It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

There is no shortage of podcasts. These days anyone can buy a microphone off the internet and start talking into it. The trick is finding an audience willing to listen.

Passion is a great place to start. And there are few things people are more passionate about than music and food. So why not connect them? That’s been the recipe for success for Greg Bresnitz.

It all started with a TV show — Dinner With The Band — but took off with his long running podcast Snacky Tunes, which he began taping with his co-host and twin brother Darrin in 2009.

Since then, the pair have recorded over 500 episodes interviewing chefs about the music that inspires their food. It’s a format that lends itself to endless hours of conversation and makes for a pretty compelling live event, too. 

In 2022, Greg debuted Crescendo! — a new show guiding listeners through a seven-course menu with a chef, pairing each dish with a song. 

Greg grew up in Philadelphia, built his career in New York but relocated to Lafayette in 2020. He says it’s a fitting landing spot for what he does. Few places combine food and music quite like Acadiana. 

Knowing your audience is the first rule of media. And it’s also the best way to make your case in advocacy. Especially when you’re talking to the world.  

Warren Perrin is an attorney by trade, but he’s best known internationally as an advocate for Acadian culture and a preservationist of Cajun history. He’s an author of books on Cajun History, including a biography of Beausoleil Broussard and he founded the Acadian Heritage and Culture Foundation, which operates the Acadian Museum of Louisiana in Erath, his hometown. 

Warren made international headlines as the man who won an apology from the Queen of England. He spent a decade petitioning the British Crown to formally end the exile of the Acadian people. In 2003, the Crown issued a Royal Proclamation apologizing for the expulsion and setting July 28 as the official date commemorating the Acadian deportation.

If that weren’t enough, Warren was inducted into the UL Sports Hall of Fame for his achievements on UL’s legendary weightlifting team. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show at itsacadiana.com, and on Instagram and Facebook. And check out more lunchtime conversation about uniquely Acadian entertainment that's as unique as it is Acadian.

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There’s nothing new under the sun, the saying goes. And that’s absolutely true in business. Revolutionary ideas are often old concepts made new again. It’s why the 1990s are making a comeback. 

A smart entrepreneur might look back in time and realize that we fixed something that wasn’t broken. How about the family doctor. Time was, you had a personal relationship with your local physician: they knew more about you than the prescriptions on your chart.  Today, a trip to the doctor’s office can make you feel like meat on a conveyor belt. 

But a new approach is catching on. And, yes, it’s an old idea. Dr. Dee Dee Luke is a physician affiliated with MDVIP - a membership based medical service that gives doctors space to treat the whole patient. 

Dr. Luke’s patients work on wellness plans that set out goals that emphasize good health. Dee Dee has practiced family medicine in Lafayette for over twenty years, but switched the MDVIP model in 2016. It slimmed down her patient list from 3,000 to 600. And from Dr. Luke's perspective it has given her the chance to practice medicine the way it should. 

Wellness for people is one thing. How about wellness for the planet?

Recycling is another way to make something new of something old. Taylor Lyons Vaughn has a novel way of doing that: worms. 

Taylor's vermicompost facility, The Worm Lady Recycles puts hundreds of thousands of worms to work turning your old banana peels, coffee grinds, toilet paper rolls and other compostables into fertilizer.  In the worm business they call that castings. 

European Red Wrigglers make really good soil and — apparently — a very good cup of tea!

Taylor’s worms recycle anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds of waste each week. Taylor collects all that refuse from five drop off locations around Lafayette and from some partner businesses: Spa Mizan, PJ’s Coffee in Broussard and Hub City Diner. 

Taylor is passionate about vermiculture and opens the facility to tours for kids. She’ll even sell you your own starter kit of European Red Wrigglers.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette.

You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com and while you're there you can check also out other pioneering healthcare options in Acadiana. 

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One thing you learn in business is that the future comes at you fast.  As much as you try to stay ahead of the curve, the next big thing could already be around the corner. 

And if you’re not aware of what’s coming, it could spell the end. Just ask Blockbuster Video. 

Keeping up with trends can be a full-time gig. Smart companies who don't have an employee focused on the competition and the future, out-source. In Acadiana - and actually, beyond, one of the people companies turn to is Angela Cring. 

Angela Cring is a futurist. Her company, Joy Forward Strategy, helps companies identify and plan for emerging trends. They hire Angela to put together strategic plans and open up possibilities. 

Angela founded Joy Forward Strategy in May 2020 and today she handles a range of clients including some of the Acadiana area’s largest employers. 

