# Imoto Harney of Captain Crazy’s Paradise - Episode 21

**Source:** JBS Show  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2024-03-29  
**Duration:** 35m 16s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-14790496

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## Analysis

Emoto Harney, director of marketing and sales at Marco Specialties and one of the earliest pinball content creators, discusses her journey from cinematographer to pinball community figure and her new arcade venture, Captain Crazy's Paradise, in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The interview covers her role organizing Marco's booth presence at major pinball shows (10 annually), her early days documenting arcade resurgence, and the challenges and rewards of operating a free-play arcade with pinball machines, classic arcade games, and bar service. Key themes include community building, machine maintenance learning curve, and the role of pinball in creating intergenerational memories.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Emoto has been doing video production professionally since age 15 (starting in 1998-2000) and incorporated Captain Crazy Productions in 2008 — _Direct statement: 'I've been doing video production professionally... since I was 15 years old... In 2008, I incorporated Captain Crazy Productions.'_
- [HIGH] Started documenting arcades in 2011 when arcades re-emerged, began attending pinball shows in 2015 at Texas Pinball Festival — _Emoto: 'when all the arcades started popping up uh re-emerging in like 2011... I finally made it to texas pinball festival in 2015 and that was my first like real pinball show'_
- [HIGH] Began working for Marco Specialties officially in 2019, currently serves as director of marketing and sales — _Emoto: 'I started working for Marco officially in 2019... I am now the director of marketing and sales'_
- [HIGH] Marco maintains 10 major booth setups annually at pinball shows, taking 1.5 days to set up and 2-4 hours to tear down — _Emoto: 'about 10 a year where we actually put up our truss and big exhibit... takes us about a day and a half to do... less than four hours' for teardown_
- [HIGH] Captain Crazy's Paradise arcade officially opened October 7, 2024, with soft opening in September — _Emoto: 'We did a soft opening in september but that was our grand opening date [October 7th]... so we're just now experiencing our first tourist season'_
- [HIGH] Foo Fighters has been the most-played pinball machine at Captain Crazy's Paradise for the past 6+ months — _Emoto: 'foo fighters for the past six months or so of being open has definitely been the number one hit'_
- [HIGH] Mark Mandeltort, founder of Marco Specialties, personally helped Emoto buy her first pinball machine (Hard Body) in 2017 — _Emoto: 'Mark actually helped me buy my first pinball machine in 2017... The best machine ever. Hard body The FlexSaves'_
- [HIGH] Emoto brought 37 games total to Texas Pinball Festival with 22 draws — _Emoto: 'We had 22 draws that we had. About 37 games total we brought to TPF'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I love this community so much and so it's so great to see it grow and especially the ton of creators that we have."
> — **Emoto Harney**, early conversation
> _Reflects Emoto's core motivation and appreciation for pinball community growth_

> "Marco's number one goal was to keep pinball out of the landfills, you know, so everything is about promoting pinball, saving pinball."
> — **Emoto Harney**, mid-interview
> _Articulates Marco Specialties' foundational philosophy and mission_

> "We call it paradise because there's, you know, it's everybody's paradise... sometimes we'll have parents just sit at the bar and hang out because they want to drink and their kids can play the games."
> — **Emoto Harney**, late interview
> _Describes the inclusive, family-friendly arcade model and appeal_

> "The pinball machines it's a tinkerer's hobby you know it's like working on cars like they're so mechanical they're going to break... once you embrace that as just part of it then everything is you know rainbow and sunshine."
> — **Emoto Harney**, mid-interview
> _Reflects mature operator perspective on machine maintenance and community acceptance_

> "I fell in love with pinball, but I stuck around for the community because we do have the greatest people in this hobby."
> — **Emoto Harney**, closing remarks
> _Core message about community value in pinball; reflects broader community sentiment_

> "Jack Danger... he's the first to stream pinball... he's come such a long way and now a designer for stern pinball you know with foo fighters."
> — **Emoto Harney**, early-mid interview
> _Confirms Jack Danger as one of first pinball streamers and his current role at Stern on Foo Fighters design_

> "That's why we do it jamie that's why we do this... grandpa playing with his grandson and he's standing on a little marco stool like figuring it out for the first time."
