As The Pokeball Turns
A Pokemon interview podcast where Pokemon Trainers share their experiences from the world of Pokemon! Each journey started with a choice and are as different as the number of Pokemon. Listen to the different ways Pokemon Trainer's interact with the Pokemon franchise ranging from Pokemon GO, Pokemon Battles, Pokemon TCG, and much more!
As The Pokeball Turns
TRAINER'S EYE #39 - "The Flygon King of Iowa City" ft. TacoDog8 from Enter The Dragonair's Den
In this Pokemon interview, we're joined by TacoDog8, a Pokemon GO player who loves to participate in PVP and Factions and co-host of Enter The Dragaonair's Den. He shares with us his experience with Pokemon GO, how he got involved with PVP and Silph Arena Factions, and how he met his co-host JetForceGemini.
TacoDog8 also shares his insights on why both he and his co-host decided to start a podcast about Silph Arena Factions. He also shares some personal stories and his inspiration to be a leader within both his Iowa community and Faction Discord community.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Introduction Music: "Blackthorn City: Remastered" by Zame
Connect with TacoDog8: Twitter | Podcast | Discord | Podcast Twitter
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
Join As The Pokeball Turns Discord Community!
https://discord.gg/AqAbD7FbRt
Welcome to as the Pokemon Ball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. We are here with part two of the Enter the Dragon Stand Podcast. A podcast primarily focused on covering so arena factions. Factions are a team-based competitive Pokemon Go PVP league, introduced by the self arena. Where competitors work together to prove their skills on various battlefield. In spite of the recent announcement of the Silver Road ceasing operations in August, the idea of organized team play for Pokemon Go PVP is far from dead. And with the recent announcement of Project Cigar, I think it's safe to say that the future of Pokemon Go factions and grassroots PVP is still alive and well. My guest is the co-host of Enter the Dragonair's Den podcast. Here is his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is TacoDog8! Today I'm joined by one of the co-hosts for Enter the Dragonair's Den, TacoDog8!. Welcome to the show.
TacoDog8:It's a pleasure to be here.
David Hernandez:Definitely, and I would be very biased to say that you're one of my favorite of the two. Don't tell Jet this,
TacoDog8:It's okay.
David Hernandez:which is honestly true. It's honestly true. You have two things I love about your name. You have the tacos and you have the dogs. The eight you can leave out.
TacoDog8:I actually do have a little bit of a story with that one. I have had a little dots and chihuahua mix. She was my editing partner for a very long time. We would sometimes call her the immortal dog. one day when I was in high school, I went to go pick up my little brother and I made some tacos and I left the tacos on the table and I made sure that before anything, there was no way my little dog, Maddie, was just going to steal my food and eat it while was gone, I was gone for maybe 10 minutes. I come home and she's sitting there on the table looking at me like, Hey, those are some really good tacos." I said, Maddie, You're just a taco dog now. And then the eight, when I was like in sports and stuff, I would always wear the number eight, whether it was football, basketball, cross country, the eight was like my lucky number. When I decided to go into content creation and do YouTube, a very long time ago, I had coined TacoDog8 as like my in-game name. And when Pokemon Go came out, I was still trying to do content creation on YouTube, but failing miserably. So I stuck with using Tacodog8 and it's been with me ever since.
David Hernandez:Hey, that's fair enough. Trust me, I tried YouTube for one week and couldn't do it, so it's not for everybody. But I gotta ask the pressing question though. First, what is your ideal taco?
TacoDog8:Okay, so my ideal taco is you've gotta have fajitas in it.
David Hernandez:Yes.
TacoDog8:I like, beef fajitas with lettuce and tomato. And depending on if I'm, quote unquote spicy enough, I will put in some cilantro or some like lime in it. If I'm doing it on like a corn tortilla, I'll put some salt and lime on it and just make it like really good.
David Hernandez:A man after my own heart. Normally what I'll do is I'll do beef fajita, I'll do some guacamole, and then I'll add some kind of a spice to it, I don't know, I've been getting really into habaneros recently, so I think I'd probably do like a small habanero just to spice it up As long as I'm at home. If I'm out in public, I don't do spice.
TacoDog8:Right on. yeah, cuz sometimes some places when they have like spicy stuff, it's not quote unquote good spicy stuff and I'm not gonna throw shade at like the mom and pop Mexican restaurants. I love y'all's food, but sometimes it's just not for me. When I used to live down in Texas, my grandpa would always come with like little chile's and plant them and then just go outside and pick Chile when it was done and we'd make our own little spice at home. I would say homegrown spice is probably the best spice.
David Hernandez:I've always heard that cause I have some very spice chefs. There's probably a better word I'm thinking of, but that's the best I got to where they actually try to plant their own, they even try to, I cross pollinate'em or breed'em or whatever to make their kind of own peppers.
TacoDog8:Oh,
David Hernandez:time I've tried'em, they're like some of the most spiciest peppers I've ever tried in my entire life. Now granted I'm not very deep into this spice level by all any means of stretch of imagination, but these guys are very hardcore, for them, like eating habaneros, like breakfast for them or whatever, you know?
TacoDog8:oh my goodness. gonna be a fun one.
David Hernandez:Last question though. Do you have any dogs? And if so, what kind do you have?
TacoDog8:So I used to have three dogs. Like I had said before, Maddie was like my first real dog. Unfortunately, she did pass away in December. I had taken some time off podcasting to process it cause she was 15 years old and I love, still love her to death, we have a nice little box, cuz we got her cremated and stuff. And it's right next to My editing software and my computer, so she used to curl up at a ball right next to me while I'm editing. It's like she never left my side. So now I do have two other dogs. We have Molina, which is an Australian cattle dog mix. She is a rescue and she is five years old now. We had rescued her from the pound and nobody wanted her because when she used to herd cattle, one of the cattle had fallen on her and it broke her leg, and so she had problems walking. At least that's what the story goes. And so we said, yeah, we love this dog, nobody wants this dog, we want this dog. She's just been that giant teddy bear, but it sucks if you pet her because she will throw her 60 pound weight on you and just like, yep, I fall over. On the complete opposite spectrum, we have a border Colly, Siberian Husky mix by the name of Aries. She is six years old and she can't go five seconds without running around or getting a case of the Zoomies.
