All right, we are live. Welcome to Rise and Outshine.
I'm one of the hosts, Jeff Revilla, and I'm joined with one of the other
hosts, Wise. Wise, welcome to the show.
Oh, it's a pleasure, as always, to be here,
and hopefully we have a great show.
I was speaking to our guests just a little bit off the air,
but I'm excited. I'm excited to see what she's got and
how the show is. And as you know, on this show, we
like to get right into it. And Wise is one of the co hosts with
myself and Maria Daniels, and we've been alternating hosts over the
course of the couple weeks here. And on this show,
we like to talk about one thing, but we're doing all of these shows
to get to a main event in September. That's our big
goal. And Wise knows if you're in in the Pittsburgh area, you
better be present because September
27th and 28th, we're doing a
live show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with all the shows that come here
and do a great job are going to get invited to participate
on the main stage at the paduti podcast theater.
Po-uty.com Stay tuned for details.
We have some mini events coming up in between, but September
27th and 28th, wise is going to tell you
it's. The place to be. It's. It's where you have to be at, man. It's
a great opportunity for us to. To share our love for
podcasting. It's. It's a great theater. It's a great experience. You
actually get to. Hopefully the goal is to have a
live audience there as well. So you'll be doing your show live
in front of a studio audience as well as going as
going as well as transmitting virtually and everything else.
So I'm, I'm excited. I've already been telling people,
listen, you need to start booking your tickets now. We're giving you. We
started this when we did the first event, the event this
year, and me and Maria actually got to spend
time in Pittsburgh at the theater, and
it was a great experience to be able to actually hang out with one of
our good friends. It's the first time me and Jeff really got to meet in
person and Maria as well. So it was just. We had
a great time. It's a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to meeting more
people in Pittsburgh in September. And
leading up to that, we're doing@paduti.com a
series of global podcaster meetups. So we're just announcing
these now. If you go to PadUI.com once a month, starting
February 1st, we're going to do a global event every
month, a three hour event. We'll have guest speakers, we'll do Q and
A. We'll do masterminding and brainstorming, all to help connect
other podcasters around the world. That event, just like the event
in September, is completely free. There's no charge. You want to register and
get a ticket, that's great. Go to Paduti.com, get your
Global Podcaster Meetup tickets and then prepare
for September 27th and 28th.
We have a great show coming up. Somebody else I met on my trivia
show, Ayla Anderson Sparks, the Curator's Choice
podcast. Let's hear that theme music and then
bring Ayla on. We're asking the experts.
We're all on a mission to rise in the rankings and
outshine the competition. Welcome
to Rise and Outshine.
Yeah. Maria Daniel says I have to do the.
Yeah. Let's welcome Ayla Anderson Sparks to
the show. Ayla, welcome. Hello. Thank you. Glad to
have you here. We first met on a trivia show. I
host a trivia show called Stuff I never knew you were a contestant and
everybody, I think, just enjoyed your company
and one of your stories really resonated
with a lot of the fans. That's good. Well, because I really only
had stories, I didn't have any right answers, so at least they enjoyed the stories.
So tell us a little bit about your show. It's the Curator's Choice. We're
having you on tonight. And on this show, it's a, it's a podcast
showcase. So what we do is we bring on podcasters and
the people watching at home and Wise and myself are going to
act as judges, kind of like, like Star Search
or the end scene of America's Funniest Home Videos where you see the
audience voting at the end and what you're going to do, you're going
to scan this QR code or type menti.com and type in
that code. When you get there, you'll see
a little scoring criteria that we're going to judge Ayla show on
tonight. Now, these scores are always done with, with love,
with the, with the intention of helping and all
of us working together to grow a better show. So when
you log in, you'll see something that looks like the
Curator's Choice podcast with a little scoring widget, you'll
be able to slide left and right. We're not looking for tens.
Tens. If you gave tens the whole way down the Board. You're
doing a disservice to the podcast. We want honest, fair scores. Tens would
be the best thing you've ever heard in your entire life, which
I've heard some of a shows. It's possible.
