Frag-Net Gets Demented: A Chat with TC

Intro

Welcome to the second ever Frag-Net interview! We have a guest you may remember if you were an old school Quake player, for the interviewer now gets interviewed, give it up for TC of MeccaWorld and Daily Dementia fame.

MeccaWorld was a gaming website that was briefly popular in the mid-90s for hosting DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake maps/mods while Daily Dementia was a very early internet podcast starting around March of 1998. One of our staff, Xylemon, took an interest in TC while browsing the Wayback Machine and our favorite game site, Blue’s News. Thanks to a tip from a friend, Xylemon learned that TC was running a record shop that was just a reasonable driving distance away from him. After hitting up TC’s e-mail, Xylemon wound up visiting TC’s store, Rock This Town Records, where TC agreed to do an on site audio interview!

It just blew our minds that this worked out. After so many dead trails or people unable to talk for perfectly valid reasons, we found another great guest willing to let us pick at their brain and document some history.

This all happened way back in mid January of this year and let us tell you, editing an interview can be a daunting task! Especially when it’s been a busy year all around. Thankfully, because it’s been so long, we got back in contact with TC who gave us nearly 40 episodes of Daily Dementia! These have not been uploaded to YouTube and probably have not been heard in almost 30 years! Included are interviews with some of the guests mention like Tom Hall and Geoff Keighley! Be sure to check out the archive.org page. Thank you so much for this TC!

Anyways, after months of editing, transcription, and research, we are just dying to share our interview. Please enjoy this trip down memory lane as we talk gaming along with web history.

Video

Since this is an audio interview, we wanted people to have a transcript that also had visuals you could read along with. We’ve created a video that we will be uploading to YouTube as well, but for now here is a DRM free embed courtesy of our servers:

Audio

Transcript

Sign On - 01:55

FN: This is a special interview for Frag-Net, our website. Today we are going to get demented! You know because we’re going to talk with- if you don’t mind me calling you TC?

TC: Nah that’s cool, that’s cool.

FN: TC of Daily Dementia fame. You were also behind, if I’m correct, was it MeccaWorld? As well?

TC: Yeah MeccaWorld, yes yes. And once a month I would get uh, threatening e-mails.

FN: Really!?

TC: You can probably guess why.

FN: Yeah…

TC: I just thought it was a cool name and then, yeah.

FN: Yeah, it is a cool name!

both laugh

FN: And also you now you own this awesome record store known as Rock This Town Records, right?

TC: Yeah yeah yep. It’s been a fun ride.

Question 1 - About Yourself - 02:35

FN: Yeah! So, let’s start off just uh- Tell us a little bit about yourself?

TC: Uhm, yeah! I don’t, I don’t- That’s always a tough question for everybody, so.

FN: Yeah.

TC: I was once hit with a swing- I was once hit in the eye with a swing so there’s that. And there was blood flowing down, but this was like when I was like six or five, so that’s that.

FN: Yeah laughs

TC: And then yeah, my love of blood, and uh- DOOM, and everything uh- Quake, and then uh move forward. So but, yeah.

Question 2 - Hometown - 03:05

FN: Have you always lived in Arizona or?

TC: No, when I was doing the Daily Dementia, I’m a Minnosota boy, so it was coming out of the Twin Cities of Minnapolis.

FN: Oh ok, oh wow. Did you move here because it’s just not as cold or? Just out of curiosity.

TC: So yeah, little bit of a long story: We uh- I met my wife online before it was kind of, taboo to do that.

FN: Oh really?

TC: It was like, ’99 she asked a question- We were part of a “Def Leppard Mailing List”.

FN: Oh wow!

TC: Back in the day of the Mailing List. Well everythng was slow(?) back then, whether it was the Daily Dementia, and RealAudio, and stuff like that. Uhm and then we ended up connecting, and then I moved to Arizona cause she was in Arizona but it was up in Prescott. And then uh we moved to Colardo Springs, and then we moved to- back to Minnesotta, then about seven and half years ago we moved uh here to Phoenix again.

FN: Oh that’s cool, that’s interesting.

TC: Because yeah I was tired of the uh, cold. I love the snow.

Question 3 - Computers - 04:05

FN: So uh- Next question, um I was gonna ask: How did you get into Computers, do you remember? Do you remember what your first computer was by any chance?

TC: So I was fascinated by like- it was like uh, I think it was the Atari 400? It was one of those early Ataris that have like this weird keyboard on it. It wasn’t like a real keyboard, but it was like a tactile keyboard kind of.

FN: Oh ok, yeah, back when they made those rubber keys and weird stuff.

TC: Yeah exactly yeah, so that was kind of it, and then I really wanted an Apple II.

FN: Oh yeah!?

TC: That was like the computer to have when I was growing up. And, I thought, there’s a box under the tree, it’s Christmas of like, I don’t know 80-something, and I open it up and it’s a Tandy Computer. And my mom says, “The guy at the store said these were better than the Apple computers.”

FN: Oh man! laughs That’s funny.

TC: Yeah… so but I still used the Tandy, I wrote some code on it. And I used like a little old school cassette player to save everything.

FN: Oh I bet! Yeah, that’s really cool.

TC: So yeah anyways, that’s how I got into computers.

Question 4 - Programming Languages - 05:10

FN: Do you remember what language it was by any chance?

TC: It was just BASIC, it was like you know: “print, go, gosub, goto” all that good stuff.

FN: It was literally BASIC!

TC: It was BASIC.

both chuckle

TC: And that’s pretty much the extent of my uh, coding skills. I know a little PHP, and a little, well HTML.

FN: Same here.

TC: Because with MeccaWorld, that was all HTML. That was all just, you had to build that out manually.

FN: Oh yeah.

TC: And then I founded something called, HomeSite, that was really cool. So…

Question 5 - A Series of Tubes - 05:40

FN: That was actually going to lead me to my next question. I was gonna ask you: So what got you into the Internet? Did you like start off with like Bulliten Board or USENET or did you join when the World Wide Web happened?

TC: Yeah I once uh- it wasn’t really called FTPing, like TELNETing or something? And like the universe-

FN: Yeah and there was like Gopher.

TC: Yeah and Gopher which was out of the University of Minnosta up there. Because the team name is “The Gophers”, nickname of the school and yeah.

FN: Oh yeah really? That’s interesting, I actually never made that connection before, that’s really neat.

TC: But yeah, I wasn’t using Gopher it was like TELNET or I don’t know what it was. Like the University of Chicago, this was like maybe early 90s, mid early 90s? And yeah, there was Prodigy and all these places like Compuserve and stuff like that and I was on message boards and stuff like that. And uh yeah, so then ’96 started the MeccaWorld website around. Because I loved- we use to play in Mineapolis on DWANGO, you ever heard of DWANGO?

FN: Yes, yeah!

TC: OK, out of Dallas (Texas) so it let you connect into a local hub, and then play DOOM or Duke Nukem or games like that. I was never that good.

FN: laughs It’s ok never was I.

TC: Yeah, yeah.

TC: A friend of mine built maps for DOOM and DOOM II, he called them the condiments WADs it was like the “SALSA.WAD” and the “KETCHUP.WAD”, and the “MUSTARD.WAD”.

FN: That’s awesome. laughs Oh that’s really cool.

TC: And then he did a bunch of Quake ones (maps) too, and I always wanted build to a map for Duke Nukem 3D because there was- it would be like entering “Hollywood Holocaust” and back at the time, Mariah Carry was really hot, and really hot. If you know what I mean?

FN: laughs Oh yeah.

TC: And so I always wanted to make a map called Mariah Carry, and when load it would say, “Now entering Mariah Carry” smirks So remedial, but so fun.

FN: Oh yeah and the BUILD editor was really intuitive too because it was like realtime preview-ish and stuff like that for the time.

TC: Oh yeah. Yep.

Question 6 - Gaming Rig - 07:45

FN: Really quick I was gonna ask you: Do you remember what gaming rig you rocked at the time when you start MeccaWorld at all? I know it’s going really back now.

TC: I think it might have been- it wasn’t anything special, I had a Packard Bell that I used for the Daily Dementia.

FN: Oh ok interesting.

TC: Terrible computer.

FN: laughs

TC: Just terrible- but I think the computer I had- oh it was a Gateway! I guess Gateway still exists right?

FN: Yeah, I think so?

TC: With the Cow logos on the box?