> — **Emoto Harney**, mid-interview
> _Captures operator motivation to create intergenerational arcade experiences_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Emoto Harney | person | Director of marketing and sales at Marco Specialties; early pinball content creator; operator of Captain Crazy's Paradise arcade; cinematographer and filmmaker with IMDB credits |
| Captain Crazy's Paradise | product | Free-play arcade in Gulf Shores, Alabama (opened October 7, 2024) featuring pinball machines, classic arcade games, dance machines, golf simulators, and bar service; family-friendly tourist destination |
| Marco Specialties | company | Pinball parts distributor and merchandiser; organizes large booth installations at ~10 major pinball shows annually; mission-focused on keeping pinball out of landfills and promoting community |
| Mark Mandeltort | person | Founder of Marco Specialties; mentor to Emoto; helped her purchase first pinball machine in 2017; part of Marco family business |
| Jack Danger | person | First person to stream pinball gameplay; early content creator alongside Emoto; now designer at Stern Pinball working on Foo Fighters pinball machine |
| Foo Fighters | game | Stern pinball machine designed by Jack Danger; most-played game at Captain Crazy's Paradise for past 6+ months; features upper playfield; Emoto has Premium model with full features |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major annual pinball show; Emoto attended first time in 2015; Marco Specialties maintains large booth presence; 2024 marked 20th anniversary; TPF 2024 featured 37 games from Marco/dealers |
| Nate Shivers | person | Hosted Coast to Coast Pinball podcast, one of first pinball podcasts; influential in Emoto's education about pinball history and industry professionals; no longer creates content |
| Tim Hood | person | Friend and mentor to Emoto; connected with Wormhole Pinball (owns 200+ machines with John); Emoto considers him potential 'greatest pinball cult leader'; runs Wormhole arcade venue |
| Wormhole Pinball | product | Pinball arcade in Wormhole location; Tim and John own 200+ machines; maintains rotating selection of 23 machines in arcade space; planning museum expansion |
| Hard Body | game | Pinball machine; Emoto's first pinball purchase (2017); featured at Captain Crazy's Paradise initially but removed during optimization process; first machine Emoto took out during rotation |
| Jaws 50th Anniversary | game | Recently added to Captain Crazy's Paradise arcade (arrived last week in podcast timeline); drawing significant play attention |
| Kyle Spiteri | person | Amazing technician; collaborated with Emoto on PinTech Live streaming during COVID period; helped train Emoto on technical troubleshooting |
| Rachel | person | Former Marco Specialties staff member; amazing technician; trained Emoto on show running and display building; co-host of Electric Bat Arcade podcast; now runs Electric Bat Arcade in Phoenix area |
| Kale | person | Co-host of Electric Bat Arcade podcast; former Marco Specialties staff member; works with Rachel on arcade operations |
| Electric Bat Arcade | product | Pinball arcade in Phoenix, Arizona area; operated by Kale and Rachel; produces podcast content; listened to by John Spates and other community members |
| John Spates | person | Pinball collector transitioning to operator; has 12 machines at Eureka Heights brewery and 6-8 more in other locations; learning machine repair through collector experience; planning expansion with partner Taylor |
| Captain Crazy Productions | company | Emoto's video production company incorporated in 2008; cinematography, directing, producing, line producing work; foundational to her pinball content creation |
| Southern Pride Gaming Expo | event | Annual pinball/arcade show in Atlanta; Marco Specialties maintains booth presence; Emoto attended yearly since 2015; major regional gaming event |
| Fun Billiards and Game Room Superstore | company | Local Stern pinball distributor in Mesquite, Texas area; collaborates with Marco for Texas Pinball Festival booth; led by Craig Hassell and team |
| PinTech Live | product | Live streaming show on Marco TV; features pinball technician sessions and machine repair/maintenance content; Emoto participated as stream operator during COVID period learning technical skills |
| Paul Mandeltort | person | Mark's son; works with Marco Specialties on booth design philosophy; helped establish prominent booth placement strategy at shows |
| Harley Davidson | game | Pinball machine at Captain Crazy's Paradise; popular with players; features shaker motor; presents significant maintenance challenges (weekly wire/coil issues) |
| Gulf Shores, Alabama | location | Location of Captain Crazy's Paradise; 15 minutes north of Gulf of Mexico; semi-tourist destination in Foley area; described as chill, hipster beach town alternative to Panama City/Destin |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball content creation history and early pioneers, Marco Specialties booth operations and show presence, Arcade operations and free-play business model, Pinball machine maintenance and technical skill development
- **Secondary:** Community building and intergenerational appeal in pinball, Female pioneers in pinball content creation, Corporate rentals and event hosting at arcades
- **Mentioned:** Foo Fighters pinball machine reception and gameplay

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.92) — Emoto expresses genuine enthusiasm, passion, and gratitude throughout the interview. Strong affection for pinball community and Marco Specialties mission evident. Positive framing of challenges (machine maintenance, operator learning curve) as opportunities. Jamie's closing remarks praising Emoto's contributions reinforce positive sentiment. Only minor frustrations expressed (Hard Body removal from arcade, missed shows) are presented constructively.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Pinball collector-to-operator transition requires significant learning curve in mechanical repair, electrical troubleshooting, and operational logistics; confidence-building in foundational skills (glass removal, playfield access) is critical onboarding (confidence: medium) — Emoto: 'Learning how to work on games... you didn't even know how to take the glass off back in the day. And that's kind of the scariest thing for people is removing the glass and lifting up the play field... building up your confidence'