It is possible. But what we're looking for, we're looking for strengths and
weaknesses in the show to give this feedback back to
Ayla in real time. And then after the scoring, you're
going to see a word cloud. And this is my favorite part. It's a stream
of conscious word cloud, where anything that you feel, if
you're motivated, inspired, if you laugh, if you hear a
funny quote, type that in and it's going to build out this word
cloud. And the more times people use the same words,
the bigger the word cloud gets. So it's a lot of fun. We
usually get 30, 40 entries popping in there. You can
anything, the whole show, you can keep typing into there. So,
Ayla, you know, officially welcome to the show. Where do you do
this podcast? Where are you calling in from? I'm calling in
from the grand old Hagerstown, Maryland. Hagerstown,
Maryland. Very nice. And tell us about the creator's choice.
How did you come up with this concept? What's the roots,
the origin story? Well, first, I do want to say
I absolutely welcome the constructive criticisms,
so please don't hold back. Give it to me. I would love to get some,
some no holds barred returns, but
where I decided to do this. So I've always been a really
big history nerd and a museum buff. And
I was joining the Peace Corps. I was going to serve in
Malawi, in Africa. And I was like, I want to listen to some
podcasts about museums. And this was right before the pandemic
hit. And I looked it up. I couldn't really find many,
which was disappointing because like I said, huge museum nerd.
So I went to Malawi. I was doing my environment
work over there and Covid hit
and we had like 8,000 volunteers
worldwide with the Peace Corps were evacuated. And so, boom, I
was with many other people who no longer was employed.
So I thought I would try to be constructive. And I was like, hey, do
you remember how I couldn't find anything about, you know, museum
podcasts that I was interested in? I might as well make one. And so I
did. And it's been a lot of fun doing it. And if
I'm being honest, one of the huge perks is I usually get to
go behind the scenes and get kind of exclusive content.
Be like, oh, I'm doing it for My podcast for my listeners, but
really, like, I get to see some really cool behind the scenes museum stuff.
It must be. It must be really nice to be able to find a niche
that. That people want to
listen to and watch and everything. And you be like one
of the people in the front, like, okay, this is. This is it.
This is cool. I love it. And I think
it's great, too, because I'm also. I was an educator at a museum for
a while, and I feel like the concept of museums are like
static. You know, they're for older people to just read a sign and then move
on to the next dusty exhibit. And I'm really excited to kind of be a
part of the revolution, telling people that they're
actually really fun and they can be super engaging and trying
to. The whole purpose of the podcast is to just generate interest,
to support museums. So if you hear something and the
museum's near you, you could go visit and offer them your patronage
through purchasing a ticket. Very nice. And it looks
like we're going to listen to a clip from episode 32.
And, you know, you started this journey a little bit after Covid. How
many total episodes have you generated so far? I now
have 59 episodes. Very nice. So I. Yeah, and I've
been. I've been. Yeah, I've just been so lucky. I've covered really
tiny museums. We call them micro and mighty. And I've also
covered some really large, popular museums like George Washington's Mount
Vernon and Civil War, you know, things like that. So
big and small. All are welcome and enjoyed. But this one that I
have coming up is from Las Vegas, and it is the Neon
Sign museum. And it was an interview I had with Aaron Berger,
and it was one that I think is fun for people who
might not be huge history buffs, which I
am, and I can get caught in the weeds. But I'm trying to
cater it to people who might not be very familiar with it.
So everything's very layman's terms and trying to make it welcoming
for all interests and education levels, I guess you could
say. Very nice. And you said you've been to some smaller museums. Any,
like, really cool, small niche museums? You know
what? Yes, there's a. There's an Idaho Potato
museum. It's not super small, but it's
exactly what you would imagine. It's literally just a museum all about the Idaho
potato. They've got the potato. Potato God. They have got the
Spudnik. They've got a little cafe
where you can have ice cream that's made from potato. I mean it's
fantastic. And then also there was a Indian River Citrus
Museum which is in Florida and it's just a single room
museum, but they pack so much amazing history
about oranges and citrus in it. Super fun
and obscure. I've also actually done the Poozeum as well,
I will say, which is a museum about fossilized feces.