David Hernandez:That's so adorable. I always loved dogs growing up. I had a chihuahua, name was Crystal, loved that dog to death. She was always just very, cuddly dog. She always wanted, she's a chihuahua so she always wanted to be with the owner, which was me. It was unfortunate cause I grew up in a household to where one of my parents didn't want pets inside. So she always had to be an outside dog. That was always the difficult part cuz I always wanted her to snuggle up next to me, just playing video games or even on the bed. Fast forward to now I've got two dogs on my own. I've got two basenjis. For those who don't know what they are, don't worry, you're not the only one. It's basically a dog from the Congo. I always call it like a chihuahua on legs because they're hairless just like Chihuahuas I'm sorry, fur looks like chihuahuas and they don't bark, but they can yodel. And for them they're very stubborn to where It's this, for that kind of relationship, for a basenji to where they've gotta have, it's gotta be their idea to want to do it. So they won't do things they're forced to do. You have to reward'em in this way, bribe'em, quote unquote. The one thing I always love about dogs is that they come to this world to be with their owner, to love their owner no matter what. And that's always some of the heartbreaking things that you can have the most shittiest owner ever, and that dog will still love him. hard to explain
TacoDog8:You're honestly not wrong on that. I'll be the first to say that, as a teenager, we had got Maddie when I was, 12. So when I became a teenager and all the things that teenagers, Don't worry, I never did anything that was considered animal cruelty, thankfully, I had that much self-control. But I, I loved that dog and there were some days where I just did not want to put up with Maddie. She ended up staying down with my mom in Texas when I went to college. And then I said, Maddie's getting up there in age,"mom, give me Maddie for her final year", or at least for, we thought it was only gonna be three months and ended up being a whole year before she unfortunately had, passed away due to old age. Whenever she saw snow, she became this youthful dog and would try to run through the snow and then say, oh my gosh, I forgot, I'm old. I'm cold. Take me back inside please!"
David Hernandez:Oh, that's so cute, man. I could probably talk about dogs all day I'm sure my listeners won't, but we have to get to talking about Pokemon,
TacoDog8:Oh yeah, that's why I'm here.
David Hernandez:know, right. So let's start with the first question. When did you first start playing Pokemon Go?
TacoDog8:Thankfully, I was one of the day one starters. July 6th, 2016. I had got a text message from one of my buddies saying that the game had released and I just texted back, shut up, no way!" And so I look up on the Google Play store and there it was, so I instantly downloaded it. I had just got off of a double shift at work and I told my brother, I'm like, Hey, Pokemon goes out, download it And so we had just got off work, downloaded the game, started playing it. We were there on South Padre Island down in Texas. and we played all night stupidly. We were out from 11 o'clock at night to about three, four o'clock in the morning, just catching as much Pokemon as we could. My brother and I would try to race to collect them all. He unfortunately caught a Gengar and I had, the same one run away from me, but I beat him back by catching a snorlax that ended up being perfect before perfection was a thing, and his ran away, sadly. We were just out there every night playing Pokemon Go, messing up our sleep schedules and just having a ball with it. We got our friends or we got my coworkers to all play it and the police officers were wondering like, why is everybody out and about on South Potter Island? And I would say, one, it's a tourist town, two, it's July and three we're not doing anything, we're just playing Pokemon Go. We could be getting into trouble or doing things we're not supposed to, but we're just on our phones doing Pokemon trainer things, And that was the funny part. And then I ended up moving to Iowa to start my third year of college in August. I could not find a community to save my life because I wasn't a very social person. So I had put the game down until raids came out and I joined a Facebook group that said, Hey, there's a Tyranitar here. And so my brother and I he's continued to play. I had picked up, I was still higher level than him, which was pretty funny. At the time I was 34 when I put the game down, he was 31. He had a six month gap and I still had more XP than him, which was, I thought was hilarious. burrito Cat, if you're out there listening. Yes, I know. He wasn't Burrito cat at the time. He changed it just to troll me. and so we went out there and I was that guy that would just try to make jokes about it. Hey, what's a good Pokemon for this? Is this a good Pokemon to use? Knowing that if it's ceramic tar, it's dark and rock types. And I was going in with CP 10 Pidgey. And they're like, no, no, use this type. Some people eventually saw me as the Birdman just cuz I would always, I would always want use piggy. It was a joke. But then I, I started actually trying by throwing Blisses in because of course, And I know that some people are like, why would you use a bliss look? In 2017 there was a bug where you didn't get all the damage if you wiped. So people would just put Blisses in the back. I would use three Pokemon and three blisses and I would still get all three of the damage balls.
David Hernandez:Yes, because basically just give some context back then, like he said, if you fainted out of the raid lobby, the damage reset, and you would lose basically, I think three to four balls as a chance to just get the raid boss. So you'd basically be trying to catch a raid boss with maybe eight, if you're lucky.
TacoDog8:Yeah. You're also counting if you had the gym control bonus, which was not fun cuz back then, we didn't have the best friend bonus. I remember there used to be a chart, like a breakdown of which team did the most damage and I think that might have helped. I'm showing my age in Pokemon Go by talking about all of these features that don't exist.
David Hernandez:I am too. That's why I'm giving some context for maybe people who weren't there back then. So
TacoDog8:That's fair. And then PVP came out and I said, okay, here's my niche. Burrito! We must fight and I must establish dominance by being the ultimate trainer.
David Hernandez:What was it about PVP that really like why PVP of all things.
TacoDog8:So this kind of goes back to my time in the main series games. I played a lot. My first game was gold. And on my soccer team, I hated playing soccer, but I still played because a lot of the teammates they played, Pokemon games. So we would be there with our Game Boy advances and Game Boy colors and our link cables and just, we're just fighting each other, trying to be the best. And I was the absolute worst trainer on the team.
David Hernandez:Oh really? Wow.