- **[business_signal]** Boutique/regional arcade model (free-play with bar service) appears viable in tourist destinations; first tourist season (October 2024 onward) showing strong immediate demand with 60 visitors in rainy day opening (confidence: medium) — Emoto: 'we're just now experiencing our first tourist season so that's been exciting yesterday was a rainy day so immediately as soon as we opened the doors at noon we had 60 people in here'
- **[community_signal]** Marco Specialties emphasizes culture and community promotion over direct parts sales; mission-driven approach to keeping pinball viable; staff shared passion for pinball sustainability across entire organization (confidence: high) — Emoto: 'we as a company promote the culture and community of pinball more so than our actual parts because we understand the importance of growing that and keeping it strong... I'll be with this company for as long as humanly possible because i love the mission'
- **[community_signal]** Marco Specialties deliberately creates immersive booth experiences at 10+ annual shows focused on making memorable experiences for players rather than just selling machines; boot setup/teardown involves enthusiastic teams and dancing (confidence: high) — Emoto: 'the goal for me is always when you walk into the front doors of the game hall i want you to know exactly where the marco stern and dealer booth is... they're rocking music they're having the most fun setting it up'
- **[event_signal]** Texas Pinball Festival marked 20th anniversary in 2024; Marco Specialties brought 37 machines with 22 units available for purchase; show includes 'stall ball' tournament variations on rare machines (confidence: high) — Emoto describing TPF booth: 'We had 22 draws that we had. About 37 games total we brought to TPF... stall ball tournament... on a rare game called Trailer'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Pinball community sentiment strongly positive toward inclusive, welcoming, intergenerational arcade environments; community values social connection and shared experience over competitive intensity (confidence: high) — Emoto: 'grandpa playing with his grandson... that's why we do it... everyone just like it's a magnet just goes to the pinball machines it's insane that warms my heart'
- **[community_signal]** Pinball operator/collector pipeline appears strong with established mentorship models; new operators (John Spates, Emoto herself) learning technical skills through collector experiences before commercializing (confidence: medium) — Emoto: 'learning how to work on games... building up that tech knowledge to be self-sufficient... you save money in that way... John was just one day talking out loud... i want to be an operator... and they've got' successful operations
- **[market_signal]** Foo Fighters pinball achieving strong player engagement metrics in commercial arcade setting over sustained 6+ month period, suggesting strong game design and replay value; performing better than competitor arcade games in same location (confidence: high) — Emoto: 'foo fighters for the past six months or so of being open has definitely been the number one hit... corporate event... they were gravitating towards foo... they really loved foo fighters'
- **[community_signal]** Emoto Harney recognized as pioneering female pinball content creator; among first women producing pinball-focused video/streaming content; influence extends to training subsequent female contributors and opening community doors (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'not only being a content creator and such, but also being one of the first women in pinball content creators too... You're badass'
- **[personnel_signal]** Jack Danger transitioned from early pinball content creator/streamer to designer at Stern Pinball, currently working on Foo Fighters pinball machine design (confidence: high) — Emoto: 'Jack Danger... he's the first to stream pinball... he's come such a long way and now a designer for stern pinball you know with foo fighters and that's the best playing game at my arcade'
- **[product_concern]** Shaker motors on pinball machines (Harley Davidson example) present significant reliability challenges requiring weekly maintenance (pulled wires, loose coils, switch issues); high-wear component for operators (confidence: high) — Emoto: 'the shaker motor so awesome but also the bane of my existence like every week it's like pink a wire pulls off a coil a nut screws off down at the bottom of a play phone and now it switches loose'
- **[technology_signal]** Multimorphic pinball machines (example: Heist) present usability challenges in casual arcade environments; complex button layouts cause confusion for inexperienced players; reboot times for complex systems problematic for operator workflow (confidence: medium) — Emoto: 'we have a multi-morphic we have heist and they press that wrong all the time because those are such a... because and it has the three different buttons and they press the buttons and they're just hammering buttons and then i have to turn that one off and that one takes a while to reboot'

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## Transcript