So you know the wacky and wonderful.
So Ayla, hearing all these stories, if people wanted to connect and
listen to all 59 of your episodes, what's the best way to find
you or even connect with you? If they want to recommend a museum in their
hometown, sure. So I love recommendations.
If you want me to feature someone, please do send me the museum
and you can get ahold of
me@curatorschoicepodcastmail.com and
if you're looking to listen to the episodes, you can just search Curator's choice
on anywhere that you get your podcasts or I publish them
directly on curatorschoicepodcast.com
awesome. And this episode coming up again, episode
32, the Las Vegas Sign Museum.
And I think that's all the questions that I have
wise. Anything else you want to know before we jump into it? Oh no, I'm
excited to actually check out what the what the podcast is about. It sounds
interesting. Me being from New York City, I've been able to
growing up I was able to go to the museums in New York and have
a great experience there. So I've had always had a
great time visiting the museums. Yay. Sounds so
good folks watching at home. Scan that QR code or go to
menti.com type in that eight digit code. I'll have it scrolling
across the bottom during the video. Without further ado
everybody. Ayla Anderson Sparks Curators Choice
Podcast Here we go. Something that we don't get
enough credit for is the fine art that we have here in the
city. Yeah, there's a lot more to Vegas than gambling and
a red light district. You got it. Yeah,
there is a Vegas for people who hate Vegas.
Hi, I'm Ayla Sparks and this is Curator's
Choice, a podcast for history nerds and museum lovers.
From ancient relics to modern marvels, each episode of the show
features a new museum and a curator's choice of some amazing
artifacts housed there. These guardians of history will share
insights, anecdotes, and the often untold stories that
breathe life into the artifacts they protect. Thanks for tuning in to
this Mighty Oak Media production and enjoy the show.
Hello and welcome to another episode of curator's choice. Today,
we're stepping behind the neon glow and venturing into a radiant
corner of Las Vegas history. At the Neon Sign Museum,
With Aaron Berger as our guide, we delve into a treasure trove of
glowing lights designed to beckon weary travelers from
around the world. Las Vegas neon signs are more
than just advertisements, though. They're also historical
landmarks that reveal the city's dark and light
past. In this episode, you'll learn not only the ins and
outs of neon sign restoration, but also how
unique leasing agreements inadvertently became a
lifeline for preserving these glowing artifacts. Among
the stories highlighted is that of the Moulin Rouge sign,
which marked the first integrated casino in the United
States and was created by a rarity in the sign
industry of its time, a woman by the name of Betty
Willis. We also delve into the city's mission to weave these
signs into the community's heartbeat, installing them in public
places and even enshrining their maintenance in
law, exemplified by the legendary cowboy Vegas.
Vick. Whether you are looking for free aspirin, tender
sympathies, or the brightest lights in town, Sin
City has something for everyone. So. So without further
ado, let's jump right in. So whenever you think about Nevada,
and I mean, every time I tell someone I'm from Nevada, they
instantly go, oh, Vegas. When you think of it, you're like, las Vegas, Sin City.
You're walking down the strip, there's all these lights. What
kind of started off the. The flashy party
vibe of Vegas, really. Las Vegas was an escape
town. It was the place that you would get away
with it. And I mean that in almost every sense. So you would get away
with it and from it, I think is probably the best way of thinking about
it. It is a lot of glitz, a lot of glamour,
definitely a lot of glitter. But if you are able to look past
that, you can see there is an enormous amount of historic preservation
taking place here. And there's a lot of history that's alive and well in this
city. I love it. I. I have been to Vegas a few times,
and every time I go, I don't drink and I don't gamble,
and everyone's like, what are you even doing here? And there's an incredible amount
of history. I think if I had to look back and think of my most
iconic sign that I can picture, it's. I don't know exactly which
one it is, but it's the. The man who has the cowboy hat, who has
the bent leg, who is moving his cowboy hat. Like this? Correct.
