Slip Into Some Deadly Nightshade

Today we are joined by Violent Lavender and Vivvienne Vermuth of Nightshade Burlesque, a gothic themed and inclusive burlesque show.

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Todays guests:

Violent Lavender

Vivienne Vermuth 

Venue:

The Cicada 

Transcript

0:00

well, welcome back to yet another episode of come with Casey. We are your host. I'm Dr. Casey Sanders and I'm Carrie Sanders. And we've got a fucking special episode today. Very, very, very special episode. So over the past couple of months, me and Carrie have been attending Yes this, this burlesque show in Fort Worth. This is what we, what we are seeing as a gothic burlesque show. Yeah. It literally popped up on my Instagram and I immediately saw it and I was like, what the hell is this? We have been needing this. What is this? I sent it to you. And then in like an, maybe 10 minutes, you're like, I've got his tickets. So I was like, hell yeah. Show one. We go, we have tickets. We have a fucking blast. We see some amazing performers. We have hosts that are just. Killing it that are comical, that are fun, that we knew we had to have them on the show. And we immediately said, we got to, we have to bring this to people. So we purchased a VIP table for show. Number two, we bring some friends, we have a killer night. And from there, it just said, all right, they've got to be on the show. We need to know more about this. So today here at come with Casey, we want to welcome the, the creator creators and builders of nightshade burlesque. Welcome to the show guys. Thank you for having us. Let's do this. Let's go ahead and start this off by letting you to introduce yourselves and give us a little bit of background. Nightshade. So I'm Violet Lavender. I am the founder of Nightshade Burlesque. Been doing this about six or seven years now and reached out to Vivian because Vivian has the best and most unique creative mind. And so Vivian, how long have you been doing this? I'm Vivian Vermouth. And I am terrible at phones, but I'm great at showing people my titties. You really are. And controlling the stage, by the way. You do a phenomenal. But yes, continue. Thank you. I've been... I, I've been with nightshade for I think about a year and a half now. And I've been doing burlesque, drag literally anything on a stage. If someone shines a light on me for about 15 years now. Wow. That's amazing. Well, you're a hell of a natural performer. I will say that. Absolutely. Like I said, the way that you like carry the stage and your presence and seeing the whole night, like I've never had so much fun at a show. And a lot of that really has to do with The, stage presence that you give out and the energy that you give us as the people in the audience. Thank you. I appreciate that. I really do actually. I have not really hosted a lot of shows in my career, but when we first started this residency with Cicada, I really wanted to, to host it just, just so that it was, it was us. Because I love having, I'll have, we will have guest hosts for sure, but I really wanted to keep hosting in house with us just because it's our show and I want to take ownership of, of what we create. Well, that's freaking killer. So then like, tell us a little bit about the, like the, the creation of all this. How did it come about? Okay. So funny thing is I am friends with local jazz performers and I had a jazz band and the jazz band had a venue and I needed the performers. So I had recently left a troupe and decided, you know, it was, like I'll make my own trip with blackjack and hookers. So I, first of all, thank you for the bender quote. I can appreciate that. Yeah. So I had the venue, I had the band, I just needed the performers and I realized that I also needed help. And Vivian has been a spooky performer for so many years. And I was like, Hey. Can you come over here, please? I need your expertise. I need help. And they helped me when I was drowning. That's amazing. It's amazing to be able to reach out to someone like that, and you have a goal, and then someone can kind of like, help you see that come through. That sounds like a great partnership. It really is. She Basically, what LAV started was such a killer idea that not many people have really ever had to be truthful and I actually as they said, I'm a very spooky performer. That's kind of been the backbone of a lot of what I do. If you've ever looked at. My tattoos, for example, I have a lot of horror and spooky of an entire arm of spiders, for example. And so I'm a, I'm a really big fan of the darker side of things. And so when she came to me and was talking about this idea, I was like, yeah, let's go with this because this really hasn't been seen in DFW. And we have. A great goth scene, but it's so far few and far between for people to have entire shows dedicated to it. Like they'll have one or two numbers, but an entire show dedicated to it is, is it really something we've had? Honestly, that was my draw as soon as I saw that and I'm like, fuck yes. Where has this been my whole life? Like I'm so fucking happy you're doing it and can I just be even more happy that it's not in Dallas. Like, what? In Fort Worth? Oh my god, it was literally heaven when I fucking saw that. I was so excited. I was worried about doing Fort Worth because I was like, I know Dallas will turn up, but I don't know what Fort Worth will and it has been such a pleasant surprise. I know that y'all have been in the audience, but how many of those audience members go all out in their dress, like? The first night that we were there, people