TacoDog8:Yeah, I had no idea what tight matchups are. Well, that still hasn't changed because I still, will mess up my tight matchups every now and then. And so what ended up happening was when fire ed and Leaf Green came out, I had, a Game Boy, a advance sp and I made it my mission to just go around and if they played, I'll challenge people to battles if they want it and I would do everything that I could to win. I wasn't like IV breeding or EV training, I had no idea what that was back then. I just wanted to be the best. when the DSS came out with Diamond and Pearl, and I think I was in middle school at this time, a lot of my classmates had DSS and we would all host multiple day tournaments, like at recess, just fighting each other. I was still not the best, but I would try to work my way up to be the best. And so when Pokemon Go came out with pvp, I said, look, I'm a hyper-competitive person. I need something like I beat my brother to 40. I got more shinies than him. I had more xp. A lot of players in my other community were leaps and bounds higher than me. I was like just finding ways to make Pokemon go fun for me cuz I, I didn't care for shiny hunting. Once I got one shiny, that's it. I will be that guy that transfers all his community day shinies and I know some people are going, oh, he transfers unironically. Look, I don't have a lot of backspace. I only have 6,000, but a lot of it is reserved for PVP months. If the shiny is not a Hundo, if the shiny is not PVP relevant or if the shiny is just not cool or gonna be used in a raffle in our local community, it goes in the garbage bin. You can only hold so many shiny Bulbasaurs before you just look at it like, why am I still holding these?
David Hernandez:You never dreamed of having a full room, of Bulbasaur.
TacoDog8:Look Bulbasaur is not really my favorite. Actually
David Hernandez:favorite?
TacoDog8:depends on the generation.
David Hernandez:Oh, I see. You don't even have a specific one. You have one for each generation?
TacoDog8:Well, okay, so I make a joke, like right now my profile picture on discord is Flygon, and you hear me hype up Flygon like Flygon is just the greatest Pokemon of all time. It is so perfect in its design. It didn't even need a mega, it was just that beautiful like, mm, chef's kiss. I love using Flagon because it's the first Speedy boy I used on my Hoenn team and slash fire red team, I guess. It has just stuck with me since essentially day one of my journey, even though I know my journey was Pokemon Gold and Crystal. I go through phases of like favorite Pokemon. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I really like Umbreon because it's shiny looks really cool and then I found out it's an absolute wall. Right now I'm on a Lechonk Kick, which for those that play Scarlet and Violet, it's a meme. It's the new Bidoof. Bidoof is second tier now, it's all about the Lechonk all hail the Lechonk army, it's spherical, you mess with Lechonk, you get Le Bonk. just rolls off the tongue.
David Hernandez:Oh my gosh. Lechonk is so awesome, it's definitely one of my favorites. I just don't like its evolution, that's my only issue with Lechonk.
TacoDog8:It has an evolution?
David Hernandez:Exactly!
TacoDog8:So yeah, I don't have an ultimate favorite one, it's just more of a, which one do I think is the neatest right now? Like right now I'm really liking Bax caliber in Scarlet and Violet, which is like my favorite Gen nine Pokemon. But I also like the Applejack Man that just came to Pokemon Go in Gholdengo or Gholdengo.
David Hernandez:Oh, yes, yes.
TacoDog8:whenever I see it come out, I'm just like, here I am Mayman. And I know a bunch of two, I know a bunch of two thousands kids just went. I remember that!
David Hernandez:Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. Well, what's it like playing in your area though?
TacoDog8:It is honestly a lot of fun. The community days. so I'm in a college town and you've got the college kids that kind of do their own thing. You've got just a bunch of like random people, like an older crowd that kinda like walks around in the pedestrian mall, which I didn't know was a thing until I moved up here. And then we've got the Pokemon Go players and like in community days, there are so many Pokestops and you can just walk around and hit'em all. We have this little lapping system I think there's five or six different, combinations you can do. if it's cold, we're gonna take this lap, if it's hot, we're gonna take the long lap, if we're lazy, we're gonna do this lap. And it just maximizes all the spawns and stops so that you could set your gotcha to just catch Pokemon and just spin all the stops and you'll never run outta Pokeballs. So I also like to commute and I ride a bicycle a lot. And so on the bike I'm seeing more and more stops show up, like from bike paths about some really neat stuff that you really don't need a car as much as a lot of, I know a lot of communities like to use cars and there's nothing wrong with that cuz I know that we're all secretly passengers and our self-driving Teslas.
David Hernandez:Oh yeah, we're not driving and playing at the same time, of course not.
TacoDog8:No. Yeah. And so when I'm thinking about that, I'm like, oh my goodness, my home community. And I come from a place of privilege of saying this. My home community is so nice that I don't need a vehicle to have a great experience with this game.
David Hernandez:So you talked about how you like to ride your bike. that kind of how you play? you just ride your bike and you have your Gotcha going?
TacoDog8:Yes. So I have my bicycle and I like to differentiate myself from some other Pokemon Go players. Whereas I know we had talked about some people use their cars to get from point A to b. I don't have a car, I just use my bicycle to get around town and to play Pokemon Go. So I get to play Pokemon go on my way to work, and I get to play Pokemon Go coming home from work and I will never trip the speed cap because I will purposely go under 15 miles an hour.
David Hernandez:So you never have to worry about not being able to spin stops or catch Pokemon or let me ask you this, does your adventure sync still actually count the distance?
TacoDog8:Yes, it does. I have found a way to make sure every single kilometer gets counted with a 90% accuracy reading. And the trick is, a lot of people, when they use Pokemon Go, and they use it on their bicycles, they have a phone mount and they put it on their handlebar. It's a well-known, established fact that Adventure Sync is tracked when your phone bounces up and down. Hence, we have the sock method. And I know people are like, Ooh, the sock method, blah, blah, blah. Look, I'm just simply reporting on what's on YouTube, so don't yell at me, go yell at YouTube. So what I do is I have this like office clip that I'll attach to my belt, and it's like one of the, it's like one of the OtterBox like clippy things. And what I'll do is I'll attach it to my belt on my waist. And so while I pedal my leg moves up and down. And that essentially makes my phone move up and down and so while I'm pedaling, it's counting every single cadence and every single time that I move. And so if I have it set to a low gear, I can be pedaling my butt off and it's counting steps, or not counting steps per se, but counting distance. Theoretically I'm supposed to be getting 25, 26 kilometers a day. So far I've been averaging 22, 23 kilometers to count the times I decide to take a rest and just go down a hill at less than 15 miles an hour because I don't want to hit that speed trap or that speed cap. Excuse me. Although if I feel lazy sometimes and I want to quote unquote manually catch Pokemon, I'm not saying I recommend doing this, but I can ride my bike with no handlebars. Insert song here. I'll put the phone out on and play that way. That's how I like to play my game. And before a lot of people go, what? You don't have a car? I will be the first one to say, there is nothing that you can do in a car that you can do on a bicycle. But what about heater? Keep moving. You won't freeze that way. What about air conditioning? Just pedal. Keep moving. The wind will make you feel nice. What about putting storage on it? Have you ever heard of bicycle bags and or a backpack?