FN: Yeah I know the box, long time ago…

TC: But yeah I don’t remember what it was. I think I was all jazz’d because it was like, yeah I got the computer and a buddy of mine helped me set it up, he really wasn’t a buddy, I don’t know why I needed the help to set it up but it was new to me and he was kind of an expert so. He was like “I don’t know why need 2MB of RAM” or whatever. I paid for 2MB of RAM and he thought that was just so overkill.

FN: Really? chuckles

TC: Yes. smirking

(Not in Audio) Xylemon relays a similar story he had

FN: …I knew the day would come.

TC: We’ve gone from MegaBytes to Gigs.

FN: I know it’s insane, with this Nerual Network stuff not even 32 (GB) is not even enough sometimes. It’s insane.

Question 7 - Favorite Games (Back Then) - 08:57

FN: This will lead into MeccaWorld, what was some of your favorite games back then? You mentioned Duke and DOOM?

TC: Yeah uh, a buddy of mine was playing DOOM and I was fascinated by it. I’d go over to his house and watch. He also loved- he was kind of the influence on me there with like Sam & Max: Hit the Road and stuff like.

FN: Oh really that’s cool, LucasArts!

TC: Really OG stuff- yeah LucasArts stuff. And then yeah so we started playing DOOM and he was playing on a Gravis Gamepad. Not mouse and keyboard.

FN: Oh really? That’s weird! Really? Wow.

TC: And whenever I’d watch him play, I’d get motion sickness. And then shortly there after, which was great because, DOOM comes out and then like- nine months to a year later DOOM II’s already out. There wasn’t waiting like we have now for you know, tweleve years for Grand Theft Auto 6 or whatever.

FN: Oh I know, I know. Quake seemed like it took forever to come out back in those days. Like games would take two years or whatever.

TC: I know… So yeah so then I picked up the Gravis Gamepad and then he finally um, smacks lips gave up the Gravis Gamepad. Especially when we started playing on DWANGO. And he was just owning me constantly-

FN: laughs Yeah.

TC: And I’m like “well I can’t play on a Gravis Gamepad anymore”. I need to do mouse and keyboard. And then yeah so I mean, DOOM, Duke Nukem, I loved Warcraft, Zub (?), that kind of thing.

FN: That’s cool.

TC: Yeah. And then there was like old school games like a text based game that I still love to this day, it’s called “Roadwar 2000”. Mutants attack, and your basically- it’s just the most frustrating game ever, but I think it would be a fun game if somebody actually remade it. And it just probably have to be a text game, but it’s just so frustrating because you always get killed in it so fast. You build up a gang, and you get vehicles, and then you loot, and you rob, and you try to take control of towns.

FN: chuckes Yeah!

TC: And I don’t know. It’s just kind of a fun game.

FN: That’s awesome.

TC: And there’s other games I just don’t remember.

FN: Yeah I getcha.

TC: There was one game that I really loved, but for the life of me after all these-

FN: Was it like a platformer or something?

TC: Um, I loved Mario I mean, and I love some of those 3D- “Major Striker” 3D Realms game, and there was another game. That was really cool. But these were kind of like early, really early ’90s games and I’m thinking of that, there was no online component you’re just playing it, but it was super fun but I don’t remember what it was called. And I don’t remember really how to describe that game, so that was kind of pointless of me to talk about. chuckles

FN: Nah that’s ok, it’s still interesting to hear about ya know? There’s so many games, there’s games we still are kind of just rediscovering because they just kind of got lost and just, translation of so many games that came out.

TC: Yeah it’s like Music right?

FN: Yeah, exactly! Exactly.

TC: There’s so much music that it bypasses you and then eventually you roll back around to find that, “yeah Kayne West is pretty good”, “Pink Floyd is pretty good”.

FN: Yeah, it’s a good thing people started documenting all this stuff too.

TC: Yeah exactly.

Question 8 - Favorite Websites - 11:50

FN: What was some of your favorite websites? I know you mentioned Blue’s News and Voodoo Extreme. I know this came a little later though after MeccaWorld I think, or around the same time.

TC: Yeah. Probably came- I don’t- Jeez I don’t even know what sites I went to- I think Blue’s News might have started in ’95 maybe?

FN: I think he recently said it was ’96, he had his 27th anniversary-

TC: OK cause MeccaWorld started May 6th of 1996. I’m really good at remembering dates.

FN: Yes, yes I read that! Yeah.

TC: But before that, I don’t know what was out there other than, maybe like the IGNs of the world or the GameSpots? But like independent sites I mean, the redwood.stomped.com Sean Martin? And then I don’t know when Steve Gibson started, um, Shack News I guess it’s called now right? sCary’s Shuga Shack?

FN: Yeah, Shack News. That’s what it use to be called originally?

TC: Yeah, yep.

FN: OK interesting. Yeah Shack News is actually still around today.

TC: Yeah, I know, they do pretty well I think. I don’t think Steve has anything to do with it, I think he left.

FN: Probably not, yeah I don’t think so.

Question 9 - Voodoo Extreme & Billy Wilson - 13:03

FN: Can you tell us anything about Billy Wilson and Voodoo Extreme?

TC: He was a good guy. The first time I talked to him, when I invited him on the Daily Dementia, he’s like “yeah yeah cool”, and I’m talking to him and he’s like, “I got some KoЯn going in the background, I hope you don’t mind”. And at that time I was still maybe, really influenced by the ’80s, but then I also loved you know the metallic and the ’90s and stuff so. I had no idea that he was referencing the band KoЯn and I thought to myself, “why the hell is he telling me he’s got corn…” I thought he was like making corn in the background I’m just like so that was kind of a little fun story.

FN: laughs

TC: Then he obviously had the brother which went by, “Sweet Dick”, and I had both those guys on the show one time.

FN: Yeah that’s a really cool episode by the way.

TC: Yeah, oh okay cool.

FN: I’ve seen [heard] that one yeah.

TC: Yeah, Billy was really just a really nice guy yeah um and-

FN: So like VoodooExtreme was like a really popular site back then though-

TC: Yeah.

FN: I know it sounds kind of stupid to mention this but we have to: You can even see in a 3D Realms employee screenshot they just have VoodooExtreme just open in the background and stuff, yeah.

TC: Oh yeah, yeah yep. Yeah because Billy just was a wordsmith, he was just so good at what he did.

FN: Yeah especially the “Blahs”?

TC: Yeah the “Blahs”, yeah yeah.

FN: I guess he kind of like invented what we call, “Microblogging” in a way.

TC: Exactly, yep yep.

FN: It’s kind of interesting to think about.

TC: And then Blue did that a lot in recent years.

FN: Yeah I think Blue took inspiration from that

TC: But yeah and then there was another guy, um who I think had a falling out with Billy maybe, another guy named Alex who was one of the writers there.

FN: Yeah there was some internal conflict at Voodoo.

TC: Yeah where Alex started, uh what is it, “Sharky’s Extreme” or whatever but I don’t remember Alex’s last name. And then there was another site that I was friends with, “Amer Ajami”, who had “Serilus 3D”, along with Craig, but I don’t remember Craig’s last name. And then Amer went on to you know build games for EA and stuff.

FN: Oh wow.

TC: So yeah if you look up “Amer Ajami”, really cool guy had him on the show a lot he was a fun guy to talk to. Just like Tim Tibbits from 3D Files back in the day, eventually they sold that to- I think they sold that to ZDNet that got purchased by CNET.

FN: Yeah yeah that’s what it was yeah. God that was so long ago.

TC: Oh yeah and then he started MajorGeeks which he still has to this day. Yeah so…

FN: Oh yeah MajorGeeks yeah

TC: But yeah Billy was a really sweet guy, really nice, and but I don’t know that much about him.

FN: That’s fine.

TC: Yeah unfortunately, we talked but we just you know we weren’t close but we were friendly.

FN: Yeah that’s, that’s cool. No thank you just it’s just good to get some type of confirmation about some of this stuff.

TC: Yeah, right.

Because you look online the most you can get just is, “we remember Billy and he was a cool guy” but that you know we need a little bit more of like how important was VoodooExtreme and that kind of stuff.

TC: Oh yeah I loved that site too. I mean that was probably, with all due respect to yeah like Blue, “Stephen Heaslip” of Blue’s News and Sean Martin, that was probably my favorite site to check yeah for news every day, uh, in that in that world. I would probably when I was doing the Daily Dementia I would basically go to his site and steal all the stuff you know what whatever I want to talk about, “oh VoodooExtreme is going to have it” you know? So yeah.