were like showing up. I was like, is this like a red carpet gothic event? Like, holy shit. People look amazing. Well, that's cool. That audience participation, people showing, I mean, we even at this last episode, we had a table like right front and center for everything. And we're looking around and seeing just everybody. Everybody's into it. Everybody's having a good time and y'all do such like an amazing. Y'all still set a good example for the crowd with, with interacting in such a good way that makes the audience feel like they're part of the show and not just watching performers on stage. Like that's one of my biggest draws for you for that. I love about you guys is that we're watching y'all interact with the audience. People are coming around, like you're, you're drawing into the crowd. You're talking about people who it's their first time there and you know, ask if you can fuck with them and doing all sorts of stuff. So we're, I know that as audience members, we were super appreciative of the fact that y'all made us feel like it was this one big show as opposed to us just sitting and watching. Yeah, that's for me for sure. That's what I've always wanted. I can appreciate. a stage show, right? We all love to go and see when Broadway's on tour. We love to go to Fair Park and see something like that. But I think one of the biggest draws for a local burlesque show and it's unique. favor to people is that it's a chance to see someone that feels well known, feels famous because they're on stage in front of you. So clearly they've got to be this bigger name, this, this entity, but then you get to see them in the crowd. You get to see them come near you and interact with you and talk with you. And that's kind of how I like to host as I, it's not really a. Hey, we're going to present this at you. I'm presenting this with you. You're just as much as the show as the performers are. And I want people to make sure they feel important and special as part of the audience. Cause I feel like it's almost like interactive art at that point. That's what makes it fun and special is when the audience feels like they're part of it. And that's what keeps them coming back is it's not just a, cause yeah, you don't go and see. Moulin Rouge at Fair Park eight times you will go and see your favorite band a lot because you feel part of it You feel like you're interacting and you're getting something back not just entertainment, but you're getting something that's more fulfilling back. Absolutely So I have a question then like how do y'all find your performers is it like a long process Do they have to come in like perform in front of you beforehand or like send in mock videos? How do y'all go about it? Well, we do submissions, actually, and I would say it's a, it's a mixed bag. I know that Lav and I both have our favorites. We both have people who are like, oh, we totally have this show now. We have to bring them out. And so we'll definitely work that into... Submitting for people, but also we do online submissions. You can, if you haven't, if we've never seen you in person, you can absolutely send us a video, send us a description of your act, send us your costuming, your overall feel, because that is one of the important parts of this show. And I've gotten that question a lot. is what does goth mean and what does like darker performance art mean and sometimes it's not quite so easy to to see it's not quite so simple to figure out because yes if you put on all black and you dance as as death Yeah, as lav does that's obviously more goth, but there's so many different parts of goth, like pastel goth and rainbow goth. And there's a lot of subcultures within that. And so it can be a little bit more difficult. I know I, I feel like I can easily tell someone this is not, and this is, so it's, it's wise for us. And we've, we've talked about this a few times to make sure that specifically with this show, that we definitely keep it. to that gothier subculture, just because it would be easy to pick out hundreds of amazing performers and bring them. But then I feel like we lose that light of the show and that's kind of the whole point of it. Okay. So there you go, Casey, send in your request. Yeah. So then whenever we do our submission for like a Shabari performance, like a gothic Shabari performance. Yeah, I literally had a vision of like, because Shabari takes a while and I'm like, we could just be in the background and like doing the ties while y'all are performing and then all of a sudden just get suspended into the air, you know, you're hoping to get some kind of hard rig up on the ceiling. If anything, you can come in with a harness already and then you can just suspend from there and just do fun position. I mean, guys, I am so on board for this. I'll put you in like a Vans behind the back TK, you can hop up on stage. That would be amazing to do a show with someone just like randomly, literally hanging out in the background. I love it. Put glitter and then you're a disco ball. I could be y'all's disco ball. That would be perfect. We'll do, we'll do, we'll do a, we'll do like a flashing glowing butt plug and glitter and heaven. And it'll just be a laser show and just lights and sounds everywhere. And then when the show's over, I pulled the plug out and throw it at someone. No, you charge for that. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, that's fair. You don't get that creative mind at work. See, there we go. We don't do that for free. We will do, we will do an onstage auction. Oh my God, that'd be hilarious. For Kiri's butt plug, done. And it will make so much money and it like half of it goes to like our favorite charity and the other half goes to y'all for a future Shibari butt plug. Like it'd be perfect. See, We're, we're jiving already. We're making, we're making good plans here. I like that. So y'all had, we were talking before we were talking just before we started recording and y'all had mentioned your very first performance that you did at a, at a different venue that just really exploded. How do you guys feel? That kind of has set y'all up for the success that y'all are now experiencing being at the cicada. That was such a fun show. Oh, thank you. Okay. So, that one was with a band that is local, a goth band, that I had met at a convention and offered to Vivian like, Hey have you heard of this one? And Vivian's like, actually, yeah, I know them. We absolutely need to work with them. And so there is reaching out to the goth community, but there's also offering a goth band with it. Yeah. And a live band just elevates it and you feed off of each other and the performance itself was electrifying. And the venue is a little bit larger, which honestly between the two, whether it's a small kind of like hole in the wall place like cicada or a big one like tulips, they have different feels and both of them are great in different ways. This one just so happened to be a larger one and we were so nervous. We were like, does anybody know about us? Does anybody care? And all of a sudden we had a full house of screaming people all the way like people packed all the way to the back of the house and we had people going into the audience to perform. I was on stage with giant fans. It was an amazing show and I wish I could relive that night over and over again. That's so cool to hear. You know, one thing that I that I noticed about. About you guys is that you have this, well, there's a generalized group of people who hear the term burlesque and they don't understand the history of it. They don't understand what it's really about. They just know what they've been told from movies. And so they're expecting to go in and have like this, this, what we like to call like the box of beauty of like that idealist, Thing and they think they're getting one thing and that's what they kind of expect but whenever we get to see y'all show y'all have this whole spectrum of performers and it really allows like people to connect not only with with just burlesque as a whole but with the the performers identities. It was just real. It was real. I feel like we've been to burlesque shows before and it felt so everything has to be beautiful and perfect. And this is how it is. And, but this felt real and honest, and I felt like y'all were having fun. And that was my biggest thing, or my biggest takeaway is like I said, I've been to other shows. And it's like the performers there, they did their thing. They leave. Okay. Thank you. This was like intimate and, and, and it was such a. Amazing experience. And it's something that needs to happen in burlesque. I feel like burlesque a long time ago. That's how it existed. It was funny. It was comedy. It was dancing. It was, yeah, it was a bunch of different stuff. And then somewhere along the way, it just became Hollywood eyes. Yeah. Here's this thin ass model. There you go. Get out there and you know, make her titty a swirl, but y'all have performers and it's just so refreshing. Yeah, absolutely. One of the biggest things that we both completely agree on is that the, the stage frequently goes to a very specific. I don't know, a stereotyped ideal, I think, and 100% we don't know where that came from because like you said, when American Burlesque really started, it was a side act for in between comedians. It was basically like the straight player at comedy shows to keep people there, to keep people in their seats. You know, yes, come see these comedians and come see these standups, but also stay for the women. And that was how it started and, you know, they would obviously, you know, dance beautifully and costumes and whatnot, but they were also making fun of the bourgeoisie. They're making fun of the top percent and, and that was a really big thing and how it started. And then the burlesque revival in the United States that really got going in like late eighties, early nineties mainly started in like Seattle and New York. I can honestly say there wasn't a stereotypical body in there. I remember a lot of those people who we now call legends and they were, they were larger. They were smaller. There were all sizes and all shapes and all colors and all heights and all types and all genders. And it was so cool. And that's how I know I found my place was watching a lot of these performers through YouTube. And. When we first started talking about me joining up with her and helping her with Nightshade, that was my biggest thing. I had actually started pre pandemic A festival called the nocturnal tease and it was going to be an entire gothic festival that highlighted gothic burlesque and variety and sideshow and all of my headline. Headliners were performers of color. I didn't have a single white face on my flyer and that's a big deal for me, especially since I am the host of the show and I, you can't see my face, but I'm whiter than sour cream. And that's a big deal for me is I am the host. But I want to make sure that people in the audience see not only just themselves, but their friends. Cause it's, it's, it's one thing to see one person up there that looks like you. You should see an entire, you know, menagerie of people that