That's Vegas Vic. Oh, that is Vegas Vic. That is Vegas
Vic created by the Chamber of Commerce and is just sort of this.
He was here to welcome people to the city. So he is under the
canopy. The original is still there. It is actually again,
Las Vegas law being quirky and weird. The
law is that if you have a neon sign underneath the canopy
on Fremont street, it must be lit so you
cannot turn it off and it must be maintained. The city that
never sleeps. That's it. So it is important
that we are preserving that history. So I actually had
to do an interview with CNN because Vegas Vic went
out and there was a lot of scuttlebutt about that. What
happens if a sign does go out? It has to be repaired. So they just
call a repair guy and they're like, immediately this has to be done. The owner
is responsible for maintaining it and making sure that it is
in working order. So. So yeah, so it was, it was.
These are the kinds of things. But Vegas Vic is fantastic. He's a
great, you know, cowboy. And then inside
Circa, which is sort of diagonally across from where
Vegas Vic is positioned inside the Circa casino
is Vegas Vicki. And Vegas Vicki
is. There was actually a wedding between the two of them. They're. They're
officially married, so. I know,
exactly. But you know, we've talked to the folks who. At one
point, Vegas Vicki had fallen into such disrepair that she was
literally being hoisted into a dumpster and being thrown
out and was saved by a property owner, Derek Stevens, here in
town and brought her back to full life. Charles
Bernard, who designed Vegas Vicky, is a renowned sign
maker and now she sits literally in the
heart of Circa. So wherever you go in the casino, you can sort
of see a different avenue or a different sight line of
Vegas Vicki staring back at you and she's. She's got her,
her big cowboy hat or big grin and she's a well
endowed country lady. So the proper welcome to
Vegas right there. You got it. Exactly, yeah. How many signs do
you have in your collection? It's a great question. So we have about
250 that are on display and I have another
600 that are in storage.
So that's one of our biggest goals, is to get these, these
guys out of storage and out into the communities. I would like to point out
as well that though it's a. It's got all of these signs they're on the
ground so people can actually come up to them and see them. The signs are
not up like how they were in front of the hotel. They're eye level,
so you really can see those. That's a really important point. And I'm glad you
said that. That's exactly true. And we want you to be able to
see the sign in its detail. We want you
to hear that buzz that only neon makes, which is fantastic
as well. What is the difference between neon and just a
regular light? So neon is a. Is a gas. It's a noble
gas. And when it's charged with electricity, that's what
gives it its glow. So in most signs that we
refer to as neon signs, they're either filled with neon gas
or argon gas. One will produce a color of
one color, one will produce another color. Then you add powder
coatings to the tube, the tubes themselves, and that's how you get the
variations in color of that. But they're all sort of under the
umbrella of a neon tube or neon color. So the two
different ones. Argon. What. What natural color without any powder is
Argan. Argon will provide a. A
yellow tube or a yellow color. Blue,
green and white, where neon gives you more of
that red coloring. Is there anything in particular that you can see
in style or in, I guess, brightness of color? You are someone
coming through Vegas, and a trained eye could tell the difference between
possibly one that's historic and one that's brand new. Yeah, so I love
that. That's a great question. So one of the things I love to take people
up and down Fremont Street. So Fremont street is really the origin point
of Las Vegas. Where the Plaza Hotel and Casino stands
right now. That was where the original train
station was and really the
birthplace of the city. So I like to take people there and
then just kind of walk them up Fremont Street. And one of the things that
I always encourage people to look for, and it's really
best seen sort of on the Golden Gate
Casino, which is right across the street from the Plaza.