David Hernandez:I think for many people, a world before cars, it's hard to imagine just like how for people, they can't imagine PVP or raids not existing. It just becomes the norm, right?
TacoDog8:Yep and this is the once again where I will have My Boomer moment in saying I was there when PVP was released and I was there when raids were released. The buddy bonus one too. I remember I had walked a Luxray 1600 kilometers and then they said, Hey, we're changing the buddy system, and they started doing hearts and I said, I'm not walking another a hundred kilometers with you. Luxray, get in the box! It's time for some best buddies.
David Hernandez:We're gonna take a quick break with a word from our sponsors. We'll be right back.
TacoDog8:Hello everyone. I wanna dedicate this episode to anybody who, whoever participated in self arena factions, the friendships and communities that we created while working towards a common goal will forever be in our hearts. Everybody from the staff to the players truly made Pokemon Go more than just the game. The games that were played when I was a member of the angry bottoms and Deaner, don't care, will forever hold a special place in my heart. Thank you all for a wonderful time and always remember to keep your dragon Fang sharp.
David Hernandez:Welcome back to as the Poker Ball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. The other thing that's unique about your play style is you're also free to play, right?
TacoDog8:I like to call myself as semi free to play. I'll probably spend money on this game once a year. And I won't spend a dime on this game unless it's absolutely necessary or I'm hosting a PVP tournament and we're having some prizes say, trading cards, plushies and or raffle stuff. So I'll still spend some money on this game, but I'm spending it more towards my community versus Pokemon Go.
David Hernandez:That's a very noble of you. So really a lot of the money that you would be spending on Pokemon Go goes to enhancing community and trying to improve their experience with, the PVP tournaments and everything else you do.
TacoDog8:Yes, actually So in my local community, cause I have to say local community now, cause there's my official podcast community. Enter the Dragonair's Den. Discord will be around here somewhere. Follow me on Twitter. But why I say my local community, because Unfortunately, I don't want to pay for shipping stuff, and gift cards are very finicky for me, so I just rather do our enter the draggers den tournaments for like fun and to help raise rank, just to have a good time. I keep saying, you don't have to be a good PVP player to join this discord. We will laugh and have a good time, and there is, honestly, I've never initiated a PVP conversation in that discord. I'll give my 2 cents and I'll say, Hey guys, what do you think of this bread picture I found? It's completely random, but going back to my local, community enhancement. I'll be honest, I like putting a smile on people's faces and making sure that if somebody is new to the discord, I won't be overly like,"Hey, welcome to the Discord. Glad you can join us. Stay here forever. You're here until you move out of Iowa."
David Hernandez:Sign this contract promising your money to come to me.
TacoDog8:Exactly. I'm like, look. Welcome to pogo ic. My name is Taco Dog. I am a tournament organizer. I post maybe once a month, official PVP stuff. And so there'll be like usual plushies, T C G and of course, special stuff from Niantic because my community is part of the community ambassador program. And so the good thing that I like is a lot of people, the first thing a lot of people tell me when I like, I go hard on the PVP aspect and they're like, Hey Taco, I'm not that good at PV P. Should I still come to this tournament? And I said, yeah, dude, absolutely. Do you like to meet new people? Yes. Do you like to make new friends? Yes. Then you should really come to one of these tournaments and they're like, oh, I don't have a car. And I said, my wife's asleep, I will steal her car and I'll come pick you up to take me to this thing. of course then she'll be like, did you take my car? And I said, yeah. And she's Pokemon go Pokemon. Go. And so I will take you to the tournament myself and I'll take you back if I have a vehicle, if there's a way to just so that you can have that experience and at the end of the day, a lot of people, when it was their new tournament or their very first tournament, the first thing they always said is, taco, I had a wonderful time. I'm super happy that I came out to one of these things. When is the next tournament? And I say, keep an eye out on the discord for the next month's tournament. I would post it super early so that we all can make, so that we all can make plans around it. I never like to hold it early in the month. I like to hold it towards the end of the month and a lot of people will make plans to do that. I used to do like the PVP research for the community days and all you had to do was beat me in a best two outta three in either open Great league or self style monthly tournaments with the special rule sets. And that draws a really good crowd. A lot of people go, taco, aren't you supposed to lose?" I was like, yeah, but I'm gonna make you work for it. I would say PVP has revitalized my passion for this game to kind like wrap it all up in a nice little bow.
David Hernandez:It sounds like it drives up your competitive spirit and you try to pass that on to other people.
TacoDog8:Yes. It's also cool because I won't beat around the bush on this one, in my local community, I'm very good. I'll toot my own horn or without patting myself too much on the back, I know I'm the best player in my community for the time and there are some people that are gunning for the title of King of Iowa City. But when we have the prizes and stuff, somebody asked me, taco, you won your own tournament? Are you gonna take home your prizes? I looked them dead in the eye, and I said, look, if I had taken home every single prize, nobody would want to come to these things. If I won a prize, I am giving it back to y'all. So instead of first, second, third, taking home a prize, it's gonna be second, third, fourth, and so on and so forth, unless they don't want a prize and they're gonna kick it back to the next person. So I indirectly started a chain of kindness and if nobody takes a prize home, then, okay, I can just use it for the next month. And I'm okay with that. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever take prizes that I bought to give to the community and take them home.
David Hernandez:It's a difficult mindset to have, especially for us experienced players. for me, I always had this mindset to where everybody played like me, everybody has the stardust, everybody has the collection, the Legendaries, like, why are we repeating this over and over and over? Right. Not everybody knows what I know, and I had to take myself out of it and do what you do in regards to giving back to them what they need. Sometimes it can be as simple as providing resources to counters for raids. Sometimes it's simple as, Hey, go over here if you can do, some kind of event or whatever. And it's being able to put the community's needs above your own, which not everybody can do.