like, that's my friend and that's my mom. And that's my, you know, you should be able to see so many people on stage that reflect you in your life. That is the big thing for me because beauty is not a as Barbie is so popular right now, right? Beauty is not the Barbie Idol doll ideal. It is not that bar beauty comes in so many shapes and sizes and smiles and frowns. Mm-hmm. And that's the biggest thing that when we started doing nightshade stuff, we wanted that to be. A hundred percent. Yeah. And we, and we, that y'all have made that very clear from the performances we've witnessed that y'all are, are there to celebrate the entire spectrum. So to see, to see y'all out there and supporting the trans community and supporting like the LGBTQI a plus community as a whole. Mm-hmm. through the performances was super refreshing and just, I mean, it was amazing to watch. And I think my thing too, is y'all didn't come in there and saying, look at all these people we're supporting and you're going to see different people. Like you just did it. You didn't come out there with an explanation. You didn't try and get us to understand where you're coming from. You showed up and y'all both times that we've been there, the, well, we've only been to two, we've been in the one in July and August. So, and we'll be in September. Yes, and we already have tickets for that too, don't we? No. Oh, well shit, never mind. I spoke too soon. But we will. We'll have another table. We will. But again, y'all didn't have to like, come in there and just be like, this is what you're gonna do and this is what we are. And look how cool we are for bringing all these people on. Y'all just fucking did it. And it was really refreshing to see it. And I knew from that moment, that first show, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna fucking be here every single time. Like, this is what we've been needing. Not only in like, We've really been needing it in Fort Worth, but just our community as a whole, like we need to see people for what they are and not what we imagined them to be. And y'all are so raw and it was beautiful. Thank you. I really appreciate you saying that. I, we definitely come from, especially me. I acknowledge this come from a place of privilege that we have the ability to create this show and put on this show and the performers that we have are the most beautiful, kind hearted people that we have been so lucky to find and work with. And of course, we're going to give everybody a stage because we, I'm sure Vivian can relate with me on this. We're the nerdy kids in high school. Yes. We were the theater kids, the band dorks, whatever. And we kind of have an eye for it at this point. We can see, like, you look in someone's eyes and it's like, oh, you were an emo kid. Like we're going to get along. And so yeah, and we're kind of leading by example of like, we have this platform and these people are great people. It doesn't matter where they come from or anything like that. We just want to give them a spotlight because they deserve it. And I want people in the audience, like Vivian said, to see themselves. And burlesque for me was kind of a reclamation of my body reclamation. And embracing my sexuality. And if somebody in the audience sees a body that looks like theirs being sexy, they inherently feel like I, too, can be sexy. And I've had so many people say, like, No, I don't have the body for it, blah, blah, blah. And I said, you will go on that stage, shake jiggles, and people are going to scream. It's the best feeling in the world. Like take your arm meat, everybody has our meat. You shake your arm meat and the entire audience is going to go mad and it feels so good. Yes. It's a, it's a nice, it's like this nice health, healthy realization, because at that point I feel like you, you realize that the, the audience isn't just cheering for the performer as a. As being on stage or when I'm on stage, they're doing it because it's like, fuck yeah, that's me on. You're like me. Yeah, we get to do this together and it's showing such good support. It's such good body positivity and such a, like, yeah, you get more than just the cheer for the. For the person you get to share for the community. Well, and I love that you said that you can see someone that I know what you were in high school or whatever that, that really resonated with me. Honestly, you just said that because I was I wasn't drill team in high school. I was like the girl that was involved in that stuff, but I was goth as fuck. And I remember trying out for drill team and then making it and then. Going to all the practices, everyone hanging out so much fun the first day I started school and the first day they saw me and what I actually wore and not my athletic clothing, it was like, you're not allowed to look like that. Why do you look like that? Why do you dress like that? Like, and I love that. That's one thing about goth, which I've. Always try to get other people to understand is and you said it earlier to their subcultures to it, right? We accept all and it doesn't matter if you're the goth that wants to wear your you like Unicorn and your rainbow and your whatever or you're the goth that does like more the pastels you're the goth that likes the fishnets and the big tees and it's It's such an accepting community and I do realize that that was like a pivotal point for me when I was younger to be like, I look this way. Who cares? Y'all look that way and I'm not accepted. And so that's 1 thing about this that like, yeah, that I don't know. You just kind of sparked like an old memory