But if you look at the Golden Gate, you're going to see
these metal rungs that are attached to
the front of the sign. And if you see the Golden Gate, it
goes up about, I don't know, 50ft in the air. And it's
got a series of neon outline and flashing
bulbs. So the rungs are
there because some poor schmo had
to climb up that ladder and change out those light
bulbs and would be, you know, this is all pre osha, right? So this is.
This is definitely not the safest act in the world.
And so as you go through the city and especially Fremont street and look at
some of these signs. If you see these metal rungs that are sort of
sticking out that don't really make sense with the sign, it was for maintenance.
It was totally there so that someone could climb up, change light bulbs.
If there was damage in some way, they would go through and fix it that
way. So yes, that's the thing to look for. That sounds amazing. I might
have to have to make that trip to Vegas and finally visit the museum.
Come on, come on. We'll show you a good time. Awesome.
Thank you so much for tuning in and supporting Curator's Choice, a
Mighty Oak Media production. If you enjoyed the show, please
consider subscribing and rating the show on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. If
you love a museum and would like to hear it featured in an episode, shoot
me a
message@curatorschoicepodcastmail.com
I'll do my best to reach out and see if I can get them to
be on the show. You can also view articles, artifacts and more
by following us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for listening to
Curator's Choice, a podcast for history nerds and museum
lovers.
All right, we are coming back. Ayla, very
nice episode. This was episode 32, about halfway through your
catalog. You chose this because you really just liked the
backstory you like you said you've been to Vegas before
and did you go to the Neon Museum while you were there?
So I still haven't been able to go. So this was a. Usually my
episodes are about 30 minutes to an hour long. So there
was. This was kind of more of a. Some of the highlights from there, but
I haven't been able to go yet. But when I do, I'm going to be
giving Aaron a call because that way I can get that behind the scenes
content. Um, but it is very, very popular for, for
venues and, and things like that. So sometimes you, you do have to purchase your
ticket in advance because they sell out quite
fast. So that's every time I go. I, I don't do it in enough
time. I like the, the, the, the
scale of what he was collecting or the museum was collecting.
250 signs on display and 600
in. As a. In storage. Like that's, that's a lot
of signs from Vegas history. That's the case
unfortunately with a lot of museums is they have so much to
offer, but really it's just the cost of having a space to showcase it.
So you're really seeing a small tidbit of what they actually have in their
history, which is. It's cool because then they can rotate their exhibits, show you new
things. Very nice. Wise, any takeaways while
you were listening? It was really good. I was really engaged. It
was really engaging. Love the way he was going into the story of.
Of certain. That of the cowboy. And
then. Yeah, so it's.
That's one thing. You definitely. You ask some great questions. You,
you, you, you. You know what you're doing. You, you, you. You're talking
about stuff you want that you love to talk about museums. And when you
find that. That topic that. That you're so passionate about,
it's easy for you. It's not. It's not work. It's more
as. Okay, I'm having a good time doing this. I'm enjoying asking these questions. These
are questions I want to know personally. And. And
so it's. It's very engaging. I. I enjoyed it. I'm
looking forward to actually listening to the complete episode because I have
been to Vegas three times, and I will be going
back. I actually went to Reno a couple
of months ago, so. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. You'll definitely have to check him
out. It's funny because I'm a pit boss in a casino,
actually. Okay. So you'll recognize
a lot of their awesome signs. That's fun.
Yeah. I agree with Wise. You had a great command of the interview, and you
were literally asking the question I was thinking about.
So you kept steering the interview in the right direction. I
thought that just your control and the questions that you had
were very well thought out. Are those things that you're researching ahead of time,
or are you coming up with those as the conversation
develops? It's both. I definitely have, like, a baseline of questions
that I want to ask. I look over their website, see if they have anything
in particular that really stands out. But one of the best things
about museum people is anybody who agrees to come on my show
and wants to be interviewed, they're already extreme nerds in
that topic, and they're already really passionate. So if it's.
They make it really easy on me because even if I, like, if I don't
care about trains, I'm like, oh, they're mode of transportation. But then you talk to
somebody who is just visibly excited about everything. Train.
