extra money to help with these kids.

Speaker 1:

Now there are some schools that don't make the cut. They had 43% or 42% of the kids that are section eight. So I go and I find those schools that miss the cutoff and we give to those schools Nice. So we'll be doing that Second Saturday of the month that's December 8th I believe, and it's from 11 to 5. If you come and you drop off school supplies to center stage, you sign a little um entry blank and you enter to win a hundred dollar visa gift card.

Speaker 1:

Not much, but it's a thank you yeah um and then we go and we deliver the supplies to the school. But we have that, we have. We have Ala Moana. No, I lied, kamakata is December 14th, but we have Ala Moana. We have a holiday pop-up shop the last week just before Christmas, december 18th to the 23rd. All of those can be found on the website. So if anybody's interested, you want to get some Christmas shopping done and find a one of a kind gifts, then you can check it out, island craft fairsorg and then just click on featured. There's. Each Island um has a tab, but the featured tab is the tab that has all the events that I put on um. All the other Islands will have our events too, but I also put other notable events on there so that you know maybe if I'm not doing something on a certain day, there might be someone else.

Speaker 1:

That's doing something so the shoppers and the vendors can find out more information on it. But yeah, island craft fairs that work that's super awesome shoot.

Speaker 2:

We've been going for over an hour and I'm gonna have to get you back on eventually because I got way more shit I want to talk to you about.

Speaker 1:

But I think we're good.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, I'm put a gi I'm just blown away, I think, yeah, I really didn't understand that whole radio thing to now. It's super detailed and yeah, I'm I'm, but yeah, these craft fairs this time of year, um, where can people find you on social media? So if people want to check out your radio station and also your craft fairs, Ooh, okay, so most of it is all done.

Speaker 1:

So craft fairs you can check out Instagram or Facebook look for islands craft fairs for me or Facebook. Look for Island Craft Fairs For me. You can look up Rella on the radio, instagram or Facebook, and right now, that's the info for the radio station too. I just got the website, krell radio. I also have Rella on the radiocom. So right now there's way too much stuff going on, but, um, for the most part, rela on the radiocom and Instagram rela on the radio. You can find all the details there. Um, everything else is in the works. My own app is coming out. Um, the website. I need it to be a legit website for a legit radio station. That way I can sign on to all these outlets that let me download music for free. So I have to be legit so I can get free music nice, so working on it right on.

Speaker 2:

And for us, as always, you can find us on instagram at above the bridge podcast. Um, our youtube's above the bridge podcast. My website is atbpodcom because I need to be legit, like her, and my Instagram is thaddydaddyhi.

Speaker 1:

Isn't it cool to make your own website.

Speaker 2:

Mine is very cookie cutter. But when I first launched it and I put in our website and it pops up and I use wix I don't know what you use but I'm like, oh, it's pretty cool to.

Speaker 1:

It's cool, yeah, and um, inside a joke. Um, since my husband is not here and your instagram is fatty, daddy, do you know that when you text me I didn't realize that your phone number is still listed as daddykins?

Speaker 2:

oh, that's very hidey-ish also.

Speaker 1:

I remember that yes, oh my gosh. But yeah, daddykins, I was like okay, I gotta change this, I'm gonna get in trouble.

Speaker 2:

Well, I appreciate you taking time out and, as um always, it's good to talk to you, I know when I seen you at pro ridge.

Speaker 2:

Um, my fiancee was like, oh yeah, that's your, that she must be your really good friend. I'm like yup, that's somebody I've known for a very long time and she can talk for a very long time and that's how we are and I think, um, I the sky's the limit for you, and, honestly, everything you've, you've been doing, especially as a mom too, and I guess the next time you come on I'll talk to you about being a mom, because I wanted to hit on that, but we're running out of time and I'm yeah, I'm so in tune to how you are as a mom, because you probably the funnest mom out there, just like I'm the funnest dad.

Speaker 1:

My teenager doesn't think so.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you are the funnest dad. You're the cool dad. Yep. Anyways, thank you again for coming on.

Speaker 2:

I definitely want to see how your radio station is in the future and if, given the opportunity, I'm definitely want to see how your radio station is in the future and if, given the opportunity, I'm definitely down to do something on it. That would be that's. One of my lifelong dreams was to be a DJ, and this podcast is the closest thing I've got, being that I do still sound like a little toddler or a little kid. You do not, but I'm gonna hold you to it.

Speaker 1:

You're going to have. You're going to have a shift. You do not, but I'm going to hold you to it. You're going to have a shift, I'd be super down for that.

Speaker 2:

But thank you again. Hopefully your craft fairs do well and happy holidays to you and your fam. Tell your husband I said what's up. He used to always be in the club too and I definitely remember him at Pipeline and all those days back then. Yep, right on, well, shockers for the cameras. Right on, we're out. Shout out to the Artist Groove Network Aloha, thank you.

People on this episode