A key value here is that the future is not linear. And we have agency over what’s to come — if we keep our eyes on the horizon. That's all very well in business - using hard facts and pulling together seemingly unrelated strands of information to extrapolate the present into the future, but what about looking into the future of your personal life?

Yes, that's a business too. Predicting the future is a time-honored occupation. Even the Oracle of Delphi had to make a buck. And today, psychic services is a pretty big industry, accounting for about $2 billion in output in 2021, according to national industry estimates. 

Locally, folks in Acadiana turn to April the Cajun Medium as kind of a life advisor. She says her work helps to reaffirm what people already know about themselves.

April didn’t embrace her talents until her 30s, working until then as an accountant. Today she runs a business as a forensic psychic medium and performs tarot card readings and helps with missing persons cases.

April is originally from Lafayette and performed hundreds of readings for free until opening her business in 2014. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

And while you're rooted in the present you might want to escape into another dimension that's not as distant as the future. Check out lunchtime conversation about how you can learn to fly and swim in Acadiana.

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What is Louisiana art? One definition might be — art that is unique to Louisiana.

The market expects a certain version of Louisiana. And so we give consumers what they want: alligators, bayous, pirogues, French, spices and so on. 

People want authentic Louisiana. And what they think of as “authentic” doesn’t quite reflect reality. That’s the drawback of having a flavor that sticks out in the American melting pot: People want what they want. 

Let me propose another definition. Louisiana is art made by Louisiana. Too broad? Maybe so. But it’s much closer to reality. 

Louisiana is alligators and bayous, but it’s also lots of other stuff. 

Dustin Rousseau is a Louisiana artist with a palette influenced by architecture and industrial design. He’s an architect by trade, but fell back into painting as an outlet to cope with stress on the job. Pretty soon, his colorful abstractions caught on through his Instagram page, and he later hooked up with General Public, a company that renders 3D prints of paintings for resale. That landed his work in Restoration Hardware. 

Dustin grew up in Lafayette and now lives and works in Baton Rouge.

Alexis Braud wears a lot of creative hats. She’s a writer, illustrator, podcaster and artist. But primarily, she’s a storyteller. She calls herself the Lafourche Raconteuse — a spin on the Acadian Raconteur. 

Alexis grew up in Cut Off — that’s Lafourche Parish. She is the author of several children’s books and has illustrated even more. She also hosted a podcast called “The Bayou Home Podcast” which explores what it means to be a Cajun.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. See photos from this show snapped on his iPhone by our audio engineer Dylan Babineaux! at itsacadiana.com.

Check out recent lunchtime conversation about Acadiana art with Francis Pavy and Erica Fox.

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We’re all looking for that next great business idea. And sometimes it’s hovering right above you. Or maybe sitting in the palm of your hand. 

Entrepreneurship isn’t always about inventing a new product or service. Most successful new companies are solving problems or seeing opportunities that should be obvious, but aren’t to most people. 

The solution can be a high flying innovation or it can be a commitment to quality. Whatever it is, it usually pays off for the folks who have the good sense to pounce on the idea that’s right in front of them. If you’re first to market: well, it’s easy to drum up business.

It might be hard to imagine revolutionizing the drum stick. But that’s what Frank Kincel is doing with his company LA Backbeat. 

Your average rock and roll drummer can blow through two or three sticks every gig. That’s a lot of wood, and the costs add up. Frank stepped off the road from a career as a touring drummer to start carving high-quality, durable, small-batch drum sticks. LA Backbeat has become a phenomenon among professional drummers, who turn to Frank’s sticks for their build and consistency. Instead of two or three sticks per gig. Try two or three gigs per stick. That’s saving money. 

Frank’s been a tinkerer since childhood. He built his first bass drum out of scrap at age 10. Today, he’s lathing 250 sticks a day and shipping them to drummers around the country. 

Adam Zayor's career took off when he looked up from his job overseeing petrochemical megaprojects. A marketing drone hovered above him and he thought, why not use these for his job. 

Adam launched Fly Guys in 2017 and has since grown it into a multinational aerial imaging company based here in Lafayette. Fly Guys helps clients in agriculture, energy, construction and telecommunications get a birds eye view of their projects. It’s a clever, low-cost business model. 

Fly Guys brokers with 5,500 contract drone pilots, using project managers to coordinate them. Fly Guys doesn’t own the equipment, which makes the model easy to scale up. And scale up it has: Today the company operates in all 50 states and 72 countries.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this on itsacadiana.com.

And there's more drummer and drone conversation, believe it or not, on Out to Lunch Acadiana. Check out Danny Devillier, drummer with a music school - https://itsacadiana.com/2020/09/29/remember-when-we-had-a-music-business/ and Lake Charles drone entrepreneur Cody Porche https://itsacadiana.com/2020/10/20/lake-charles-2020/. 