FN: Totally laughs. Yeah yeah that’s pretty cool well thank you.

Question 10 - MeccaWorld’s Origins - 16:55

FN: I was reading about MeccaWorld, you said on the about that it started off as like a Duke Nukem / DOOM fan site?

TC: Yeah I guess that kind of that DWANGO community we wanted some place to um, like a little file archive almost like 3D Files but just dedicated just to like uh DOOM maps and it had the fact that my friend Eric was making you know the condiment WADs and stuff like that, and I don’t know if there was a lot of Duke Nukem maps out there that you could download. I just think that was kind of more of a closed platform by 3DRealms wasn’t it? As where id [software] had opened up DOOM?

FN: I think they opened up the BUILD editor but it took- DOOM was like right away just people figured out how to make stuff for it.

TC: So yeah, it was like basically all the DOOM WADs and and then DOOM II, and there might have been some smack lips like Warcraft maps on there as well.

FN: Oh cool, okay.

TC: And then when Quake hit um we kind of tried to have as much but then it just it just got too much I mean as far is like file size and the cost to host it and stuff.

Question 11 - MeccaWorld’s Competitors - 18:05

FN: Yeah I’m glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you, so it kind of started as a little site for you guys evolved into like MeccaWorld-

TC: Right.

FN: and I know there was cdrom.com and then FilePlanet came up some time after that right?

TC: Yep yep.

FN: I was going to ask, was there a lot of other sites like or was Mecca still kind of unique in that regard?

TC: There was probably other sites out there but I just, maybe I just didn’t pay attention to them so I wasn’t aware of them.

FN: Yeah I getcha.

TC: And then Eric who went by ‘funny’ um did, you know like the top I think this is probably still searchable somewhere on the internet, the top 100 Quake maps of all time or something he wrote that article up.

Read the article by clicking the image.

FN: I think some Quake sites will have that they’ll mention like a little proudly “we were a top 100!”

TC: Yeah yeah so like the top 100- well not Quake sites but Quake maps of all time, yeah so.

FN: Yeah maps, okay interesting.

Question 12 - Running in the ’90s - 19:00

FN: What was it like running a site like back then especially if something were file hosting, was space and bandwidth always a concern?

TC: Yeah bandwidth wasn’t, bandwidth wasn’t bad, the bad part was when I started doing the Daily Dementia.

FN: Oh yeah?

TC: Because those files were the RealAudio files were pretty huge and the MP3, and now you think about it yeah okay, it’s a a 20/30 meg file, it’s nothing but back then it was it was like downloading you know 300 gig now or something.

FN: Oh I know, we we only had like 500 GB hard- or 500 Meg sorry- 500 Meg hard drives and stuff back then you know?

TC: Right, yeah. So I think that was the- and then you know I worked with- a MeccaWorld started or shortly thereafter, I started or was maybe it was a little while and it was just a labor of love initially.

FN: Yeah.

TC: I worked with some company maybe out of Florida I don’t even remember their name, for like providing advertising but they were just like doing weird advertising and stuff.

FN: I know- yeah! Oh okay really?

TC: Yeah it was just like just like you know oh here’s an ad for a “douche product” on a gaming site you know it’s just they were just selling you know, “here’s flowers” and yeah.

FN: breathes in amused Yeah that early 90s just throw anything see what sticks advertising.

TC: Exactly yeah.

Question 13 - Website Sponsorship in the ’90s - 20:15

FN: Yeah because my next question was going to be: So I saw that one of your sponsors was, I think they were called yeah, Imagine Games and I guess that was actually IGN later.

TC: Oh yeah! Yeah that’s true yeah is that was IGN.

FN: Was it IGN who was showing the douche products?

TC: No no it wasn’t, it was some other weird company from Florida or something.

FN: laughs Yeah we should clarify that. And then you partnered with IGN I guess essentially?

TC: Yeah, Imagine Games they kind of I think they recruited, they were recruiting sites because I think they had so much inventory and back then it was like $30 CPMs. So I’m like, “Sure!” and I don’t I don’t think much of it. And then like you know two months go by and all of a sudden I get a check for like six grand and I’m like, “What what?” laughs

FN: Wow! Yeah! laughs

TC: Because CPMs were just gigantically high and even if they were taking 50% I didn’t think it would be much.

FN: Yeah.

TC: …and the traffic just I mean it was traffic but it was just but the CPMs being just so high it was insane!

FN: Wow, that’s crazy.

TC: So I’m just like, “Okay… that seems cool” so now I’m like, “oh I got some extra cash” and now I’m going to um, start my Daily Dementia show basically. At that point ’98 so then I’m trying to figure out uh, yeah how to do that so to speak uh and I went to school for radio television broadcasting worked in radio and stuff. But you know building something at home was different, and then I had to get an ISDN line oh yeah which was tremendously expensive as well and it wasn’t that great but still it was just like I could say, “I got an ISDN line”.

FN: T1 and all that.

TC: Yeah yeah exactly it wasn’t that, that was like $1,000 a month, I was paying like $150 for like 128k!

FN: Yeah, god that’s insane.

TC: Yeah, so.

Question 14 - Origin of Daily Dementia - 22:00

FN: So yeah that that’s a good segway into- so I guess you could say Daily Dementia was kind of like one of the first examples, an early example of what we call a, “podcast” now?

TC: It was, yeah.

FN: Yeah right? Do you know where you got the idea or how what it exactly led to it? Because I know you said you had MeccaWorld and that kind of led to it but do you know exactly what sparked it?

TC: It was kind of the history and just wanting to do radio and broadcasting and stuff.

FN: Just personal interest?

TC: Yeah! And I don’t know if I really followed anything else out there? I think, there’s a guy named, “Scott Reuben” who might have been doing something called the, “All Game Stuff”.

FN: Oh okay.

TC: And then and I didn’t know about it at the time but Adam Curry formerly of like MTV had started doing I think a podcast and I think he’s kind of credited as like doing one of the first podcasts.

FN: Crazy, okay.

TC: But yeah I figured well with RealAudio if you can stream audio like why- why can’t you just stream like a little kind of type of show and yeah that’s what I did and yeah I really wasn’t looking at it I wasn’t stealing anything from anybody there I was just kind of looking at what I wanted to do and just kind of did it.

FN: No, yeah. You might actually be like one of the first hundred podcasts that ever came out.

TC: It might have been yeah, it could be, I don’t know.

FN: It’s kind of crazy to think about you know?

TC: Right, I know! And now then Apple obviously made it mainstream what, six- seven years later?

FN: It’s funny I’ll get to that later I have a question about that interestingly enough.

TC: Oh okay, cool.

FN: So yeah, that’s pretty neat.

Question 15 - How Many Episodes of Daily Dementia - 23:25

FN: A followup question that was do you know how many guests and episodes you did do you kind of have like a rough number?

TC: I did them- I did it pretty consistently for like, a year and I would say at least four episodes a week just on average.

FN: Oh wow.

TC: So maybe there’s 200 the first year and then the second year maybe it kind of, it went it was less. So maybe it was only two? So I guess maybe in the neighborhood of like 300 episodes maybe if I had to guess?

FN: Oh okay, interesting yeah.

TC: And then yeah and then bandwidth was, yeah that was the hard part. So that’s that’s when I went to IGN- well actually I went to IGN with the idea of doing it, Imagine Games.

FN: Oh okay yeah, “Imagine Games”.

TC: And then they changed their name to “Snowball” which everybody made fun of and then they changed their name back to IGN-

FN: chuckles They called themselves “Snowball” at one point? Wow, that’s funny.

TC: Yeah they did and and that was when the Kevin Smith movie was uh relevant I think it was “Clerks”?

FN: Yeah Clerks, and there was “Dogma” at the time.

TC: Yeah I think it was that it was anyways at the time and yeah and then there’s the “snowballing” thing where-

FN: Yeah yeah yeah, laughs they should have seen that one coming.

TC: No pun intended! smirks

FN: Yeah! laughs

TC: But yeah so I asked them if they could host because I think they had some RealAudio hosting and stuff and they’re like, “yeah sure sure”. And then you know I mean at the time it’s probably- you know you compare it to now, say Joe Rogan or whomever else is out there-

FN: Yeah I know.