for me and. I love the acceptance that this overall culture has. It's not a judgy culture. It's very, very open and it's very honest. And I think that y'all are giving individuals a platform to show themselves how they want and then to have the acceptance that even in the audience that we then feel. And so it's, it's great. Y'all keep fucking doing it, man. And do more. Can y'all get another group so we can have one like every day? I just, I, every time I've gone, I've gotten such a high from it and it, and I think that that's what people are needing. Thank you. I appreciate that. So I wanted to expand on something you said a little while ago about how we just we didn't like present to people. Hey, look what we're doing. We just did it. That's actually been a big point for me just as a, as a, as a person. So I, I am absolutely a white female presenting body and I am a queer body. But like lab said earlier, I recognize that I have the privilege I have. To be able to do the things that I do, and one of the ways that I feel like I can best use that privilege is not shouting on my microphone, look at what I'm doing, look at all the good I'm doing, I'm just going, hey, cool. Here's the microphone that I have. I'm gonna give it to someone else that they can shout and use that instead of me Speaking about how good it is that I'm doing this thing I'm just gonna give it to them and that's how I feel like this show really is It's not us saying look at this cool thing we're doing and look how good we're doing for the community and how good we're doing for for queer bodies for Performers of color all this we're just doing it. We don't need accolades because the accolades is in the performers that show up and perform and do amazing things that they deserve the accolades because they're the ones putting the risk and putting themselves out on the line. We're just giving them a safe space to do so. And that's. Honestly, all the accolades I need is knowing that they feel safe and comfortable and that they are fucking making money And that's that's all I need to do. I'm like good. My job's done. Great Fuck. Yeah It's it's been it's been good to see that's why why whenever we went to the performance of the night and yeah There was the the the poet that came out. Yeah, that was like it was their first time performing on anything and They, you know, came out and they read their poem and they sang their song and to watch the audience just go fucking wild over that platform and watch the, watch the look on the performer's face of just Holy shit, I did it and look at all the acceptance I'm getting. I know that I like, I walked up afterwards and it was like, fuck yeah, keep doing you like, that's amazing. But to watch their face just light up with the ability to have that stage to, to kind of get out there was. Yeah, it was enlightening. Yeah. I also like trying to spot which ones are going to be the performers because Yes, y'all do. They go out in the crowd and I'm like, oh, I bet it's that one. I totally bet So it's, it's crazy. It's crazy. I love how so many people like dress up so much lav had said that she was coming out to the show on Friday and I was like, oh my God, please dress up so that we can take some tos and do some like promo videos. Mm-hmm. and I'm pretty sure probably like y'all and other audience members are probably like, Oh my god, they look so cute. Are they performing tonight? And like, you had to, yeah, you had to look around, definitely. So many people, and so much good dress, and good makeup, and you're, yeah, you definitely have to go. Is this, it should be a terrible drinking game, because probably by the end of it, the entire audience would be completely wasted. I'm trying to figure out who's a performer and who's not. Yeah, right? Okay, Vivian, we're gonna do a flash mob. Oh my God, please, please do that. How cool would that be to have one of your performers or whoever it is, like music starts, they don't come up on from the side stage, but they just happen to be nonchalantly sitting amongst the crowd and just boom, things start like, that'd be really cool to see. And if you do a flash mob, you do realize that there's a Friday the 13th in October, you have time, just going to throw that out there, you have time. Oh my gosh. I mean, we have to utilize Friday the 13th in October this year. We haven't had one in forever. And I think it's the only one we have this year. I don't know, I'm just saying, throwing it out there. You know, just saying, Friday the 13th tattoos. I wonder if we can get a tattoo artist friend to maybe throw in a Nightshade logo and see how many people are willing to get a Nightshade tattoo. Oh my gosh. We have to get started on this. That's amazing. I'll get it. Hell. Same. I was like, I already have a spot on the back of my leg. I could totally do that. That would be amazing. I would love to see how many people get that tattoo and then show up at the November show and do like a big group photo of everyone and their nightshade tattoos. Everyone that got it has a get on stage and twirl their titties. Everyone that got it. I'm into it. Oh my gosh. Nightshade pasties. We should sell those. Oh my God. Yes, you should. So we can make those. I was going to say, we can make them. We have a whole heap. We've got all kinds of stuff. We got a full professional set up. We can make that happen. My husband is the Jack of all trades. He, he knows so, he knows little about everything. Yeah, that's me to a tee. Like everything. My, my, my neuro atypical brain just, I jump into shit. I hyper fixate and I