 Hello, you are listening to and are watching our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents. And today I'm so excited to be joined by the one and only Emoto Harney. How are you, Emoto? Yay, I'm doing great. Just hanging out in paradise right now. Well, welcome to the Wormhole virtually and welcome to paradise virtually for me. I can't wait to one day get there in person and then get you here in person. I know. Look at this awesome collection behind y'all. I have not been to Wormhole yet. And it's but you had a bunch of friends that have. I do. Yeah. Yeah. We've we've. It's a great spot. Yeah. So we're you know, it's ever changing. I mean, Tim and John have 200 plus machines. So we keep 23 in here. And until we build the museum, which we'll talk about later. Yeah. You know, this is going to be a cool little spot that we have here. So but thank you so much for coming to our podcast and thank you for stopping by our booth at Texas Pinball. That was so cool. Y'all brought the party to Texas Pinball Festival this year for their 20th anniversary. Having your booth out there in the lobby just hyped up the energy for the entire show all weekend long. And that stall ball tournament that y'all did was the most exciting thing ever. That was a great picture that you took. I know, spades. He was like, ah, holding all the money. It was awesome. So we were playing stall ball. For those of you who do not know, we were playing on a rare game called Trailer, which is a Spanish pin. So stall ball is basically a game where you throw a dollars onto the play field. We had, I think, $52 or $55. And you get in line to play. So when you step up, you'll see an obstructed view, obviously. and your job is to stall the ball and in this case were the saucers on that on that machine so we had uh david jone is our official caller to tell you if you stall you're out if you stall you go back in line if you're out if you drain you're out and that was it and john and there's an unbelievable picture we'll post of a moto that a moto took of john just yeah i do have a little bit of video of that too you know and then i had to quickly switch over to get that moment because It was so good. So I'll send it to you. Before we talk pinball, I was doing my interview prep for you today, right? Yeah. Because I'm a recruiter by nature and I have to prep. I can't help myself, right? So how long have you been in this extensive video production camera world? Like when did you start that? Before we talk about pinball. Yeah, for sure. I've been doing video production professionally, meaning getting paid for my craft. since I was 15 years old. I started recording bands, performances and weddings, and little mom and pop shop interviews type stuff, you know, promo trailers and whatever commercials. And in 2008, I incorporated Captain Crazy Productions. And the rest is history. So like my main trade is a cinematographer but i've done uh producing production managing uh line producing assistant directing directing everything that comes with being an indie filmmaker you're one of the few people in pinball that has their own imdb uh db page that's pretty awesome right yeah absolutely and um see you guys uh through all my travels uh as a traveling cinematographer when all the arcades started popping up uh re-emerging in like 2011 that's when i just started taking my camera every time i went to another city for work i'd find an arcade and would do a little walkthrough video being like hey you guys should check this out arcades are back and that just slowly wrapped around to where i finally made it to texas pinball festival in 2015 and that was my first like real pinball show and the rest has been history i i drunk the juice and i went down the rabbit hole with y'all and now i'm here to stay well you i mean because i went on your youtube page there's wasn't a lot of pinball content creators back then i mean you were one of the first right hit the green button on the ddr sorry we're also in my arcade right now And my mom's like, the DDR is not working. She's in her arcade tonight, which we'll talk about later because I've got a whole segment on it. I am at the wormhole and it is tech night. And you could probably hear tech's going on in the background. Yeah. See, that's something I want to tap into. It would be really cool. We have a live stream called Pintech Live for Marco TV. and it would be really cool to do a record one of those sessions or just do a live stream with that session of y'all totally yeah yeah let's do some sort of collaborate for that that would be totally awesome uh our our head tech uh and then you could see like some of the machines that they're working on like like uh future queen or some of the cool stuff yeah you know that would be really cool all right well we're gonna have to let's do it now i mean that's all right let's do it so who else was who else was making content creation in pinball nine ten years ago i mean who else was doing it you know uh when i first started some of the first people that we kind of latched together and became comrades was jack danger okay he's the first to stream pinball so i would start seeing him at shows and it was my first shows were kind of his first shows and we were both the really socially awkward people behind cameras didn't quite fit in didn't quite know who we were talking to and it's uh he's come such a long way and now a designer for stern pinball you know with foo fighters and that's the best playing game at my arcade i have a ton of questions about your arcade later but because i want to go through like what makes the most and And actually what got me into pinball and learning more about it, at least, I really fell in love with kind of like the history of pinball and learning about the industry professionals, who the designers and artists were that worked on the games. And I learned a lot of that through Nate Shivers coast to coast pinball podcast. And he was maybe one of the first people to do a pinball podcast. he doesn't do content anymore but his podcast was amazing and super informative and just listening to him on my long drives like just helped i don't know make me fall in love with everything that is i mean we we said in the beginning when we weren't recording that we just love this community right i mean i just love this community so much and so it's so great to see it grown as as much as it