TacoDog8:I agree! There is absolutely, nothing wrong with that sentiment. And I do agree that the best communities, and I've seen in some of our local servers, the admins didn't have that mindset of giving back, so to speak. If you're one of those admins, there is nothing wrong with it. If that's what made it work for a while, then that's what makes it work. I'm simply coming from my experience and my perspective and my area, everyone's experience is gonna be different.
David Hernandez:The one thing that I really picked up based on your leadership style is it's very selfless. I wanted to ask like, where does that come from? Like, were you inspired by other people?
TacoDog8:Good question. I guess this is the portion where we might get a little bit deep, but we're all gonna learn today.
David Hernandez:Break it down for me, brother.
TacoDog8:okay. So my father, he was an incredibly selfless man. He had some of the best of friends in every place in society, the highest of highest and the lowest of lows and he treated every single person the same with compassion, with respect. Didn't matter if you were homeless and needed like an extra dollar to get you by, or if you were a multimillionaire with six or seven different houses. I guess that was just the work he did with fixing everyone's computer and kind of went from there. He unfortunately passed in 2007 when I was 11 years old, but just kind of seeing him do that kind of rubbed off on me just as I was being a teenager, okay, look, I know who my dad was, he has a really big shadow, and so I went in with the mind or growing up I had the mindset of if you help other people, then eventually, a lot of good things will happen to you. I guess what goes around comes around.
David Hernandez:Mm-hmm.
TacoDog8:And it continued all the way into my senior year of college when there was a debacle with, or not senior year of college, excuse me, senior year of high school there was a debacle with a catering company where all the workers didn't show up for a banquet. I told all the high school seniors like, look, it's our last year. let's all get up and let's like bring the food out to the younger classmen and to so our moms and dads and just say, look, we're giving this back to you. You guys have invested so much time and effort in us, let's do this one thing for y'all. So we catered to our own family members, even though we were like the guests of honor, cuz we were seniors. We didn't care about any of that. We just said, we're helping you sit down, shut up we're helping you. But then coming up here of course our discord has like first gen, second gen, or we call'em gens. I was in gen two, but a lot of people think I'm gen one, which is weird. And so seeing people donate money, I didn't have money to donate cuz I was in college. I was poor. They would donate money, they would donate time, they would donate cars like for rides when we did raid trains. And if you didn't have a car or if your car was in the shop, we would say, look, I have room for five, if you want a ride, let me know be here and I will pick you up. And we will go there. And they're like, do you want gas money? I was like, if you want the glove boxes right there, you, there's a box in there you can put money in. If not, it's no skin off my boat. As long as you get the legendary or if you get the shiny, I don't care. I want you to have fun first and foremost. Now I donate my time as much as I can in our, our Discord community, not so much creating infographics and stuff. I just do it like guiding new people into the direction and getting them more acclimated to our discord and just making sure everybody's having a really good time.
David Hernandez:And ultimately, That's kind of what's most important and gets forgotten when it comes to any community, especially within Pokemon Go. A lot of people think this game is driven by the content or the raid bosses, you know, yada yada yada. And yes, it does to a degree, but a lot of what makes Pokemon Go so unique and what unites a lot of us is just having that community aspect, having that part to where you can belong here no matter where you're from, what you've done. We all combined through Pokemon Go and that's really what the craze of 2016 is ultimately about. We all came for one thing with Pokemon Go. It was all people and we all kinda experienced a community around a video game in the real world, and that's how you continue to build communities up is just give them an experience that they can't really have anywhere else.
TacoDog8:I've traveled out of the state, like I'll, travel back to Texas every now and then to catch Heracrosses for people and then trade them for people or catch Corsola or get married. I got married in Texas, cuz I refuse, I refuse to get married in any other state. My wife goes, let's do a destination wedding. I said, look, I don't care what color it is, what the colors are, I don't care what food we eat, I don't care any of that, as long as it's in Texas. That's it.
David Hernandez:Right.
TacoDog8:But going back to the other thing, like there's just something, and I'm not saying that my community is the best. For me, I am saying that I have not had the same genuine, welcoming experience or the same experience overall compared to my home server cuz I'll pop into other servers like, Hey, I'm planning on making a trip here, in two to three weeks and I'm not gonna put this community on blast. But my message went unanswered for two days and then someone just said, dude, just read the FAQs and the channel guide and good luck. And then, it left a bit of a sour taste amount, but then I remember not every community is like that. So there were some positive experiences, some negative experiences. And so that's like where I come from and I'm like super happy to just make sure everyone that comes into the server is going to be welcomed and be like,"Hey, hope you stay a while."
David Hernandez:And eventually like the way you approach not even just your server, but just the community in general, it actually had you featured in a newspaper, right?
TacoDog8:Yes. Way back in 2019. Gosh, that was so long ago. There was a journalist who was a student at the university that was looking, they were doing some creative writing stuff and they were gonna get featured, and I hope I'm getting all this information right, cuz it's been so long. They were doing a project, or they were working for the newspaper at the time and they wanted to do a segment on some local communities. It just so happened that he was also a member of our Discord. So he asked like, how would I get in contact about doing this? And I was like, oh, oh, pick me, pick me. I'm the one that runs pvp. what can I do for you? what questions do you have? And he goes, do you mind if I just come out to one of these tournaments? And I was like, yeah, dude, come out, have a good time, ask questions. The only thing I ask is that people don't wanna give their opinion or don't wanna give a comment, just don't harass him. He actually put this quote in my paper. He was asking me questions about like, how did I get started in pvp? What drives me to do it, yada, like, you know, the usual, I would say, quote unquote journalist stuff. He asked me, how did I become a leader for pvp? And I said, dude, I'll be very honest with you. I just stumbled into this thing of leading, being the head tournament official. And he put it in there, he goes, I stumbled into being a PVP leader for POGO ic." when that quote came out, I looked at and I was like, yeah, that looks like something I would say, I wasn't even mad or anything. I was laughing so much about it. We had players from Des Moines, which is about 80 miles, west of us. And so we had players come out that far and then, something neat happened in the next month after that article was posted. We had players from Nebraska show up and drive all the way across the state of Iowa.
David Hernandez:Well, it just shows how much of a community you really had after that article like for people to hear like how welcoming and inclusive y'all were.