TC: with as far as downloads per show but like the id Software show I think got 12,000 downloads which was a lot back then

FN: Crazy, [12,000] was huge at the time

TC: and bandwidth was so expensive and then IGN eventually, they didn’t know, they didn’t think to monetize it I guess I didn’t think to monetize it because I was a little naive there.

FN: Yeah, well you’re just doing it for the fun.

TC: Exactly.

FN: Yeah.

TC: And then eventually they’re like uh after about a year they’re like, “Yeah you need to find somewhere else”.

FN: Wow.

TC: And then there was another… company… I don’t remember what it was- oh GameStats I think?

FN: Yeah I saw something about that, this GameStats I was going to ask about how that tied in. So they started hosting or helpping out?

TC: They started hosting the show yeah.

FN: Oh okay.

TC: And then eventually it just kind of kind of went away because I took a job with the company that would start Myspace and then yeah.

FN: Oh wow, okay.

TC: And then end up doing a kind of different kind of podcast for them.

FN: Oh interesting okay.

Question 16 - Favorite Guest - 26:08

FN: Since we’re still on Daily Dementia what was your favorite guest or episode do you have any highlights? Like what was one of your favorites?

TC: I always liked when Amer was on the show. I have an affection for Amer he’s just such a good guy, he could do Simpsons’s voices really well as I see the “Duff” beer hat on your head.

FN: Oh yeah yeah!

TC: Yeah um so he was he was always a fun guy.

FN: Well who [voices] did he do?

TC: He did like the Comic Store Guy, there was a couple other voices he did, Apu.

FN: Oh Okay okay, that’s great.

TC: And uh yeah, so but Amer was always probably my favorite guest, and then- I mean it it just basically the show became my favorite guest eventually it was just it was just him, Tim Tibbits from 3D Files (Major Geeks) and then Geoff Keighley.

Geoff Keighley ©

FN: Yeah oh okay Geoff.

TC: Geoff was on usually once a week for a long time that and he got all then he got all big and started the Game Awards because I’m Geoff Keighley.

FN: I know, I know that was back when he did uh, GameSlice that’s what it was called.

TC: Yeah GameSlice, yep yep editor at gameslice.com. Geoff’s a great guy but I haven’t talked to Geoff in probably 20 years, so.

FN: Yeah.

TC: I do have some audio of uh him and me and Amer pretending we’re shipping… Diakatana.

FN: Oh yeah?

TC: And what’s the other game that uh… Romero’s company did…. was like what was the guy’s name? Hall?

FN: uh uh

TC: Oh du- Deus Ex!

FN: Teah Warren Spector that’s it.

TC: Oh Warren Spector and then who’s the guy there was another guy-

FN: Oh Tom Hall!

TC: Tom Hall, Tom Hall yeah yeah yeah.

FN: Yeah I saw he also had Tom Hall on there too from time or-

TC: Did I once? Yeah don’t remember. laughs

FN: Oh well okay. laughs

TC: I uh the only guy that- Romero never came on.

Tom Hall ©

FN: Oh he didn’t? Okay I was going to ask about that.

TC: He promised to but he never did.

FN: Oh that’s too bad.

TC: Carmack um never did.

FN: Okay.

TC: But I certainly understand that, um Todd Hollenshead from when he was the CEO, he just kind of- Carmack referred me to Todd and I was like, “okay that’s that’s fine I understand” and though obviously Carmack’s gotten- Carmack does he do many interviews? He does I guess a little bit.

FN: He actually-

TC: He’s become a little more active like on social.

FN: Yeah if you poke him on Twitter he’ll tell you whatever he’ll spill his guts, but uh he did like a crazy long five hour interview with like Lex Friedman or whatever.

TC: Oh yeah yeah.

FN: That was pretty interesting.

TC: Yeah that’s fun. And then um I tried to get- uh Mark Rein would come on the show any time from Epic.

FN: Yeah I think I read that one at Blue’s.

TC: And then CliffyB was a really fun guy to talk to because he had a sense of humor.

FN: Okay

TC: I once called him my I called him my “Bobo” when he he didn’t know what that meant because it was a Simpsons kind of- from yeah Homer- or not Mr Burns’s “Bobo”.

FN: laughs Yeah, that’s good.

TC: He’s my “Bobo” and CliffyB is like, “Does that mean I’m your bitch or?”

FN: laughs

Cliff ‘CliffyB’ Bleszinski ©

TC: And then at E3 one year I tried to get uh… why am I drawing a mind blank? It’s the guy that runs Epic these days, the programmer-

FN: Oh uh Tim Sweeney?

TC: Tim Sweeney yeah yeah, and he’s like, “I appreciate it” but he just didn’t want to talk and I guess he knew of me which is always nice.

FN: Oh that’s cool.

TC: And now obviously the whole Fortnite thing and the I love his battle with Apple though I’m glad they’re just hammering Apple.

FN: That was pretty interesting.

TC: Yes, that’s great. But yeah um I love-

FN: You had someone from 3D Realms I think as well you Joe-

TC: Oh Joe Siegler yeah Joe would be on a lot too, he was very surly.

FN: Yeah smirks

TC: And I appreciated that about Joe but yeah he he was a really good guy and he loved himself some “Whiskey in the Jar” by Metallica that song. And then uh, a friend of mine who’s no longer with us, he passed away like nine years ago.

Joe Siegler ©

FN: Sorry to hear that.

TC: Yeah, he was the uh Monkey3 guy.

FN: Oh wow!

TC: So I did this like little bit called I don’t know it was maybe, April or May or June or something of ’98, and Buillion Base Entertainment yeah where Lyndon Carr [Phil Litman] had “invented the first 3D outdoor engine”.

FN: Oh wow.

TC: And it was just this whole big- and my friend was a little, he wasn’t like short a couple marbles, he just had a unique way of speaking and the way of presenting things so it sounds like he’s completely crazy-

FN: laughs

TC: But you also think that, “well maybe this is true”. And then I did some editing to make them just a little more crazy, and I get an email after I posted that show almost immediately from Geoff Keighley and he’s like “This isn’t real is it!?”

both laugh

TC: And so many people were emailing saying, “This guy, you got to watch out for this guy I think this guy’s using you!” and stuff and I thought that was that was that was so nice and then you get you know you get people that would email me, “Oh you suck!” you know just like-

FN: Yeah?

TC: And then usually I just respond with “Yeah I kind of do don’t I? That’s it’s unfortunate for me.”

FN: Aww laughs

TC: And then most people would write back if they said something like that, “Oh yeah I didn’t really mean that, I just meant that one show, you know, you’re cool.”

FN: laughs

TC: You know just like you you kind of embrace their attitude and usually turns some stuff.

FN: That’s good you turn it around on the like that.

TC: But yeah as far as a guest, like from the gaming world, that I really enjoyed talking to?

FN: Yeah.

TC: I’m sure there’s I mean it’s probably Joe from 3D Realms the first interview I did was with Scott Miller and he thought it was a text article. He thought it was he thought we were just recording and then he like sends me an email after I post it. And he’s like, “I didn’t know that this was going to be an audio interview!” and I’m like, “Oh sorry” and then that’s when that was the same day so the same day I posted it was April.

FN: Well I hope you know this one’s an audio interview. laughs

Scott Miller ©

TC: Yeah yeah I know. The first day I posted it was uh- I get an email from Scott Miller saying the first first show of the Daily Dementia saying, “I didn’t know was an audio intervew” then get an email from Geoff Keighley because he was a big 3D Realms kind of “Bobo”-

FN: Yeah.

TC: When it come to 3D Realms cause they love Geoff and he’s like, “Hey if you ever need me to come on the show”, “Sure!” I hadn’t actually heard of Geoff at that point and I investigated who he was and I’m like oh he’s written this stuff this is cool.

FN: Yeah.

TC: I’m just like I’m always looking to fill time you know the show so but yeah so.

FN: Anyone from Valve ever or anything?

TC: No, I never got anybody from Valve.

FN: Sierra or anything?

TC: shakes a no

FN: They were kind of weird about their intreviews.

TC: Yeah I mean there was like Baldur’s Gate, Ray- Doctor- what was his name? Dr. Ray Muzyka or something like that? And there was other people like that but yeah.

Question 17 - Where Art Thou Romero? - 32:55

FN: I was going to ask you I guess just to cap off Daily Dementia for now, was there anyone you were really wishing, I know you mentioned Tim Sweeney but was there anyone you’re like you just wish you were able to get and it just never worked out just for whatever reason was there anyone you’re just dying to have on there?