and especially the ton of creators that we have. Absolutely. Go for it, man. I love it. So cool. So when did you start working for Marco? I started working for Marco officially in 2019. Okay. I jumped on with them to help them out with their social media and video content. And then that progressed into I am now the director of marketing and sales. Awesome. Yeah. And I love it. I'm a Marco lifer. I met Mark Mandeltort and his family. He's the original founder of Marco Specialties in 2015, actually, my first Texas Pinball Festival. and I would see them every year. I would go to TPF and I would go to Southern Pride Gaming Expo in Atlanta where they would always set up because they have huge support. They're a huge support for both of those shows. And I would ask if I could climb their trust to rig like my GoPro or, you know, take camera shots from up above and do like time lapses. So they're always like, yeah, sure, go ahead. And that just turned into this crazy relationship. Mark actually helped me buy my first pinball machine in 2017. Which machine was it? The best machine ever. Hard body The FlexSaves It so good yeah it pretty sweet any pinball machine that gives you like a different unique like visceral reaction to i all about absolutely uh but yeah he was uh my mentor you know from that point on and taught me so much about pinball, the history, repair and everything like that. And working with Marco, it's just all of our passions are aligned because at the end of the day, his number one goal was to keep pinball out of the landfills, you know, so everything is about promoting pinball, saving pinball, you know, we as a company promote the culture and community of pinball more so than our actual parts because we understand the importance of, of growing that and keeping it strong because, you know, the more people that are in love with pinball, then the longer it's going to stick around and not, you know, go through waves that we've seen in the past. Yeah. That is such a great philosophy and you could see it when you're setting up and you're taking down, ladies and I was able to walk through the TPF because we had a booth right and so how long does it take for you to set that booth up and how long does it take to set it down because they're rocking music they're having the most fun setting it up the most fun taking it down and you motivate us as I did 20 trips to and from uh you know the streaming room to whatever okay wow we have the the best team of marco staff members and team marco volunteers that kind of come in from all over the country to help us set up where the traveling pinball circus so to speak so to set up a booth the size of tpf it takes us about a day and a half to do you know all thursday until they kick us out on at midnight and then all the way to seconds before the doors open and then at the end or you know we blink and then the show's over because that's how it works right what happened and uh sunday teardown it's all packed up and tetris into little tiny uh gay lords that travel across the country in less than four hours four hours yeah and that's if we're like dancing a little bit too much because you were dancing i saw people dancing the ride if we're like awesome have to go we've packed that booth up in about two hours you know wow so yeah so how many times a year does it go up and down how many festivals or conferences do you guys do about 10 a year where we actually put up our truss and big exhibit. And so we partner with Stern Pinball and the local dealers for each kind of area and region we go to. And we come in, we help make the booth look beautiful based on the theme of the new headlining game, and then working with the local dealers to sell those games at a display game cost. So it's pretty awesome. It is pretty awesome. the tpf booth this year which was awesome it was really good thank you so much the goal for me is always when you walk into the front doors of the game hall i want you to know exactly where the marco stern and dealer booth is where you can play all the new stern games and that's what paul mandel tort mark's son you know working with him when i first started designing booths that was his whole philosophy you know him and mark it's like there's so much real estate up here so we want to be up here you know well they're so big when they were taking down the banners i was like holy cow it's way we try to max it out as much as possible the uh booths that we can do at expo and southern pride because they're in big convention halls our trust goes up 20 plus feet so you you work with the local a local distributor and that's where you get the machines right so for texas pinball festival we work with fun uh billiards and game room superstore craig hassell and team they're out of mesquite texas and you know we collaborate on getting all the games running and sold and to happy homeowners and arcades in that area and you did really well I mean, for TPF, right? Yeah, we had 22 draws that we had. About 37 games total we brought to TPF. So, good time. Great, great, great time. Well, I mean, we love Marco. Wormhole Bonds, all our stuff from Marco. Yeah, we appreciate it. And, you know, we just love the service we get. It's just fantastic. Thank you. Everyone on our team is just so passionate about pinball. it's just like i said like i'm i'll be with this company for as long as humanly possible because i love the mission and i love what we're working towards and it's great you know and it's creating the experience you know like we'll talk about our arcades later but let's go talk about it well at the booth too like we want to create an environment and a cool space for people to make memories in you know and then you work so hard to build all of that up and make things look dazzling glitz and glam and then when you see those people have those memories that they're gonna take with them for the rest of their lives playing the games that we set up like dude that's where that's where it counts oh my god so awesome you're you're an