learn everything about what I can about a hobby. And then I jump hobby to hobby. So yeah, we can make that happen. So if you need, what are the, what is the the X that you're about to make? Oh, St. Andrews. Yes. You're making a St. Andrews. I'm coming. He is. For his shibari work. For his shibari work. I have done, I have installed like anchor points in our bedroom on the ceiling. We have a big ring hanging in our bedroom. Oh my gosh. Literally from the ceiling. We have an anchor point with this, with like a hundred feet, just all doubled over wrapped with a shibari ring so we can do suspension in the bedroom. And then I'm building a St. Andrew's cross in the garage. So your woodworking five years ago is now paying off. I just needed a place, I needed a subject matter and it just happens to be around Kinky. Just made a best friend in Laugh Yes, I am going to live there. I I just got a spreader bar for Yeah. A little present that my partner and I do whenever we get each other to a hundred orgasms. So Oh, that's, that's got a spreader bar. Wait a minute. What? Oh, yeah, yeah, we, we have started counting this year, how many orgasm we give each other. And then when you get somebody to a hundred, they give you a gift. And I have had to give two gifts so far this year. Let's just say that it's a fun little treat, you know? And last time I got a spreader bar, a like double penetration, dildo, a couple fun toys because my, I'm one of those people where my closet has a wall. Of just various instruments, let's say. Yeah, same. Well, I don't know if y'all can see us on video, but we have a whole plethora, we have a whole podcasting room full of sex toys. Like, what's on screen is just the ones that we kind of chose to put out, and this is about, I don't know, a tiny, tiny percentage of what we have. And mine the same way, like my closet, the shelves that are in there. And we'd have to tell our kids, Hey don't go in dad's closet. Just don't stay very aggressively. No, they're not allowed in our podcast room. And I'm like, because you're, you don't want to go in there. I promise you, you will have to bleach your eyeballs. You will regret the second you walk in. But I like that. And I want to, I want to, I'm going to swipe and deploy that idea. Yeah, because I'm going to get so many gifts. Yes, yes. And also 69. When you get to 69, you have to 69, of course. I mean, that makes sense. It's a couple, like, fun little things. And also it's a challenge. You should make a sex advent calendar thing. Right? I have one of those scratch off calendar things for sex. You scratch it off and it's like, take a bath together. And I'm like, this is bullshit. Most of the ones we've seen are pretty vanilla. That's what I'm saying. We need to have a more graphic one. Yeah, we'll make one up. A key calendar. Have you seen those dice that you roll and it's like, touch my earlobe. Yeah, I know. It's like, lick my knee. Ha Let's figure this out. But in terms of us with as much education that we do, sex education, and education and coaching for couples, and for for people in the poly community and everywhere in between, we always love to have good ideas and that's a fucking good idea because it also helps to preach honesty of don't fucking fake your orgasms, but imagine how you could have a whole calendar and then January and all of it could be different. Performers that you've had, and then in the actual date, you have like little things to do and it comes with tassels. Oh, my gosh. I love that. Yeah, we could do that. Vivian. I love a nightshade calendar. We're just turning this whole thing into you ever just want a round table discussion. I am a girl that has a bunch of ideas with no way to execute it. I love literally just ideas. We're both professionals and business owners that handle all of our own marketing and stuff. So we're happy to discuss these kinds of things. You know, actually that brings me to a really big fucking question. How do y'all handle censorship online? Cause you said something about Tik TOK and my, my brain went, what? Cause we're not even allowed on Tik TOK. We do have come in our name and I get that that's like offensive for people, but how do y'all handle censorship? So on that, you just have to be very careful with how you do promotion and how you handle videos. So one of the things I have found with Tik TOK and I've sent labs and the videos I've made on Tik TOK, they have ways of. Creating videos that have different filters and some of the filters are intentionally blurry at the beginning and then clarify and that's actually helped me create some really neat looking burlesque promos because it'll be blurry during a body shot. So you can't tell what it is, and then when it clarifies, it can pull into a shot of the host or a fully clothed shot of a performer, and then it's not a big deal, but you know what the blurry part is. So it actually kind of even helps, because then it's like, Oh what is the, what is the blurry? I want to, I want to go to the show to see what the blurry looks like. I like that, yeah. Well, because I know that with, with tick talk, the people that like go through and like scan the videos beforehand, they have like 10 seconds. So they see as long as like in the first 10 seconds, there's nothing or whatever, then it will allow it. So if it's blurred, then that does make a lot of sense. But our stuff was getting banished for talking about like lighting. So we. Dumb the issue. One of the issues we deal hard on TikTok is that we do, we usually post some of our interviews or little clips from it. And we had