It's very infectious. So it makes it really easy to get engaged
and ask those kind of questions. They. They make it easy for me, honestly.
We have a model railroad train Museum about 20 minutes away from us,
and they have a big display. Oh, do you ever,
yeah. If you ever, ever near the Pittsburgh area. I
know you said Hagerstown is only four hours away from Pittsburgh.
We have Andy Warhol and the model railroad train museum.
There's like a thousand other museums here too. So,
Ayla, we get to the nerve wracking part of the show. Everybody,
let's get those votes cast in menti.com type in that
eight digit code or scan the QR code.
Give everybody one more minute. I'll pull up the website one more time. Connect with
Ayla, listen to the other podcasts, other 59
podcasts about museums.
Curatorschoicepodcast.com you if you liked what you heard
tonight, there's more episodes waiting for you there or probably anywhere you get
your podcast. That's what most people say nowadays. So Ayla,
are you ready for the
scores? I'm ready. Let's do it. Here we go. Let's
go over to the feedback for the show and you're coming in
overall at 8.6, which is very good. That's awesome. That's where we're
looking at. And some of the things that you kind of preface sometimes you maybe
you've influenced the audience a little bit, but you mentioned that the audio quality
isn't exactly what you'd like for your host or for your
guest. You know, that came in a little bit lower. Kind of like kind of
hinted to that to us behind the stage before we went live tonight.
So you called that 1 7.9. But what's really nice about the
scoring is if you look behind the the dot where the audio
quality 7.9, you can kind of see the spread of how all the
votes came in. You had seven different people voting for you tonight
and the spread, you know, looks like most people settled right around
8. So overall 8 out of 10 isn't bad. Yeah,
this is an awesome way to display the data too. This is great. And
then engaging host, I think Wise and I both agree here,
phenomenal job. You kept us interested. Your passion about learning
about the museum I think really kept everything
engaging and moving along. Nerd power. We're
such nerds getting nerds together and then we just nerd out, you know,
unite. Yes. And the quality of
content was great. I think, I think I didn't even know
there was a Vegas Viki. So I mean, I was in from the start as
well. That was news to me.
The content matching expectation, that's one that really comes
up to you set the stage and you delivered on it. A lot of times
what we're Looking for. There is. People have a podcast,
maybe, you know, let's say the curator's choice is about
museums, but then they spend the first 20 minutes talking about their trip to the
grocery store. Right. That's. There's a misalignment there. People came to
see stories about museums, and you're talking about your grocery store trip. So,
I mean, you were. You were on point with your messaging. You told us what
you're going to tell us, and then you told us, and then production quality 8.3
is still a strong score in the eights. Again,
recording, you know, when you're not in the same room, when you're recording over
zoom or through a streaming service like we're doing tonight, there are things,
but you're all leaning towards, you know, the best in class.
Like you said, the audio quality and the production quality were kind of where you,
I think, fell probably where you were expecting. Now, after
seeing these, how do you feel about seeing the scores?
Honestly, I feel a lot better. So this episode I chose
specifically, as I was mentioning to you guys before, is because. And
I'm sure that a lot of the listeners can understand this, when you're an editor,
you are incredibly harsh
on the audio quality side. And this episode for me
was one where I felt the content was incredible, but the audio quality
was not. Not my. Not the best that I've
had. My guest was having some issues, which we can all relate to, right?
Oh, yeah. But it was so good that I didn't want to not publish
it. So I worked on tweaking the audio as much as I could without making
him sound like a robot. And this was really comforting
to me, actually, to see that this still scored so highly because you are
your own worst critic. And so when I'm going through and I was listening to
this, I was expecting everybody to be like, this audio is so bad, I can't
listen to it. So it makes me feel a lot better
that it's not. It's not a 2 that I was expecting. I think people
will be more lenient on the audio quality when it's a guest. Like,
your audio quality was solid. You sounded great. You could probably boost
your levels a little bit, but overall, your quality was
fine. When you have a guest, somebody phoning in
or calling in, it's a gray area how good
their quality needs to be. You want it to be as best as you can
make it. I do think most people are gonna be a little more lenient
on the guest versus a host. Yeah. Because it's.