TacoDog8:Yeah, and we like it. The PVP community, had grown to encompass the state of Iowa, plus a little bit of Illinois and a little bit of Nebraska. And then unfortunately everything shut down and went remote and it killed our P V P community here in Iowa City. Which was awful. We are currently rebuilding the PVP community from the ground up with new players. I've reached out to everyone back again, and I'm super excited to be doing that.
David Hernandez:There's actually a quote that I wanted to point out from the article. So I read the article and this is one that I think really signifies who you are as a person, as well as impact you've had on your community. It says here, it doesn't matter where you're from, what people think of you, you're playstyle because this community has something for everyone. Meeting a whole bunch of new people and seeing the smile it puts on everyone's faces. That's what keeps me playing!
TacoDog8:Yeah, I remember that quote.
David Hernandez:so powerful, dude. It just shows that, and that's something you said, that's something that you said to the reporter that he included the newspaper. I read that. I'm like, that shows exactly what kind of guy this guy is. He's a selfless guy. He wants to make sure everybody has a good time because that's what community's all about, right? It's about everyone else and making sure we all the whole collective group really enjoys the experience, whether it be Pokemon Go or anything else,
TacoDog8:I agree 100% on that and I'm always the type of person like, look, you play the game your own way. For the longest time, before level 50 was a thing, once you hit level 40, a lot of people were like, okay, what do I do now? And I play a lot of old school Runescape and there's a joke like, oh, I met, I got all my skills in 99. What do I do now? You play the game. That's the meme of old school Runescape. Bringing it back to Pokemon Go, a lot of people would say, I hit 40, what do I do now? And we would all ask'em, what do you like to do? I like to search for, four star Pokemon. All right, do that. Or, I like to collect xp. All right, I'll see you at a billion. A lot of people's oh, I like to collect stardust, or I like to. collect, PVP Mons. And so you hit 40. It's what do I do now? Play the game. I still have that sentiment. I still play the game my own way. Sure, there are people who have hit Level 50 than me. They're playing their way. I'm playing my way. sometimes our past cross, we agree and we disagree, and other times, Hey, that's the way you play your game. That's how you get your enjoyment. As long as it's not interfering or being toxic, Do what you wanna do, bud.
David Hernandez:And eventually this led you to getting into factions, right?
TacoDog8:Yes. I owe all the credit in my career in factions from a good friend of mine, by the name of National Bowler won. Factions came out in season one. I did not want to touch this with a 10 foot pole. I have my own things to worry about. I was in a different stage in my life when it came to career path, and I could not dedicate that much time. To me, I was thankful that our PVP community had taken a backseat because I didn't have a lot of time to play Pokemon Go in 2020 and in 2021. Bowler had approached me and said, Hey, I have a faction team together. We just finished our first season. What would you think about coming on? And I said, dude, I'll be very honest with you, I probably won't be able to do much, but I'm very, administrative, very organized. I can do whatever you need me to do, as long as it, as long as it has the words great league or field specialist in it. I won't touch Ultra League and I won't touch Master league. When I finally joined the team, I saw that there was another player that I had crossed paths with out from California, my co-host, JetForceGemini. I was like, oh my gosh, I remember you, you came to our Discord server and you came to one of our local tournaments and you mopped the floor with everybody that was there and beat all the heavy hitters. And he's like, yeah, that was me. The faction was coming together and there was these articles that came out. Going back to my hyper-competitive spirit in the section, MJGettit, who was the writer, put us in the category of show me something. So I read that. I'm like, all right, you're gonna slide us, we're gonna show you something. And so here we are, like we're battling, we're kicking butt, we're doing well. During that whole time, MJ would not even talk about us and we're like, Hey, are we showing you something yet? like being that kid at the party that would take the noise maker or the noise blower and be like, me, look at me.
David Hernandez:Trying to get an attention.
TacoDog8:Yeah. And it never happened. Then we changed our name to the angry bottoms because every time he would talk about us, it would be like in a negative light, or we would take that as a negative light. So we became, we would say, all right guys, we're gonna channel our inner angry energy and since we're always the underdogs, we are the angry bottoms, and we're gonna angry bottom all the way to the top. And yes, I know saying it out loud sounds very cringe, but it was just a rallying cry. During cycle two, I had an idea of, hey, so MJ misses articles a lot and we want to see what he talks about. So when he misses articles, let's start a podcast that covers the lower tiers, cuz he doesn't give that place a lot of love. Let's cover the lower tiers from open to bronze and cover it while we are fighting in factions as well. And give breakdowns as to who did what and give like some head cannons or just try to tell a story and a semi entertaining factor. After I helped get the ball rolling on it, I go, I'm not a very good battler and I'm diverting attention from practicing and taking notes and I am now putting it towards content creation. Is this a really good idea? And the answer was, absolutely. We're going full sin buckle up. So we were, jet and I were making the podcast on the side and we were battling and somehow we were still kicking butt. Don't ask me how that happened. And the marriage happened somewhere in between that it was a World Cycle. Two was a whirlwind, I'm not gonna lie.
David Hernandez:Oh yeah, there's a lot that happened.
TacoDog8:And so I told bowler and I said, look man, I'll be very honest with you. I appreciate everything that's been done. Running, helping you run this faction has had me want to start a faction of my own. So I'm gonna be leaving and starting an official faction from like the angry bottoms to the podcast Enter the Dragonair's Den and we're gonna call ourselves D'Nair don't Care. I'm very sorry. And before you ask, no, I'm not taking Jet and I'm not taking Donut. They are free to come and go as they please, but if they asked to join my team, I'm not gonna say no. So I started my own team and in a couple of days, donut and Jet also had left, and they asked to join my team and I said, yeah, sure. It was like, Hey, I didn't mean to start another faction along with this podcast, but it just happened.
David Hernandez:So obviously you're part of the faction D'Nair Don't Care. The podcast is called Enter the Dragons Den. Why podcasting of all things?
TacoDog8:In 2020, I had made a goal for myself, and I said, I am gonna start a podcast. I had no idea what I was gonna talk about though. So since 2020, I've always wanted to start one, I just had no idea what I wanted to talk about passionately. When I was doing research, a lot of reasons why podcasts, fizzle out or whatever is the creators lose passion in what they do. So I was like, what's something I'm very passionate about right now? Well, I'm very passionate about fast food. Well, no, that's not true because that's my job and I'm trying to find a different sector of the industry, so I don't wanna talk about fast food every single, at the time, I wanted to post every single week.