TC: It was it was probably Romero at the time because well Tim Sweeney you know, his profile has become legendary over time and Romero’s is-

FN: But he [Tim Sweeney] was still kind of in “prove himself” mode.

TC: Yeah exactly yeah yeah. It was probably Romero? that was the one that I was- and then Gabe Newell of course I think I tried to get Gabe several times but-

FN: Oh really? Oh man!

TC: It just never came to- and I was a big Half-Life fan.

FN: Oh yeah?

TC: And then Counter-Strike I was like, [Beta] .4 or whatever when that came out or [Beta] .6 whatever like the first release was?

FN: We have all the boxes and everything.

TC: Yeah! chuckles

FN: Big Half-Life, Quake, you know Duke.

TC: I still I still played I played Left 4 Dead last night Left 4 Dead 2, I love playing that.

FN: Oh yeah it’s a great game yeah.

TC: Yeah, I’m kind of a Valve fan and then a Rockstar fan on the console.

Oh yeah? Okay, that’s cool!

TC: I love me some Red Dead Redemption 2.

FN: Oh yeah great game, great game.

Question 18 - All Good Things… - 34:05

FN: So yeah what what was the uh end for MeccaWorld I guess, that was I guess the question what what was the exact- you remember how it kind of happened?

TC: Oh yeah…. I know that Imagine Games, Snowball [IGN] whatever I think they uh I think they were ending their partnership program-

FN: Yeah you mentioned that.

TC: Because CPMs were going down and down it wasn’t $30 CPMs anymore-

FN: And they didn’t like that Daily Dementia took so much bandwidth.

TC: Oh yeah and I had to leave that but that was I think that was fine with them.

FN: But that was always its own kind of separate thing at some point, Daily Dementia?

TC: Yeah.

FN: Was it first hosted on Mecca then went separate or?

TC: Was always kind of part of MeccaWorld but then the hosting, the RealAudio kind of thing the uh bandwidth was was taken care of by uh Imagine.

FN: Yeah yeah.

TC: So… but yeah I think it was that and then coupled with the fact that, I knew- I knew a guy who worked, at another site… and he was going to work for a company called Intermix.

FN: Okay.

TC: That had just reverse IPO’d out of Connecticut or like it was like a reverse- they bought yeah it was called yeah eUniverse and they bought a motorcycle company out of Nevada-

FN: Oh wow.

TC: To go IP to do kind of like a public offering, a “reverse public offering” I guess they call it?

FN: Interesting.

TC: And they were moving the company to Los Angeles, I’m still in Minneapolis, Twin Cities, and then so I’ve been talking to this guy and then another guy that worked with me on MeccaWorld- and this was just a, just kind of one of my writers and he had done some programming and design like logo design and stuff, he was like- geez when I was working with him then he was probably like 13 or something-

FN: Wow!

TC: I didn’t even know how old he was cause you know you don’t really think to ask people their age and I was just like here’s there’s a guy that’s like sending me logos and stuff I’m like oh, “That’s cool thanks!”

FN: Yeah!

TC: So his name was Rick and he was, and and it turns out- well yeah I didn’t even know that until I got so I got hired by eUniverse because I kind of wanted to do that stuff but they were cool with me cause that’s when I was about to move to Arizona.

FN: Oh okay!

TC: So I was going to move to Arizona so I’d just be offsite and come into come into Los Angeles every once in a while. And… yeah, it was uh yeah so it was kind of like a a combination of things there and then this Rick guy who was sending me the logos and did some work on the site turns out that he had been hired by them as well he was 15 then-

FN: Yeah, oh wow crazy!

TC: Dropped out of high school-

FN: Oh my God!

TC: He was just kind of like… I mean they really put together some serious talent at that place there was a guy named “Adam Gold”- oh yeah that’s it was Adam had a site he had the gaming site yeah um I forget the-

FN: This is all part of eUniverse or whatever or?

TC: No he had a site before I think that he sold to eUniverse.

FN: Okay okay.

TC: So Adam had a website that he started out of St Louis and he was going to be the like… I forget, I mean…

FN: It’s all good.

TC: Anyways he was going it was like he was like 18-

FN: Wow.

TC: He was going to be like a- not like a CFO or a CEO, but kind of but running an Department himself because he was a really smart guy, and then Rick he somehow knew Rick and he had hired Rick, yeah and another guy named Laurian and another guy named Marco.

FN: Yeah okay.

TC: And um we ended up yeah doing that thing and the first six months I worked there I really didn’t do anything.

FN: Oh really? chuckles

TC: Because I kept asking for stuff to do and they like, “well…” So I started building out this podcast called, “eUniverse Live” and had like celebrity guests on it and then took over a website called “MadBlast” that ended up just blowing up around the whole 9/11 thing-

FN: Oh wow.

TC: Because we were doing kind of cartoons and stuff. Yeah, it was like Flash files, Flash tunes and stuff.

FN: Yeah was this part of the site I learned about called, “Break Play” or whatever or was that a different thing?

TC: No no that was just some other side project that myself and Eric the Quake guy, the condiments WADs guy did.

FN: Oh okay okay, the mustard and ketchup guy.

TC: Yeah, so yeah exactly.

both chuckle

TC: And then uh, yeah! So that was- and then Adam went on to after… so then there’s this whole thing with eUniverse where they bought the company that Tom and uh what’s the other guy’s name I don’t remember his name from MySpace so yeah and they started Myspace and then that blew up obviously

FN: Yeah I remember Tom, and that all that relates to eUniverse that’s crazy, I didn’t know that.

TC: Yeah, cause eUniverse owned that and they sold that to uh News Corp, Fox.

FN: Wow, yeah that’s insane.

Tom from MySpace’s iconic profile, this image will forever be burned into our heads

TC: And then um and then after that Adam like went off to start another company. And if you’ve ever heard of “Fabletics”?

FN: Yeah?

TC: Yeah that’s Adam’s company.

FN: Okay okay.

TC: That’s a huge company in that kind of that in the um, what is it? I don’t know, apparel industry?

FN: Yeah, yeah yeah.

TC: And then Rick worked there the other guy worked there as the CTO for quite some time and then I think he kind of retired already.

both chuckle

FN: Man.

TC: But uh anyways I’m I’m kind of going tangent here.

FN: Oh no, that’s fine it was just interesting because there, it’s just interesting to learn more about eUniverse and some of that stuff it’s crazy, yeah.

TC: Yeah that was kind of fun.

Question 19 - Life Flashes Before Your e-Eyes - 40:00

FN: Did you do the eUniverse Live podcast long or was it kind of like a spiritual [sucessor]?

TC: It was maybe like about a year and then the whole “MadBlast” thing kind of took off. They were like, “We have this site called MadBlast you want to run it?” I said, “Yeah?”

FN: chuckles

TC: And then Rick um in his spare time, even though he had the day job, doing other stuff like product driven stuff with uh, there was like a kind of an entertainment side of eUniverse and then a product driven side.

FN: Oh okay.

TC: One of the product driven sides was something, that was a little scammy called “Get Paid Driving”.

both chuckle

FN: Oh yeah? What’s that about?

TC: Basically you put like stuff on the sides of your car, and drive around and stuff, it’s like sponsorships.

FN: Oh wow! Wow, that’s crazy. laughs

TC: Yeah so, and yeah there’s there’s a lot of stories about, but um-

FN: They were trying any advertising stuff back then on the internet, just anything.

TC: But yeah so and then they’re like, “Can you run this MadBlast site” and then that kind of became popular because I had like I had one programmer, artist. So we’d talk every day and we’d come up with these crazy ideas, the “Michael Jackson Baby Drop Game” was one of them when Michael was holdin-

FN: laughs Yeah when Michael was doing the weird thing with Blanket or whatever his name was.

TC: Yeah it was Blanket yeah, and I heard- and I read an interview like I don’t know, 10 years ago- not 10 years ago maybe 20 years ago, um where Michael Jackson said, he didn’t know who I was, he said, “Whoever did that was like the worst person in the world.”

FN: laughs

TC: I’m like, “Well at least I never hung my kid out a window” you know, among other things but yeah so that was-

FN: in a sarcastic tone Whoever that guy is…

TC: Yeah, and then MadBlast was doing really well and then they wanted to start a game, a game site called, “Game Rival” and they’re like, “Hey can you run this too?”

FN: I think heard of that one yeah.