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Just because we’re 1,800 miles away from the other L.A., doesn’t mean you can’t have a career in Hollywood. 

State tax incentives have lured productions to Louisiana over the last decade or so. And that’s given a lot of local talent an opportunity to work in the industry without making the leap of faith in Los Angeles. 

You’ve probably heard of some big budget films and TV shows shot in Louisiana. I’m thinking of Morgan Freeman sightings and Blackham Coliseum’s cameo in the Secretariat biopic. 

Hollywood’s venture eastward has given expat talent a reason to come home — without giving up their day jobs. 

You might know Christiaan's guest from appearances in True Detective, Cedric the Entertainer and My Amazing Cheap Date New Orleans. 

Amy Brassette is an actor and producer born and raised in Lake Charles. She specializes in voice acting and is known for disappearing into characters. She does a lot of voice-over work, and you’ve heard her characters on the Simpsons, Duck Dodgers and the computer game Everquest.

Movie magic is one thing. How about something more up close and personal?

Stand-up comedy is a tough game to crack into, so it helps to have a solid hook — like a Jedi mind trick. 

Flip Orley is a comic and a hypnotist. Flip got interested in hypnotism at an early age, later honing his techniques with some psychology courses at the University of Arizona.

Since then, he’s made a career billing himself as America’s premier comic hypnotist. He also develops audio downloads for the clinical applications of hypnotism: you can get tapes of Flip coaching you through stress management, weight control and working on your poker game.

Flip tours nationally but lives right here in Lafayette.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this on itsacadiana.com. And check out Flip Orley's previous appearance on Out to Lunch with equally wisecracking Johnny Blancher from Rock'n'Bowl.

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Acadiana is famous for the wildcatter mentality. It’s a frame of mind inherited from the early days of the region’s oil industry, when lone prospectors went drilling until they struck black gold. 

You can see the attitude just about everywhere. Lafayette has a really high level of entrepreneurship. Around 11% of the workforce is made up of business owners, a ratio competitive with innovation meccas like Austin, Texas. 

So it's not so much about what we're making, but how we make it. It's the spirit of the region. 

David Meaux is working to make rum the spirit of the region as founder and master distiller of Wildcat Brothers. Wildcat is the second rum distillery in Louisiana and the first in Acadiana. It sources its flagship brand of small batch rums from local sugar cane. 

The goal is to make sipping rum, something you can enjoy neat, up, or on the rocks. David is a lawyer by training and founded Wildcat in 2011. Today you can find bottles of their flagship Sweet Crude rum in 40 states. 

Acadiana wouldn’t have much spirit without music. And in the wildcatter mentality, Dustin Gaspard has made a go of breaking into the region’s music scene as a singer-songwriter, an unusual track for a culture best known for dance music. 

Dustin grew up in Cow Island but went all-in on his dream with a move to Lafayette. No car, no job, no place to sleep. 

In 2016 Dustin suffered severe damage to his vocal chords, forcing him to change how he used his voice and inspiring him to hone his craft. 

Dustin has released several singles and put out the record Hoping Heaven Got a Kitchen in 2022. 

On this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana, Jan Swift sits in for Christiaan Mader who's off on an assignment for the New York Times and NPR. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can see photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com. And check out recent lunchtime conversation with entertainer and creator of the Janky Piano show Hunter DeBlanc and selfie impresario Carlie Faulk.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you look good, you feel good. More and more men are catching on to that concept. In 2022, the men’s personal care industry was projected to hit $166 billion, according to market analysts. Combine that with growing consumer interest about what goes in the stuff you put on your face or beard, and it’s a prime opportunity for entrepreneurship. 

And MacRoyce Williams, is what you might call a serial entrepreneur.

Most of the time you can find Mac cutting fades at Da Woss Ness Barber and Beauty Shop in Lafayette. And while you’re there, you can pick up a tincture of StingerDrops Beard Oil, an all natural line of beard oil drops so wholesome…you can eat them. 

Mac also runs TJ & Skyy Entreprises, which include a used car dealership.

Mac was born and raised in St. Martinville and is a 2021 graduate of the Accelerate Northside entrepreneurship program. 

The secret to StingerDrops quality is the ingredients, which Mac sources right in his own backyard. Leah Williams, Mac’s wife and business partner, runs Joelle’s Magic Herbs and Plants. 

Leah grew up gardening and decided to turn her hobby into a business during the pandemic. The garden produces flowers, succulents and of course vegetables and herbs. It’s set up as an education center too. Groups can walk the gardens and pick produce, while getting to know the process from seed, to plant, to table, as Leah likes to say. 