a adult film star, Sylvia Sage on one of our episodes, and she was, wasn't even talking about anything super explicit. No. TikTok took it down immediately. Immediately, like they've silenced it. We had another one of our buddies who's a ChAARI expert by the name of Jake, lives up north. And he was just talking about getting with the photographer. He was like, yeah, we try to make our models comfortable, all this. And they took that down too. So we're like, fuck TikTok, we're out. Yeah. And then Instagram, too much work. Yeah. We had that account and we had grown our account for at least over a year. And then they deleted it immediately. I mean, y'all know that because we were talking on y'all on the older account. And then we literally just woke up one day and it was gone. Yeah. I saw that. It was so sad. I was like, wait. At first I was like, do they not like us anymore? They blocked us, they're gone. This monster in the back of my head was like, clearly we made them upset. They us anymore. And my brain was like, no, their name was literally come with Casey. They probably got censored. Yeah, we got it. And that's when we created the new one. And I was like, let's just do CW Casey. Cause I think when we first did it, we put come back in the title. But like I said, people are super offended when you say come, so. So we have people that think that we run a, like a massive porn site because we've had like friends. Yeah. I'd be like, wait a minute. It'd be like, so y'all are doing porn. I mean, what does it matter? But like, no, it's a podcast guys. It's a podcast. Well, the online censorship has been very frustrating for anybody in any kind of sex work, but I think these these. Apps or whatever flag you if you have ever said anything. And so they kind of like keep an eye on you and they shut you down. Because if you relate to anything sexual, they deem that everything you do is sexual. And a weird example of this is I went to do my first Lira performance because I also do aerial and my Lira instructor knew that I did like sex work and burlesque and I wrote choreography and she shut me down and she's like, don't touch yourself at all. Nope, I know that you do sexy things, but don't touch yourself. This isn't burlesque. And I was like, this is very PG kind of dancing, but because she knew that I did burlesque, she assumed any kind of dancing I did was going to be sexual. And just because you, I mean, there are sex workers with kids, there are sex workers who do normal day stuff. Why is it that You can be sexual and embrace your sexuality, but also be like villainized for it. It's wise. Oh man. Yeah. That's frustrating. The same thing that goes for it's, I mean, it's opposite in the way that somebody might come in and they don't do sex work and they don't do burlesque and they're just a dancer and you have two people that touch themselves in the exact same way one of you is villainized and the other one is celebrated. Yes. Yes. I mean, in all honesty, that when we kind of started the concept of the podcast, it was. To change that dialogue to redirect people's like thought process on that and in some ways, I definitely believe that we've reached out and. Helped kind of like influence or, or alter some people's perspectives. But at the same time, it's kind of turned around and bit us in the ass too. It's just fine. I mean, we don't need friends and family, but you're talking about family. My, my own mother's, it was actually kind of a funny story and it's short, but it's a funny story and also a little sad. So, my own mother was. Kind of interested in me doing burlesque and would ask me to send her videos and she would ask me to tell her when Clothing started coming off because she loved the makeup and the costumes and you know I'm never gonna be upset at that because that is my mother I'm sure you don't want to see me in a certain way I know lots of parents do go to burlesque shows and you know Maybe you just don't want to see me in that way and that's fine I've actually was never upset about that. So I would tell her Well, then my baby sister, who was only five at the time and knew how to use a computer way better than my mother did. My mom left the YouTube app open and had stopped it before. So then my sister watched the rest of the video and she's five. She had no idea. She just saw, you know, sister doing this thing. And then apparently a week later they were at a shopping center buying clothes and my song that played came over the loudspeaker. in the shopping center and my little sister decided to take her shirt off and whip it around in the middle of the shopping center and she said where did you see that she goes well I saw sister do it on the computer oh my gosh that's so little miss It was amazing because then I was in a, I was in a I was doing princess peach from super Mario brothers. And so she knew I was a princess and she said, well, mom, that's what princesses do. And I, how do you argue that? I was like, well, I mean, I was a princess. I did do that thing. It's fine. Ooh, that, yeah, that becomes, we, we've done episodes before on like educating kids about sex and sexuality. And those are always fun conversations depending upon your. Oh, I've definitely had my dad be like, should I listen to the show? I'm like, please don't do not listen to my show. You, you will not like this. This will not be good for you. You don't want to hear about our experiences. We've gone. And, but I love that. I mean, the sexuality is a part of life and I think people just need to fucking get their shit together and stop being so