TC: Yeah and then I was able to get a bigger budget, and then the guy that had been doing the flash tunes for us, we uh- on MadBlast we started you know making the games as well for “Game Rival” and then I met a guy named Danny Glover, not the Danny Glover-

FN: No yeah I was going to say smirks

TC: And he was just an adorable kid and and he made flash games and then we made this game called “Gold Miner”.

FN: Okay.

TC: Hit really big. And we were selling like $20 you know, kind of not shareware versions but like full download versions, there was like a web version.

FN: Really, I’m trying- I don’t know why that does kind of ring a bell.

TC: It was selling like 10 - 20,000 copies a month! Or something like that I don’t know it was just insane!

FN: I’ll have to look that up that sound vaguely familar…

TC: And then we started doing “games.myspace.com”.

FN: Oh wow.

TC: And we were just- it just kind of got everything implemented and then, Myspace, the hierarchy there, unbeknownst to what we were doing or on our side of things, decided they were going to partner with like, “WildTangent”. I think it was “WildTangent”, some company like that for for games maybe because they probably made him an offer that was just more lucrative I understand that so, but yeah so.

FN: Probably oh yeah, so that’s really interesting though, wow.

TC: Yeah, it’s been a wild ride.

FN: laughs Getting you know, called out by Michael Jackson.

TC: Oh yeah I know yeah. And then another thing that I worked with an Australian company and they did the, “Bin Laden [Has] Nowhere To Run - Nowhere To Hide” based off the Banana Boat song.

FN: Oh yeah!

both start singing the song

TC: That was huge! So like in November of 20- I think it was November of 2001 MadBlast was like the 19th most popular site on the internet.

FN: Wow, wow! But uh that’s crazy I remember that flash, the Taliban flash and all that.

TC: Yeah there was there was a lot of fun flash stuff we did. Yeah there was just- we did a “Wild Bill” one, and we stopped doing that.

FN: Oh yeah?

TC: It’s like- so Tom, in this case a guy named “Tom Shirley” did the animations and stuff he would animate and I would just- I would like write little scripts of like you know Bill Clinton? It was like the Bill Clinton show was, “Wild Bill” yeah, imitating Bill Clinton “Hey everybody it’s former president, it’s Wild Bill! Oh baby!”

FN: Yeah, laughs oh that’s not bad.

TC: And he like he like to smoke weed, and we did like six of those and it was kind of blowing up and then 9/11 happened and it just seemed like breaths cautiously maybe we shouldn’t do these right now and we just stopped doing them.

Xylemon explains how it reminded him of what Kitty0706 was doing with their Bill Clinton character

TC: Some of them are up on YouTube if you want to search for them, search for like “Wild Bill Show”.

FN: Well that that’s crazy cause when you were mentioning when you’re were doing the impression this I’m like, “wow it kind of sounds like what he [Kitty0706] was doing”.

TC: But I think it’s just the audio, I could not find- I was really good at like archiving everything but I can not find the actual videos of them because Tom made the Bill’s nose look like a you know certain part of the human anotomy

both laugh

FN: Pretty good.

TC: So it was like yeah. But it was it was fun, it was fun doing that and there was like a takeoff on Jay and Silent Bob with him and Al Gore and…

FN: Yeah.

Question 20 - The Revival - 45:15

FN: I guess you brought this up earlier and I actually had a question about this, I was curious, so I think it was like 2001 or something Apple they made iTunes they released that it was a big deal, but they made this other big deal about podcasts and how they could be RSS’d all this stuff-

TC: I think it was like, 2004… right around there or 2005 it was a little later.

FN: Yeah something like that, and I was going to ask you: Did you ever think about getting back into it because of that like with Daily Dementia or were you kind of done by that point or?

TC: I did, I kind of relaunched- I soft launched Daily Dementia like in 2004 I think it was?

FN: Yeah I saw you had like an episode in 2005 or something.

TC: Yeah there you go, Mark Rein came on from Epic Games-

FN: Oh ok, of course yeah.

TC: And then there was some woman producer who was producing some Playboy game and stuff like that.

FN: Oh wow OK

TC: And then there was there was a couple other shows and I think Amer came back for an episode and Tim Tibbits, Geoff Keighley by that time was like… laughs

FN: Yeah yeah, “I’m famous now, I talk to Valve and stuff”.

TC: Yeah yeah yeah, “Behind the Game with Valve”.

FN: laughs yeah.

TC: No no it’s cool.

FN: Oh man.

Question 21 - The End of Daily Dementia - 46:27

FN: Going back to Daily Dementia really quick, so you tried getting back into but when did it end I guess formally, when was the full end of Daily Dementia?

TC: I don’t know know, I might have done something again in like 2000- in the late 2000s? But I don’t know if I ever got anybody involved, I just- I wanted to do it then when I start doing it I’m just like, “No I’m past this”.

FN: I get you.

TC: And I don’t know.

FN: Totally fair.

TC: Yeah it was just like, it was fun and it was, and it was memorable and it was just like, “eh just not me anymore”.

FN: I getcha, I getcha.

TC: Yeah.

Question 22 - Was it Fun? - 47:05

FN: Yeah that was kind of my next question into that: Did you enjoy it? You had a good time?

TC: I did, yeah I did. It was it was super fun. Yeah I enjoyed doing it.

FN: I guess just from my perspective, I think it’s just really interesting, not just because it’s not only like a really historically if you don’t mind me saying historically interesting podcast, but it just kind of neat some of the guests and people you had you know?

TC: Yeah.

FN: There isn’t there is a lot of audio interviews of a lot of those people and stuff-

TC: Oh…

FN: So especially like Billy Wilson you might have the only audio recording of him if you think about it’s kind of weird.

TC: That’s true and there should be another one, so there’s the one with him and his brother right?

FN: Yeah, yeah.

TC: Is there another one online?

FN: No I think you just-

TC: The one that I did solo with him and I don’t know-

FN: I haven’t seen that, heard that no.

TC: I don’t know that’s probably one of those SparQ drives.

FN: Yeah I would love to get that sometime and look at that.

TC: Yeah, that was really cool.

Question 23 - “Rock” This Way - 48:00

FN: I guess going on if you don’t mind me asking: So you own this cool- what we’ve been doing the interview here in this cool shop called, “Rock This Town Records”, can you tell me a little bit about it? How you got to what made you want to open this if you don’t mind me asking or how it led to this I’m assuming other than you love music, you know?

TC: I do, so there’s two things: I got tired of standing in line at Record Store Day.

FN: Oh yeah?

TC: You go to other stores you’re gonna wait line for Record Store Day so, “Let’s open our own record store”, then we can- just the titles will just flow in.

FN: Yeah, yeah.

TC: You know as far as like the Record Store Day which happens this year on April 20th.

FN: Oh yeah? Okay it’s an interesting day.

TC: Cool title. [speaking to customer] Yeah there you go I’m sure there’ll be something scented so to speak.

FN: Oooh yeah.

TC: And then the other thing was that you know I’ve worked from home for 25 years and I wanted to get back out into kind of the public even though that sometimes is scary I suppose but-

FN: Yeah no kidding.

TC: When Jen and I moved here from Minnesota you know, a lot of the people I know- like one of my best friends had passed away like nine years ago so it was like.

FN: Yeah, yeah.

TC: And then my family is kind of- I’m an only child, so it’s like… So let’s get Jennifer home where she is from and then, maybe I’ll be able to meet some new people that would come to my funeral. That was that was one of my one the jokes I make.

FN: Oh OK, yeah.

We take a short break for a customer, I ask TC to recap the last answer

TC: Cause I don’t want to wait in line at record store anymore, and then maybe somebody will come to my funeral if I- cause I don’t know anybody down here in Arizona when I moved down here so, it was good to kind of meet some people that weren’t on the internet.

FN: Well I’ll go to your funeral. chuckles

TC: Alright! Well I appreciate that. Hopefully it’s not next week but you never know!

FN: I hope it’s a long time from now! Yeah!

TC: There you go! But yeah and then yeah and it’s just you meet a lot of cool people. I had some young guy come in the store I think it was uh the day of our one year anniversary and he’s like, “Are you TC from the Daily Dementia?” and it was just like, “Oh my God this is so weird!” My wife still is not over that, that you came in and said that. You recognized the voice somehow.

FN: You can totally hear it to this day.

TC: The “sweet soothing sensual touchy feely erotic pleasure of sounds”.

FN: You have a good radio voice if you don’t mind me saying.