You you would expect us to come in with much more better quality because we've
been doing this. As far as the guests that they're just bringing
earbuds and, and whatever mic that they have. Not
everybody, not everyone has a professional microphone at
home. So it's understandable.
I've had some really crappy guests with some
horrible mics, and you just do what you have to do
to. To boost up the quality, to try to improve the sound. Whatever you
can take out, whatever noise, extra noise you can take. It's work.
And that's one thing. Editing
podcasts, I've learned that it is a lot of work.
So I know what it is to sit there and. And I.
And even now when I watch interviews on TV
and you're like, okay, yeah, he's stuttering there or
he's doing this or he took a breath there, or it's a bunch of the
exact same thing. Yeah, it's so much different things now
as. Especially when you listen to audio so much
that you're already like, ah, that kind of cringe is there.
There's sometimes when I'm. Even when I go back to listen some of my
episodes and I. And for some reason my mic might
just jump up and then the violin goes up. It's things that you can't control.
It happens. But
overall, your quality is amazing. Your quality I have no problems with.
You sound great. Awesome. And so it was good.
Awesome. It is like that too. When you listen, you know, you go back to
some of your very first episodes and you listen to them and you're
like, oh, should I even keep this published on
here? But it's great because you can also see like the progression in your.
Yeah, and that was my thing was my nephew, when we first
released, when I first released, stuck in my mind, he was like, nah, we can't
release it, we gotta record. When I said it was just five minutes, it wasn't
that long. I was like, no, but. Because I want people to see the
progression from where I started to where I'm at now, where
the quality of my audio is so much better now than it was when
I first started. But that goes with time. That goes
with. When you continuously record, you
find your settings, you find where you want your mic to be
at, where to place it at. Exactly. Far from your
face. And all you learn how to, to.
To maneuver around this. So. And that's how. And that's how
you. That's how you improve is by only
just doing the. Continuously doing it. Same with
interviewing. I'M sure you guys have this exact same experience too, but you really
learn how to interview people because at first, you know, it. I was horrible.
Yeah, yeah, the same. I would be like, okay, I'm gonna count to five, and
after five, we're gonna start the interview. And like that. What, that's
exactly what you don't do. Because then all of a sudden they're like, any calm
that you created and camaraderie is gone. Because they're like, oh, I'm recording now.
And so, yes, it's, it's just, it's a big learning experience. So
if anybody does go back and listen to some of my first episodes.
You gotta even learn how to control the, the,
the show is. I've, I've learned how to, I've
had to learn to
just know when it's time to go to the next question
and, and learn how to make sure that I keep. Keep my
show within a certain time frame. So, yeah,
because when I first started, I was doing hour or so
long shows. I don't need that. People don't want to sit down and listen to
me for an hour. Let's do 30 minutes, 30, 35 minutes.
And keep it simple. And yeah, and,
and yeah. So I've learned to really
condense it to really. And that, that comes with time and
experience. Because now you're like, okay, when you're first starting, you
getting all the hiccups out of the way, you're learning everything. You, you're learning that
I don't need to do an hour. I can do 35, 40 minutes I can
do. So it's all a learning process.
Yeah. One thing I always say, you hear this from comedians or public
speakers, that hosting is a muscle. And like any muscle, you
have to strengthen it. And the more you do it, the stronger that muscle gets.
The more times you interview, the more reps you do, the more guests
that you have on your show, you'll become a better and better host. Like,
I rarely do the ums and the. Huh. It drives
me if I did it, it would drive me nuts if I did it. So
I, I recently I've been saying things and then ending the sentence with right.