David Hernandez:Mm-hmm.
TacoDog8:then, so I was like, oh wait, I really like Dungeons and Dragons. Do I want a Dungeons and Dragons play podcast, or do I want to talk about Dungeons and Dragons? It was just too broad. And then covid happened and forced everything upside down and so I, I put that on the back burner. In 2021, I told myself like, yeah, let's like, okay, I didn't get to do the podcasting thing, but in 2021, let's revisit this idea. What is something that I'm passionate about, that I've always been stuck doing no matter what? And then I'm looking, I'm like, oh, well I really like Pokemon Go and then I'm looking like, oh, there's PVP podcast for Pokemon Go, but there aren't any ones for factions. That was my like light bulb went off moment. A podcast that does Pokemon Go pvp, that specializes in the Silph arena factions also, because MJ does not upload the articles weekly. So people have no idea what to talk about or how to get hyped up for whichever matches. So I also like to credit MJ as well cause he also set the plan in motion indirectly. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, how am I gonna write this? How are we gonna stylize this? Do I need a co-host? Should I get a co-host? And I go, yeah, actually Jet, do you wanna be a Cohot? He's like, yeah. And I was like, all right, we have a co-host. And then I asked Donut, my teammate, moist Donut. Hey, donut, do you wanna be a coach? He's nah, fam, but I'll promote it. And so I like to credit, like the three of us came together to create the podcast. It was just like a series of events that accelerated us from, I have an idea for a podcast to, this is Enter The Dragonair's Den.
David Hernandez:So the podcast started on August 27th, 2022, so not too long ago, you're pretty young in regards to the podcasting age, but you're still around, which is good. And unfortunately, during the month of October you had to take a break. One for a horrific accident, which I'm glad you're still here. So thankfully for that. But the other is you also got married around that same time. So that month must have been the highs of highs and lowest of lows for you.
TacoDog8:yes, it was, I was very, I was very excited that our podcast was getting plays and listens and engagement, and I felt really bad too as well because we had just done our third episode and here I had, like, I told everyone, Hey, I'm gonna go on a two week break because I'm getting married and then I'm gonna do a mini honeymoon before we do our big honeymoon. And then we're gonna come back, hit the ground running end of October-ish, and then we're gonna get right back into it. And that was the plan. And we were so happy. And I was thinking to myself, what if we get guest hosts? Cuz at first I didn't wanna stop the content creation cuz I was away. I wanted to originally bring out a guest host, but Jet said, Hey, why don't you just, let everybody know you're going on break. And I said, okay, fine, I can do that. And then the accident happened. I found out that in the bicycle and car battle, the car wins in the one shield scenario and two shield scenario. Thankfully, I walked away and I was super happy about that. And that night it happened the same night we were gonna record. I said, Hey Jet, are you ready to record? And he goes, wait, you're, I was like, you're home already. And I'm like, yeah, but I am. I, it is I'm not gonna lie, I'm very hopped up on some painkillers. And he goes, okay, let's not record. And I was like, but we're going on holiday. And I was like, you need to heal. I was like, you know what? Fine, I'm not gonna fight you on this cuz I don't have the energy to fight, but
David Hernandez:so real quick, so basically you just got through an accident. And you heal up a little bit and then all of a sudden it's oh, we're about to go on break. I need to record. And you're trying to record right before a honeymoon, after having an accident.
TacoDog8:I was trying, so I was trying to record, so the accident happened the day that we were supposed to record. I had spent all day in the Wew Wagon and the Wew Wew land. I call it the hospital. I'm trying to make it funny. I know I'm supposed to, I'm not supposed to make light of a situation, but I feel if it's your trauma and if you can make jokes about it, eventually someone's going to think oh, I had a trauma and it's something that I can talk about too. So by all means,
David Hernandez:It's your story. So I'm not judging you at all.
TacoDog8:Okay. I was gonna say, you got what you paid for.
David Hernandez:I'm getting paid for this.
TacoDog8:Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention, if you join our faction, you get a salary of gummy worms. If you're a master league specialist, you get two bags of gummy worms.
David Hernandez:And if you join my faction, you'll get four
TacoDog8:Hey, now fine.
David Hernandez:hint. If you're having to be an Andrea Dragons there. Dan, you're the master league. I'll give you four bags of gunning burns right here and now I'll even throw in some tacos.
TacoDog8:Oh my goodness. Okay, fine. You're okay. Look, so I've already had to reduce my own salary to half a bag of Skittles for this. So I think I'm gonna have to reduce my salary again, and I'm gonna get some graham crackers to make sure that I can match that offer.
David Hernandez:Well, I'll make sure to up with some marshmallows and some Hershey syrup. We're making some s'mores, baby.
TacoDog8:Well, I was gonna, well, it's spring up. Oh, up here in spring. It's not gonna go over. maybe in the summer that might work, but not right now.
David Hernandez:Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.
TacoDog8:So where was I? Oh, yes. So I had spent some time in, I had spent most of the day in the hospital and when I got home, we usually record around like five, no, not five. We usually record around eight o'clock. I got home around five. And so I'm like trying to walk around as, you are after you got hit with two tons of aluminum. I, I messaged Jed, I'm like, Hey, Jed, let's record. And he goes, no, you were in an accident. You need to heal. he just told me no. And so I was like, all right, I'll just put the tweet out now. Like I'm going on an extended holiday y'all. Here's the wild part. So the accident happened on Monday. That Saturday we load up the car. I'm still in the process of healing, by the way like I had no idea if like I had internal injuries or anything. We load up the car and I drive to Texas for the wedding. When I told my little brother about what happened, the first thing he said to me, and we both have very dark humor because we've both gone through a lot of trauma growing up. So we make a lot of jokes. He told me and I quote, there are other ways to get out of getting married than what you chose.
David Hernandez:He's got a point.
TacoDog8:I was like, you are not wrong. You are honestly not wrong. That was the joke of it all like I hadn't even told my family that I had gotten into an accident and so I had shown up and I'm like, yeah, I am sore. And my mom's like, why are you sore? Or my whole family was like, why are you sore? And I was like, oh yeah, I got hit by a car.
David Hernandez:I thought you were just Bulbasaur.