TC: Eh, I never thought that. I got fired from my first job in radio.

FN: Really? laughs

TC: Because the guy hated my voice but back then- you ever seen a movie, “Private Parts” by Howard Stern?

FN: Yeah, yeah yeah.

TC: When he first starts out he’s like, “Hey everybody it’s Howard!”, I had that as well.

FN: Oh okay okay.

TC: “Hey everybody how you doing!”

FN: Yeah, no you have a good natural speaking voice I think it’s good for the podcast and stuff.

TC: in Austrian accent YAH DAT’s NICE! in normal voice Rainier Wolfcastle would be proud. chuckles

FN: It also helped that they were on the phone and you also had a real microphone too chuckles you know?

TC: Oh yeah yeah that’s true, yup.

Question 24 - Booking Guests - 51:00

FN: Oh I forgot the I guess I should interject this real quick because that was one question I was going to ask is: With Daily Dementia how did you get contact with guests?

TC: Geez I don’t even remember- There was some thing, it was like almost like a mini blogging- was like almost like a Twitter thing back in the day?

FN: It wasn’t like a mailing list right?

TC: No no it wasn’t a mailing list, there was like some- it was like, “Ping” or something…

FN: Wow I’ve never heard of this that’s interesting.

TC: It was something that people use so it was- and then or I would just, you know once you get that first contact- you know you just blind email somebody?

FN: Yeah.

TC: Cause a lot of people didn’t really care to, it wasn’t a big deal to have your email address-

FN: Oh my god yeah I know, yeah!

TC: Because nobody was really spaming back then, so it was just like I’ll put my email, you know it be like, “here’s the profile page and Scott Miller 3D Realms President, scott@3drealms(.com)”

FN: Wow, yeah you’d never get that today.

TC: Yeah, might be a phone number there for him. But there was there was some weird service you try to dig into that-

FN: “Ping” or whatever?

TC: That all the developers used- I could have swore it was like, “Ping” or something like that it was called and they would post like little-

FN: Oh you talking about “Finger”!?

TC: “Finger”! That’s what it was yes!

FN: Finger yeah!

TC: Ping, Finger, I was close on the “-ing” there.

FN: Yeah finger I know what you’re talking about yeah!

TC: Yeah Finger!

FN: Yeah actually I still have a friend who’s still “fingers” today believe it or not.

TC: chuckles

FN: Yeah I know that was always a joke, “I’m going to go finger John Carmack”!

TC: Yeah, there you go…

FN: Yeah…

TC: Yup. I didn’t know that still existed.

FN: Yeah! Because it’s just a Unix program essentially.

TC: Oh ok.

FN: And all it does is it reads a text file from your /home directory. That’s really all it does and it just posts it to a website yeah.

TC: Oh ok, wow. There you go.

FN: Yeah no it’s a real simple thing but yeah no.

TC: I think I got some people from that too but yeah and then once you get to know enough people, you can say hey, “Do you know who blah blah blah and blah blah blah”? and they’re like, “Yeah I know here’s let me give you his email!” or “Let me introduce ya!”

FN: Yeah!

TC: And yeah since I was kind of- There was a guy named Kevin something, the “Captain Immy” guy? Have you come across him?

FN: I don’t know, he doesn’t sound familiar.

TC: Kevin- he did the “Attack of the Show!” on like G4 TV?

FN: Ohh that guy!

TC: Kevin Pereira that’s who it was yeah!

FN: Oh my- Pereira yes!

Kevin ‘Captain Immy’ Pereira ©

TC: Yeah so I think he was uh- he wanted to be me.

both chuckle

TC: And so yeah and so he started a show I think it was called, Captain Immy [Pointless Audio], I think he was called he was called “Captain Immy”.

FN: I didn’t know that he went that far back.

TC: Yeah! But this was probably in ’99, and then I got wind of it somebody sent me some stuff because he was like, making fun of you know, in funny voice “This is TC from the daily dementia, ddd-dementia, dementia!”

FN: Wow.

TC: And so I found the clip and then cut it and put it in the show because I don’t really care if somebody’s doing that so…

FN: Wow. chuckles

TC: But yeah I think- and then he did some weird show on one of these channels I don’t know. I ran into them once at E3 I’m like, “Hey yeah hey! It’s uh” and he blew me off.

FN: Wow!

TC: I’m like okay whatever, that’s fine that’s cool. I don’t care chuckles

Question 25 - Location, Location, Location - 54:05

FN: I guess just to wrap up a couple quick questions here: How did you choose the location for rock this town? Just why Gilbert out of curiosity?

TC: Well we lived in Queen Creek and-

FN: Oh okay well that that explains a lot, yeah (don’t want to drive too far).

TC: and everything there is new and everything is rented by dentists. Dentists have like taken over retail spaces so many-

FN: points accross the street There’s one right over there yeah.

TC: Well but this is kind of- and we were supposed to actually be right next to the um- across the street, we were supposed to be right across right next to the um, “School of Rock”.

FN: Oh wow! Yeah!

TC: Which would make sensem, and we had everything done everything signed waiting for the owner to sign it, but he was using us apparently to get a deal with some kind of wheelchair place.

FN: Aww, I’m sorry to hear that.

TC: It’s ok, I saw that coming-

FN: Well I guess it’s a wheelchair place- well you know.

TC: Well would it would have kind of been better in this area perhaps?

FN: Yeah, I don’t know. I guess so.

TC: But yeah so anyway so yeah that guy did us dirty so but whatever. And then so we’re like, “well, kitty corner and okay” and is it the best location? No, but we also we don’t have to deal with um kind of um- you know the riff-raff that comes with malls or walking malls or stuff like that so. Because you know, like theft and stuff like, that I mean ideally it’s limited here if somebody walks out with a CD okay whatever.

FN: Yeah I hope that doesn’t happen.

TC: Hard to steal a record.

FN: Yeah it really is. I guess they earn that one if they manage it somehow.

TC: Yeah!

both chuckle

Question 26 - First Concert - 55:40

FN: You mentioned this earlier I’m curious so what was your first concert?

TC: “Night Ranger” at the Minnesota State fair.

FN: Oh really? Oh man

TC: It was uh… oh yeah you ever heard of “Night Ranger”? “Sister Christian” that was kind of their big hit but they were more of a rock band.

FN: I don’t know them, I can’t say.

TC: It’s like, “Sister Christian”, “Oh the time has come”, something something yeah

FN: yeah I don’t I don’t know if you play it I might know it. I don’t know that one off my head.

TC: But they were- but they were, a cool kind of two guitar band and this just happened to be their kind of their big big big hit.

FN: Was that before they were big or after they were big?

TC: No they were they were, they were big, they were fairly big but then, “Sister Christian” kind of brought them into another…

Sister Christian by Night Ranger plays

TC: it’s like, “The motor in”

FN: Yeah trying to-

TC: You’re probably too young for it.

FN: Oh yeah

Chorus kicks in

FN: Oh yeah! Yes, yes okay, yes.

TC: I wasn’t going to see him for this song but yeah, there was a lot of other Deep Rock cuts that were really was a really good guitarist in that band.

FN: Yes I know exactly who this is now, okay thank you. Yeah no yeah that’s cool.

Question 27 - Favorite Bands - 57:00

FN: Are you okay with telling us some of your favorite bands or musicians?

TC: Well, Jen and I met because of Def Leppard so I have to say Def Leppard.

FN: Oh okay that’s cool.

TC: I’m a child of the 80s so Van Halen.

FN: Yeah yeah oh yeah.

TC: And then kind of- you know kind of maybe a lot some of the hair metal stuff.

FN: Oh yeah sure, Scorpion or?

TC: Don’t know if Tesla- yeah Scorpions maybe, but yeah. But I really have found opening the record store and starting to recollect records like Jen and I did, I don’t know five, six, seven years ago, you know you find just I mean like I really, I hated Pink Floyd in the 80s.

FN: Really?

TC: I mean I kind of love Pink Floyd, not like the early stuff it’s a little weird, but and then Kanye West I kind of dig on, Lana Del Rey I’ve gotten into lately.

FN: Oh okay, yeah.

TC: And then just all kinds of stuff. Even AudioSlave you know, ’90s bands. I like KoЯn now.

FN: Were you ever in the Ministry or anything like that is that too hardcore?

TC: No I never really listened to Ministry.

FN: No industrial or anything or?

TC: Nine Inch Nails a little bit.