inspiration you're an inspiration i just need to make more money on pinball. That's what I need to do because I make nothing right now on pinball. If I could just quit my recruiting and just be this, that would be so wild. All right, can we talk about Captain's Crazy Paradise? Yay, Captain Crazy's Paradise. Man, where do I start? I know, how did this come about? Like you're in Gulf Shores, Alabama, right? Is that where your family's located? That's where my parents moved down here about 10 years ago. We grew up right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. And my brother's a big gamer, too. And he collects the Japanese import games, like all the rhythm games and like initial D the racing games and stuff. I collect the pinball machines. I've been putting all the pinball machines I've been buying over several years at my parents house, because that gives me like a fun reason to go down there. you know my dad and my mom would practice the game so then when i came down we could all play together and then it just like started getting out of hand you know pinball machines multiply like rabbits you know i had a friend when i first got into this he said how many pinball machines do you have i said i don't have any pinball machines he started laughing and i thank god tim hood is the buyer so because my wife was hurting me what do you guys do you know in the garage in the living room with the bedrooms any square footage there's no room there do we really need this you know yeah we do we do yeah the answer is always yes uh anyway it was always my brother and i's dream to open our own arcade and that was sort of going to be our retirement plan maybe in 10 15 20 years from now he's also in video production so he travels a lot too as a videographer and an audio technician and my parents retired last year got bored instantly and then was just like hey what if we start y'all's retirement plan early in gulf shores and we were like okay my mom was like yeah get all this stuff out of my house clear up some space um that didn't happen because once we bought all the games here we continue to buy more games so their house stays packed sorry mom no we're having a good yeah oh yeah they're having a great time so my parents run the day-to-day operations when i'm at a pinball show or my brother's off working too but we try to be here as much as possible uh we're a free play arcade so we charge at the door you come in and play an hour or an all day pass where you can go in and out. We have a bar that we serve beer wine and hot food So we got like chicken nuggets and potato skins and pizza you know all the fixings type stuff And yeah, I can give you a little walk around tour. We can try it out. I would love that. Let's try that out. That would be so cool. I would love it. For those that are in the audio podcast, we'll cut this part out for you. Don't worry about it. That's fantastic. What an amazing spot. yeah that's a little quick little walkthrough for y'all um i'm not done decorating there's still so many more layers and textures how long have we officially opened in october october 7th yeah we did a soft opening in september but that was our grand opening date so we're just now experiencing our first tourist season so that's been exciting yesterday was a rainy day so immediately as soon as we opened the doors at noon we had 60 people in here and we were like what is happening that's good that's a good problem to have right it's a great problem to have yeah everyone wants to play the arcade games your tech games they're gonna you know your techs are gonna be upset for a few days but the techs are me and uh a lot of times facetiming with uh friend technicians like Matthew and Kyle to help me through everything obviously when it's something I can't do I send boards out to you know Eugene Marsh and stuff and then my brother works on all the arcade games you know so we keep it in the family yeah but you got to keep them great right because this oh yeah i'm constantly working on the pinball machine sure i want to do tech parties like you're doing yeah that's awesome we have a big board of grievances it's called right it's a big whiteboard yeah what we ask is that people just when you come here during our tournaments if there's something wrong write it on the board because we can't fix it if we don't know about it and we're just making the games as perfect as possible but you know radical is old i mean there's some old stuff here right you know it's real isn't radical the best it's the best it's so good i would love so which pin are you rotating in and out which which pin right now is your kind of not i mean you're a free play but which is getting the most plays you foo fighters really by a long shot yeah uh there's always i mean obviously we just got jaws in last week so a lot of people have been playing that game uh but foo fighters for the past six months or so of being open has definitely been the number one hit and i got the premium so it has all the bells and whistles on it you had to for that game for sure yeah the upper play field is really cool yeah did a really amazing job you know what shocks me we rotate our pins and we had a corporate event here last night and they were gravitating towards foo uh they really loved foo fighters that we did a flip frenzy one hour flip nice and then when they leave when they're done it's a really good way for corporate events for them to uh interact with maybe the accounting department with the sales and marketing department or something you know the normally stuff i'm older that they might not normally get to interact with each other. And we've been promoting it. And I can't tell you how many people get absolutely hooked on it and then start coming to our tournaments. Wow. That's awesome. I got to try that. Yeah. A one hour flip frenzy for corporate rentals. I see you're available for corporate rentals as well. You put up a one hour flip frenzy and, you know, the biggest problem for them is pressing twice. That's going to