TacoDog8:Oh my god. I love Bulbasaur. Right now at least. So that ended up happening and we ended up getting married that Saturday on the 15th. And for those that remember, it was Litwick Community Day. And the whole time
David Hernandez:Community Day.
TacoDog8:I got married on Community Day
David Hernandez:Well that's fine, but you got married on Litwick Community Day, that's what's more matter like if you got married on like what's a bad Pokemon, like a Paras Community Day? Nobody would care. You got married on Litwick Community Day, that's something.
TacoDog8:Okay, first of all, note everybody would care about Paras because it gives 500 Stardust a catch.
David Hernandez:Okay, good point. Um, what's another forgotten Pokemon? A Natu Community Day. How about that?
TacoDog8:Okay, that doesn't give extra stardust. We'll give you that one. Okay? So that's fair. So what ended up happening was I tell my wife like, Hey, community day is the day of our wedding. And she goes, you are not gonna play Pokemon Go during the wedding. And I said, that is a challenge and I am accepting this challenge.
David Hernandez:Real quick, before you continue, did the thought of maybe eloping or being late to the wedding ever cross your mind at all?
TacoDog8:It was
David Hernandez:Okay.
TacoDog8:it was a thought. And we were thinking like before the times I got announced, they said, okay, taco, go play Pokemon Go from 11 to two and then go to the church, you'll be there in time for the ceremony at three. It was from two to five, like in the middle of the ceremony. So I said, Hey, now can I miss my own wedding and play Litwick community today? And she goes, if you do that, we are gonna have some problems. And I was like, listen here, you knew what you were signing yourself up for when you said yes to me. For months, I made the joke that if there was a raid that we all wanted to do, we were gonna stop the ceremony and do the raid.
David Hernandez:Oh wow.
TacoDog8:said, we never agreed to that. And I said, you're right. I agreed and then said yes on your behalf. So what I ended up doing was I had my phone and my gotcha running. And so during the whole ceremony, I forgot to turn off the stupid vibrate on my Gotcha. So I have it there in my little pocket. It's going Z, Z the whole time. And she hears it and she goes, Are you playing Pokemon Go right now? I said, technically, I'm not playing. I'm praying. I'm getting married next to you, that's very important. Whatever is happening in the background is whatever is happening. And she's like, you're playing Pokemon Go. I said, I am not admitting to any wrongdoing. I plead the fifth. So we get married and yes, thankfully when it was all said and done, she still did not decide to run away. But the funny part is during the ceremony, the whole procession came in and she never came in. And so everybody was looking at me like, taco, did she leave you at the altar because of Pokemon GO? And I said, honestly, if she did, I would not blame her, that would be a very funny story. But I'll also be very, very upset because we paid a lot of money for this wedding.
David Hernandez:Now, if you by chance have been left out the altar because of Pokemon Go, please contact me as asthepokeballturnspodcast@ gmail.com. Your story could potentially make the podcast. Thank you.
TacoDog8:I love that shameless plug. That's a beautiful one. So we get married and, you know, as the bride and the groom we're the first ones out the door on that church, I immediately darted out of the church, took my phone out, saw that my gotcha had disconnected and reconnected it. Whenever the whole families were coming out and the wedding photographers wanna take pictures of everyone, they're like, Hey, where's Taco? Where's Taco? She pops out and goes, oh, we found him. He's playing Pokemon Go.. And I'm like, look, it's Community Day. Can you blame me?
David Hernandez:It's boosted stardust, man, I need the dust.
TacoDog8:Yeah, exactly. And so they're like, you couldn't put it down for 10 seconds. I was like, look, we got married. I said, I do. What more do you want from me?
David Hernandez:Now to be fair that you did put it down before the wedding. It just didn't happen until Community Day started, so...
TacoDog8:Exactly,
David Hernandez:That's awesome man. And you know, again, congratulations on getting married and I'm glad you're here, dude cause you know, car accidents are no fun, no matter what skill they are.
TacoDog8:It's not a fun thing to do, and I just wish everybody walks away safe and sound.
David Hernandez:Now, one thing I wanted to mention that you don't do it as much anymore, but when you, earlier episode, you used to do commercials that were kind of based around the Johto games. I really thought those were kind of cool. Like what made you want to include those and do you plan on maybe trying to bring them back or?
TacoDog8:Okay, so this is a little bit of a two-parter. So the first part is, I know I've mentioned this a little bit, I play a lot of old school Runescape. I listen to a podcast called XPWaste. I'll be the first one to say, I've imitated their, their style of how, like, they get into like the main topic they talk about, then they go to a commercial break and then they do a community section. And I go, you know, that's honestly a really good idea. I'm gonna do that. And so I, I adapted it to my own thing to where we talk about, you know, the wrap-ups and previews and then we go to commercial. The problem that I ran into is, and I'm sad to admit this, I'm also a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons, and so I do a lot of voices. And I'm usually able to do it without a problem, but for some reason, if you put a mic in front of me, I all of a sudden don't know what character my voice, or what voice my character is going to have. The Professor Elm one, I did it in like three seconds of planning. My faction teammates were texting me going, that is probably the best Professor Elm impersonation I've ever heard. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna replicate that again, and it's gonna haunt me. So it's something I do want to do. In the future. I feel like right now I'm at a point where, once me personally, I can kind of work that in or if I outsource it to other people who wanna submit their own ones to get like our community more involved in it, I'd be more than happy to take a shot in the dark. I didn't think it was gonna be like something that was gonna be missed, but coincidentally, you're not the first person to say like, yeah, what happened to those commercials? So they may come back later.
David Hernandez:Well, that is a show, taco Dog. Thank you for coming, onto the podcast. Before you do go, if people wanted to check out your content, check out your podcast, where could they go? By all means, please plug away.
TacoDog8:You can find us on Spotify. We also have a Twitter DragonairDen. If you want to follow me, I post memes about Pokemon. I also troll Twitter and I also talk about Runescape. And if you wanna follow me, there, I am@TacoDog_8. We do have a discord. By all means, come out there, read the rules, accept the rules, have some fun.
David Hernandez:Cool beans. And I'll make sure to include links to everything that he has said in the description of today's show. Thank you for listening to another episode of As The Pokeball Turns. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Feel free to follow me on all my socials by clicking the link in the description of this episode, and I'll see you next time! Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.