Leah is also a teacher and has spent 19 years in special education. And also 2021 graduate of Accelerate Northside and has a certification in Sustainable Urban Agriculture.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan. at itsacadiana.com. 

And check out recent lunchtime conversation about Northside Lafayette entrepreneurship Creole Nutcracker and Parc Village.

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The Creole Nutcracker isn't a kitchen implement, it's a Creole version of the classic Christmas kid's ballet, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. And it comes from right here in Acadiana. To put this diversity-inspired ballet in current context, let's take a step back and look at where we are with inclusion in general.

We tend to think of advocacy as something nonprofits and community groups do. But more entrepreneurs are blending business and social justice in their startups.  This isn’t corporate social responsibility. It’s social entrepreneurship. And it begins with the idea that every community can and should thrive. 

Grassroots social entrepreneurs work at the neighborhood level and start enterprises that try to solve social problems or address community gaps. For example, "Is there a food desert?" Start a farm stand. "A lack of housing?" Start a community housing development organization. "Do people need a place to gather and create?" How about a village.

In 2021, Leigha Porter did just that with Parc Village on Lafayette’s Northside. It’s a community arts center that hosts talks, art exhibitions, dances classes, music lessons, a podcast studio and a conference room. Leigha calls it an “intentional creative space.” 

Leigha is a decorated movement artist with a background in ballet, modern and jazz dance. Her work as a dancer and choreographer has appeared on BET and at Disney World. And if you're waiting to see for how this all ties in to The Creole Nutcracker, hang in there for just one more moment.

Parc Village is also the home of Heritage Parc, an arts mentorship program which Leigha co-founded with Jazmyn Jones. Leigha and Jazmyn have known each other for a long time. And together they are the minds behind the Creole Nutcracker. BAM!  The duo began producing the Louisiana Creole spin on the Christmas ballet in 2018 and it has since become a smash hit annual tradition. 

In 2021, Jazmyn started Creole Grounds, a mobile coffee service that she runs outside of Parc Village.  She's also a well-traveled dancer and has performed with Debbie Allen and Houston’s Urban Souls Ballet Company. Fun fact: Jazmyn’s first dance teacher was Leigha.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at our website itsacadiana.com.

And check out recent lunch time conversation about another Acadiana stage spectacular, The Janky Piano Show.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 21st Century has spawned an entire new class of entrepreneur: The influencer. No, it’s not just another word for celebrity. Influencers are more like traveling salesmen, except they don’t have to leave home. (Unless they’re selling travel.)

It’s kind of an ingenious business idea. Startup costs are low. A ring light, a smartphone and an Instagram account is really all you need. 

Marketing firms are spending gobs of money on influencers now to hock their products. The sector now tops about $10 billion annually. Give it a little more time, and there will be influencer classes at your local business school.

Selfie

The industry is big enough that it’s spawned a support industry. Someone has to make those ring lights and selfie sticks. And the need to have bigger and better production has inspired businesses like Exposure Selfies, here in Lafayette.

If you pass it on Jefferson Street, you might think it’s a giant photo booth. But owner Carlie Faulk prefers the term "selfie studio." Content creators and influencers use her space — which includes 5000 square feet and 30 different rotating background installations — to run all kinds of shoots. 

It can also be booked for private events, birthdays and Botox parties!  Carlie grew up in St. Amant and launched Exposure Selfies in 2021. 

Janky

Some spectacles just don’t work on a mobile device. Even in the 21st century, for some events, it’s better just to be there. And that’s pretty much the best way to describe the Janky Piano Show, the brainchild of Lafayette-based musician Hunter DeBlanc. 

Janky Piano Show is an over-the-top variety show. It pipes in pop-culture nostalgia with pre-taped video parodies, a wheel of fortune for song requests and some pretty wild audience participation. At the center of the madness is Hunter himself, who plays MC and piano-man. 

The show began as a way of jazzing up a weekly residency and has grown into a pretty complex production, requiring stage hands and costume changes. Hunter likes to describe it as a “Saturday Night Live piano bar…except it’s a whiskey fueled dumpster fire.” 

On that note, sponsors took note of the show and have begun underwriting it.

Hunter grew up in Opelousas and has also spent time working cruise lines as a piano player. You can check out his pre-Janky-era appearance on Out to Lunch Acadiana at our website itsacadiana.com.

Out to Lunch Acadiana is recorded live over lunch at Tula Tacos and Amigos in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at https://itsacadiana.com/2022/04/05/janky-selfie/ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.