be the hardest thing. sure because they're gonna press start button three times and i have this long spiel of moto that i go into like you're gonna press it three times i'm gonna walk up and i'm gonna fix it okay but and i do this one one thousand two one thousand but it doesn't matter and like thanks to stern for programming in that hold the left flipper button and start button to reset games because oh my gosh the little kids flashing button they want to hit them all who doesn't have that someone over here it's like oh uh we have a multi-morphic we have heist and they press that wrong all the time because those are such a oh because and it has the three different buttons and they press the buttons and they're just hammering buttons and then i have to turn that one off and that one takes a while to reboot so that one hurts feelings and i normally put them on another one it's fine um all right let's see i'm not trying to hammer one is there a pin that you put in there that you thought would do really well and it kind of didn't work out hard body we have the first one i took out when i started put swapping outfits and it broke my heart so bad her feelings all right let's play the who gets more plays pinball machine versus x okay can we play that real quick yeah let's do it all right pinball machine versus uh a large fighter game a multiplayer fighter game pinball okay pinball versus do you have any cranes crane machines in there all right pinball versus crane the pinball wow all right pinball versus dance machine dance machine is definitely gonna win the pinball because i converted all the dancers to pinball players it's a such a small section of our arcade i guess i split it up into quadrants you know it's just a quarter over there but that is always the busiest section of the entire arcade everyone just like it's a magnet just goes to the pinball machines all ages they're just there playing it's insane that warms my heart that's good i know it's so great and especially you see like grandpa playing with his grandson and he's standing on a little marco stool like figuring it out for the first time like that's why we do it jamie that's why we do it that's why we do this it really is it really is you know because um i don't understand anyone being upset at this hobby right okay we can call out you know if they make mistakes or nothing but we're all just trying to learn here and just trying to have a lot of fun and promote pinball that's the key is yeah absolutely and you know these pinball machines it's a tinkerer's hobby you know it's like working on cars like they're so mechanical they're going to break you know they're they're handmade human error is going to happen you know and you just once you embrace that as just part of it then everything is you know rainbow and sunshine it's just harley davidson we have in here which i won't pull it from the arcade it is uh people love that game a lot because harley davidson you can get multiball pretty easily even on harder settings but it has a shaker motor in it so it's all like lift to ride ride to live yeah and man the shaker motor so awesome but also the bane of my existence like every week it's like pink a wire pulls off a coil a nut screws off down at the bottom of a play phone and now it switches loose like that shaker motor is intense so i have as now as like a new operator tech i'm having a whole new experience with pinball machines now and it's a pretty exciting journey as well so what did you kind of learn from you know being a collector and a social media in the pinball world to now being an operator like what did you uh well learning how to work on games for one like building up that tech knowledge to be self-sufficient as much as possible you know um because you save money in that way in the long scheme of things and being here you can instantly fix the problem instead of waiting for someone to come fix it for you uh with Pentec live we started that in during the COVID times where everyone was stuck at home and working with Kyle Kyle Spiteri who's an amazing technician you know I was just even though my whole point was to do the marketing you know I there running the live stream and just absorbing all of it you know for two years or so before we even opened the arcade So I just building up my confidence, knowing how to solder, knowing how to troubleshoot, how to read a meter properly, you know, all those types of things that as a collector, it's like. I didn't even know how to take the glass off back in the day. And that's kind of the scariest thing for people is removing the glass and lifting up the play field. I remember a ball would get stuck when I first dropped stranger things in my parents' house. And my dad was going through the coin door with a freaking coat hanger, trying to poke up through the trough to get the ball stuck. And I'm like, what are you doing? Take the glass off. And he was like, Oh, yeah now he's a total pro you know he uh has learned a lot of attacking stuff too and he does a lot of the basic um mechanical tackings or flipper rebuilds or rebuilding drop targets and stuff like that but it's just the building up the confidence on how to look under the hood and work on the games and keep them running as nicely as possible or is kind of the new journey for me awesome john is going through that journey too john spates you know he's going through that journey and he is an operator now and i think he has 12 at eureka heights which are brewing nearby and then he's got another six or eight out so him and a partner um john was just one day talking out loud emoto he's like i want to be an operator i've learned how to make fix all these machines because he's a collector too yeah i want to be an operator i want to do it and this one guy taylor goes i'll do it with you and that's it and they've got isn't it great yeah that's rad you know it's a good uh form of additional income but again also you're putting these machines out in the wild for people to play and make memories over you