Like if you were going to do that, right. Like I keep saying right at
the end of sentences. And that's, that's something that I've learned to
not do anymore because I've, I've done this so many
times, I can just keep talking without thinking about what I'm saying
and the conversation continues because that's all I Do because I'm hosting and I
know what, what to say next. See, that was just me
talking. Mine is. Mine was. And so that was
my, that was my right at the beginning of any
sentence. And so, and so now whenever I hear that just like
right then I'm. Like, you pull back and you like, hey, we're not going to
do this anymore. I don't say, I don't do the uhhuh and the.
All right, Ayla. My favorite part of the night, one that usually
surprises most people and we have the most fun uncovering
is the stream of conscious word cloud. So we
had seven votes come in and let's see. And now this one is
unlimited. So people can continually add words as
they get inspired by your show. Let's go to the word
cloud. Looks like five people kept putting in 29
responses. And let's see what some of the things that people
said. That was me. 600 signs in storage. I already gave that one
away. I love Fecal Museum. Fecal
Museum. Great conversation, history,
informative, entertaining. So the, the bigger the words, the more
times that other people have used them. So, you know, entertaining and
informative popped up a couple times. A couple people use that. I see
engaging in there. I think Aaron Burr. That wasn't his
name, was it? Aaron, what was your guest name?
Oh, Aaron Berger. Berger. Not. Not to be confused
with Aaron Burr. Educational was in there.
Great questions, good energy. The
Vegas signs must be lit. We learned that in this show.
Vegas Vicky is taken. I love that one.
You can't marry Vegas Vic. Married Vegas Vicky.
Uh, neon signs. Uh, engaging host. There's
another one of those engaging hosts. Um, the
Vegas Vic Lights out. So these are good energy.
There's a good energy on there as well. These are
a lot of fun. What do you. Now you're seeing some of the inspiration people
took from the show. What do you think of some of the words you're seeing?
I love it. I, yeah, I, I'm super happy to find out that it
isn't entertaining because, you know, you always feel
like who really wants to hear what I'm, you know, talking about and
bringing to the table, especially when you're beginning podcasting. So
it's really great to hear that that was entertaining for people because
it's easy to be. I will give a lot of credit to listeners as well
because it's easier to be entertained and engaged when it's a one on
one and you're actually having the conversation. I feel like it's a whole nother thing
to be able to be a listener and still find it engaging. And
so that's, that's really wonderful feedback. So
glad you enjoyed it. We're so glad to have you here tonight. Ayla
Anderson Sparks the Curator's Choice Podcast.
Anything you'd like to leave on a high note or just tell people how to
connect with you and reach out to you. Just thank you all
for participating. And if you like history, you're
a history nerd or a museum lover, please just check out the
podcast. Awesome.
CreatorsChoicePodcast.com we'll have these all linked up in the show notes for those
of you listening on audio wise,
anything you'd like to plug, promote, talk about.
Check Check out my latest episode of Stuck in My Mind podcast. I had
the amazing Jesse Torres on. She was
she has an amazing story, talks about being
abused as a child and the murder of her two brothers.
And it was a great conversation and I really
enjoyed it. So definitely check out the latest episode of Sucking My Mind podcast
on all major platforms as well as Sucking my mind
podcast YouTube channel. Awesome. I'm Jeff. I have
this behind me is the PDUTI Podcast Theater in downtown to Renam.
We do live shows. We have a big event coming up in
September. I was trying to get that up in September of
2025, but starting February 1st wise
myself Maria Phil better we'll be working
together to put together a global podcast meetup. This
is all part of a big event structure that we're building out
February 1st. Go to pduti.com get your free
tickets, no cost pduti.com there'll be three
hours of podcast entertainment, education, speakers,
masterminds, brainstorming. We're going to put it all together
February 1, 2025. Pduti.com I'm Jeff. This
has been the Rise and Outshine with the Curator's
Choice podcast. Let's hear that theme music.
We're asking the experts. We're all on a mission to
rise in the rankings and outshine the
competition. Welcome to Rise and
Outshine. Yeah.