fussy about it. Cause it's just who we are. It's what. I think it's a characteristic of us to be able to like identify with our sexuality, claim our sexuality and give that out to whoever the fuck we choose. And I think that burlesque actually really helps with that. Honestly, you said it perfectly. Like you go out there and you perform and you give confidence to someone else. And That's what we need. We need that as women. We need that as people looking to just like gain their sexuality back and male or female doesn't really matter whatever gender, but it's important. And we just, we have grown up with such shame behind it. Agreed. That's one of the things I love about burlesque in general, but especially our show, our show, I feel like really also presents burlesque in a completely different light. We're so used to, and I love this. I'm not saying anything bad about it because You know, small plug, we're doing a New Year's show with a jazz band. But the so many people grew up with classic burlesque to jazz and big costumes that are covered in rhinestones. And like I said, the stereotypical body, but I love our show because it shows. That same kind of idea on different bodies and different types of dance and performance art to different kinds of music that you probably wouldn't know to associate with sexual or sensual movement. And so people can go, wow, I didn't know you could do that to this. Or I didn't know I could look like this and be sexy. And I didn't know I could wear, you know, a giant skeleton costume and still be sexy. And so I love that we get to showcase a different side of that for sure. Yeah. It really gets to open people up to the possibilities, whatever they, you know, watch the show and go, Oh shit, that gives me an idea. Well, even like when I was talking to people about the show and I was like, yeah, I saw a drag King. I was so shocked to how many people didn't know what that was. And for the fact that y'all have done it, both shows that I've been at and y'all had a performer come out there. That is something that I I've noted existed, but I've never seen it before. And y'all brought that and y'all brought it both times that I've seen. And again, it wasn't just. These female performers coming up, it was the last show that she sang and she did two different performances where she was singing and it was beautiful. That is what I remember Burless being unique performers providing entertainment. Yes, absolutely. And then now add golf to it. Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's definitely nightshade. We are definitely unique. Yeah. And. You know, very specific and found only in certain growing conditions. And yeah, I love all of that. Yeah, that's us. So what do y'all, what do y'all see? What's your vision for this is, is what my curiosity is, is y'all, y'all have this thing, clearly it's, it's growing. Clearly you have more and more people coming into this. Where would y'all like to see it go? That's a good question. Laughs kind of want to see it go. As big and as all over I want to be a household name. I want more performers coming in from all over. I just want everybody to come be entertained and feel like they have a home no matter where Nightshade is performing. Whether it continues to north, whether we get Dallas as well, I want us to be the place to go for you to have fun and feel safe and love. Fuck yeah. It's a concise way to put it. I like it. Big international tour. Yeah, I was about to say, I was like, soon you're going to have your own like Vegas, you know, Mack trucks driving down the road like it's fucking Metallica or something just filled nightshade on the side. Right. I'm into it. So we want to say thank you guys for coming on the show today. Y'all have something very special, something that the entire community can get behind and help uplift. How can people get in contact with you guys on a social level to buy tickets? Where can you be found? We can be found at NightshadeBurlesque, all one word, on Instagram is probably the main hub for now. I know we're working on a website and whatnot. You can also find us Nightshade Burlesque on TikTok. You can find me, Vivian Vermouth literally all over the internet, but also Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. Lav? I am at Violent Lavender on Twitter. I'm checking because I think we have a Nightshade Burlesque on Twitter as well. We have, yep, we are NightshadeDance on Twitter. I'm ViolentLavender on Instagram and Twitter and TikTok. Violent, like violence. And then Lavender, like a plant. And we're pretty responsive on Facebook, on Instagram, and any other way that you can find us. So then what upcoming shows do y'all have? We are every first Friday at the Cicada, which is a beautiful little darker dive bar lounge in Fort Worth. That is our current residency every first Friday. And then I believe we have a New Year's. Show that we're going to start ramping up. It'll be again performers dancing to a live jazz band. I believe that'll be at tulips on July January 31st. And I think we have some other things in the works, but we won't sounds like they got to follow y'all to see it then. Yes, absolutely. Exactly. Well, I love it. Thank you guys for both being on the show today. So I mean, with that, I mean, and we are not done, like people that are hearing our show. We, I want to continue working with them. We we have some like fun stuff in the works that we're going to be exploring action. Yeah. We appreciate you guys for another episode of come with Casey. I'm Dr. Casey Sanders and I'm Carrie Sanders. Thanks.