know yeah he listens to the bat cast podcast and they do a really good job have you listened to them yeah kail and rachel over at electric bat yeah i love them i they were actually the first people that i worked with at marco specialties they both worked at marco specialties several years ago before um kind of as rachel was building her arcade out in phoenix arizona area and uh it got to the point where you know they moved out there to run that full time but i learned so much from them rachel is an amazing technician too and you know she taught me a lot with that and she used to do all the show running stuff and and building displays and uh she trained me how to you know i'm kind of following in her footsteps now and i didn't even realize it you know but both of them are the nicest people ever and i love it they really are i'm sorry someone's knocking on the door oh cool it's your turn it's my turn now okay my buddy comes i've got so many people that we've hooked up on pinball it's it's isn't that crazy yeah one of the things you could always tell someone who loves pinball they open their mouth and they start talking to you about it isn't that crazy isn't it such the story right it's like the only thing we want to talk about i used to be a golfer i was going to ask you a bunch of golfing questions about your simulators because I used to be like a four handicap. Like I was really good, right? And I look at those things. I'm like, oh, that would be so great. But then when you started moving to the pinball section, I got even more excited. So I know where my loyalties lie. Yeah, right. Well, that's why we call it paradise because there's, you know, it's everybody's paradise. It is everybody's. And it's really cool because sometimes we'll have parents just sit at the bar and hang out because they want to drink and their kids can play the games or and there's just yeah i love it wow do you love the area too yeah gulf shores is all right it's uh we're 15 minutes north of the gulf of mexico the the beach obviously um we're in a semi-tourist town we're like north gulf shores technically foley area um but it's kind of like the hippie sleeper tourist town tourist beach town of the gulf of mexico there's like panama city and destin and everything which are big tourist destinations where it's like woo panama city that was like the you know girls got like growing up like but uh here it's like yeah snowbirds and it's a lot more chill community i remember when i moved to florida in like 90 1990 exactly um it was a big deal for people to go to destiny panama city you know it still is it still is and it's huge and it's trafficy and it's dirty and we're happy to be here you're happy to be in gulf shores well you are the busiest person in pinball and one of the most delightful people in pinball and i think anyone that has spent two minutes with a mono harney knows is what a delight you are. And it's just, thank you for doing what you do and not only being a content creator and such, but also being one of the first women in pinball content creators too. I thought that was just, it's just badass. You're badass. Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm just having fun. I love pinball. I love the community. If you talk to anyone that's in our community, they'll always say like, I fell in love with pinball, but I stuck around for the community because we do have the greatest people in this hobby and i've been in a lot of different gamer communities you know fighting games and different uh video game communities and pin mall is where i was like yep this is it hoisting down my anchor you know i'm here for the long run i love it so much i i'm addicted i'm a hook yeah i'm addicted i'm so addicted I know I told Tim Hood I told him I tell anyone that I listen to I'm like this guy would have been the greatest pinball cult leader in the history of the world right because he has all these toys and he lets us play with them and he's just it's just yeah he's so great so I do want to invite you to Houston in 2026 well you probably gonna are you gonna go back to the Houston Arcade expo you know that is actually one of my all-time favorite shows yeah but this year it's in october the weekend before expo and expo it's like their 40th anniversary and it's an extra day long which means it's like two extra days of setup and tear down for us so i don't think i'm gonna make it and i'm so heartbroken oh it's okay i love i know isn't it great i always see you running around with your with your hoodie up or your uh my little alien costume and you love it and i love it it's got denise djs every year yeah the bands it's like the environment right you're in that game hall there's a stage so there's live music playing it's dark actually which is very rare for a pinball show and there's just keith's party lights everywhere and lasers keith knows what he's doing have a good time i mean he's just letting everyone in on his personal little party that he likes to throw once a year in october but it is early this year you're right i think there was a fire at the hotel oh um and they lost a few rooms nothing in in that area and no one got hurt thank god but um yeah geez anyway well i do want to invite you to the wormhole one day and i'm going to go to paradise i can't wait to check it out it's just fantastic and then of course we're going to have like this big ribbon cabin cutting for the museum in 2026 but we have plenty okay let me know when that is and try to not plan it on a weekend that a big pinball show i will that's what i tell all my friends and family they're like oh my god i would love for you to document that yeah that would be actually that would be great is your documentarian experience and i would love to come out yeah ribbon cutting so keep me posted for sure i absolutely will thank you for promoting pinball being an amazing ambassador and just being you thank you thank you bye so much bye

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f72d1464-8a4a-4bb9-abf6-d1ae0e5244f7*