FN: Yeah okay fair enough. I’m just curious were you ever into Devo or New Wave or?

TC: I love- So there was like two schools of New Wave I feel. Because like there was The Cure, Depeche Mode and New Order and I was more of the U2, INXS, Duran Duran vibe.

FN: Oh yeah I get you. Yeah the they kind of retroactively call it this now, but it was kind of like Dark Wave was the more serious, sad- and that evolved into industrial.

TC: Yeah exactly yeah, The Smiths.

FN: Yeah yeah! The Smiths that’s a great band. Um cool. Anything else you want- any other bands you wanted to mention or? I don’t mean to interrupt you or anything.

TC: No no that’s cool, I mean I like everything.

FN: I get you I feel that.

TC: I even love to post Rebecca Black’s Friday once a year, because it’s so wonderfully awesomely bad.

FN: laughs It is in a way yeah.

TC: Yes! grinning

FN: Oh yeah I getcha.

TC: looks to his left You know Friday right Audrey?

Audrey: What?

TC: “Friday Friday going to get- you’re going to get something on Friday”?

Audrey: Yeah. chuckles I do know that one.

FN: Oh yeah. it’s funny I think it’s- no it’s not it’s Thursday unfortunately can’t play Friday today.

TC: It is Thursday.

Question 28 - Still Fragging - 59:20

FN: With all that being said uh are you still a gamer? Do you still play games? I know you mentioned Left 4 Dead earlier.

TC: Left 4 Dead I played last night. I play City Skylines.

FN: Yeah, oh that’s a great game.

TC: I started playing Grand Theft Auto V.

FN: Oh okay.

TC: The other night I updated it on my Xbox and I saw that I hadn’t played since January 19th, of, 2019.

FN: Wow, yeah.

TC: So it been five years because I bought I got that and-

TC turns down the rockin’ tunes

TC: I got Red Dead Redemption at the same time and it was just like, blows raspberries “Forget about it.”

FN: yeah

TC: Nothing’s better than that game and to this to this point, at this point, I think Red Dead Redemption 2 is the greatest game ever.

FN: Oh I know it’s an amazing game.

TC: The online thing was a little hanky at first, and then they unfortunately Rockstar is not supporting it anymore.

FN: Well yeah, I know I know, I don’t know- [why]

TC: But yeah I loved Counter-Strike.

FN: Oh yeah

TC: I logged so many hours in Counter-Strike. Now I try to play Counter-Strike and it feels like it’s a completely different game from you know, back in the beta days.

FN: Yeah.

TC: And I get it and now it’s like, yeah, it’s ever game gets more… complex as it gets older-

FN: Oh yeah!

TC: and it’s just like, the simple games are still always the best.

FN: Yeah, oh did you ever play TF at all?

TC: A little bit.

FN: Yeah?

TC: It was it just wasn’t my game.

FN: Oh that’s okay.

TC: I was more of a Counter-Strike guy and then by that time then Left 4 Dead.

FN: Yeah I feel you, I love CS.

TC: I love the game Tribes, you ever played Tribes?

FN: Yeah! I never got to play it, but I know a lot about Tribes, like that was-

TC: I love that game. The skiing and just yeah I was, I was surprisingly good at that game. I don’t know how I was, but I was surprisingly good.

FN: Tribes was actually kind of like, the TF2 Valve never made for some reason.

TC: Yeah.

FN: I don’t know why.

TC: And it was an outdoor engine!

FN: Yeah I know, yeah!

TC: Like the “Monkey3” the Buillion Base Entertainment game I was talking about that we that we faked.

FN: Yeah yeah chuckles

Question 29 - Where did you get your Nick? - 01:01:30

Editors note: Xylemon did not think of this question when initially recording and so he pulled out his phone for this before leaving. Sadly, the app he used to record thought that mono 16000 khz, a sample rate standard literally dating back to the 90s, was a sane modern default. And since this was a new phone, he did not change this setting yet.

TL;DR the quality is awful for this question and we appologize for that.

FN: So tell me, where did the origin of “TC” come from?

TC: Yeah so, there was like this game called Strat-o-Matic Baseball that I played. It’s like a board game, initially it was a board game where you’d shake dice and stuff and recreate baseball seasons based off of whether it was like the 1965 Season or the 1987 Major League Baseball Season.

FN: Yeah.

TC: And there was kind of a big following for it, you gotta kind of be a sports nerd, I love baseball. And then one of my teams named, in a league I was in was called, “TC Dementia” or I think it was, “Twin Cities Dementia”.

FN: Yeah.

TC: And then when I joined DWANGO, my name- I just went with “TCDementia” because you couldn’t put anything longer. And then people woul call me, “TC”. And then when I started the show, it just was a natural thing to do “TC”.

FN: Yeah! Why “Dementia” by the way? It’s a funny word.

TC: Um, Simpsons reference.

FN: Ahh okay!

TC: So in an episode, I think the Michael Jackson episode, Lisa says to Michael Jackson, you know obviously he’s not credited in it, “You’re a credit to Dementia”.

FN: laughs That’s great, that’s great.

TC: And I love that word. So everything ties back to The Simpsons in some way.

FN: Yeah it really does, it’s funny I wore this “Duff” hat today.

TC: laughs Yeah exactly!

Question 30 - Last Words? - 01:02:48

FN: Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers or listeners?

TC: I’ll see them in the emergency room.

FN: laughs I hope not.

TC: ha ha Uh, nah, I don’t uh- I just, those were kind of the glory days and I wish I had more stories about, Billy of VoodooExtreme. I don’t- I really like talking to Sean Martin from redwood.stomped.com no idea what ever happened to that guy. Um then again he probably doesn’t know what happened to me either, so yeah. Not that he’s ever thought of me.

FN: chuckles Never know.

TC: And then uh, and then Blue seemed- always seemed like a good guy. I mean these guys would always, you know whenever I’d post a show Blue, and sCary at the Shuga Shack, and Sean Martin at Redwood, and Billy they would always post, you know post stories that, “Hey Joe Siegler’s on the show” or “Todd Hollenshead’s on the show”.

FN: Yeah, god bless Blue cause his archive is so great.

TC: Yeah.

FN: You get a pretty good outline of Daily Dementia- you can find your your first show, well you can’t download it but you can find like the post about it you know?

TC: Oh, really? That’s cool.

FN: Like yeah, like yeah. No uhm-

TC: And he’d occasionally take a shot at ya.

FN: laughs Well…

TC: Which is fine, I don’t know I probably deserved it you know. laughs

FN: Aww… you never know. laughs I was going to say, did you guys ever Quake DM? Or anything like that back then or?

TC: No.

FN: No?

TC: No.

FN: I heard that Blue, I think it was actually in your interview, apparently Billy said him and Blue would duke it out in Quake sometime and stuff.

TC: Oh really? I could see that. You ever talked to Steve (Blue) Heaslip?

FN: Um, like, on a more casual level?

TC: Okay.

FN: I would like to actually interview him if he’s okay with that or something.

TC: I think he would be good because he’s kind of the Bible at this point. Because he’s been there so long and he just…

FN: Oh I know, he’s also a pretty down to Earth guy, he’s really nice so I always liked Blue so…

TC: Yeah, yeah.

Sign Off - 01:04:36

FN: No, I just wanted to say thank you so much! It was a great interview and uh, would it be cool with you could I get like a Daily Dementia sign off? Or something like that?

both chuckle

TC: That was “I’ll see you in the emergency room”! After shows yeah so.

FN: laughs I guess so yeah.

TC: But yeah uh.

FN: Could I hear you using that voice, could you be like, “Frag-Net the Epicenter of PC Gaming” could you say that maybe? chuckles

TC: Sure. “Frag-Net the epicen-” This is basically the epicenter?

FN: Yeah the epicenter.

TC: I’m going to say “epic”-center. “Frag-Net the Epicenter of PC Gaming”

FN: Oh thank you so much man!

TC: All right cool.

FN: It was great doing this I really appreciated it so.

TC: Audrey’s standing over here thinking, “What the heck is going on!?”

all laugh

That’s a wrap

Thank you TC for your patience, it was a wonderful and fascinating experience. If you live near Gilbert in Arizona then please give his shop, Rock This Town Records, a visit to help get a record adopted into a good family today. Plus you can chat about the good old deathmatch days.

And thank you, the reader, as well, we hope it was worth the wait and that it was enlightening experience for you as well. Till next time.

Staff