It began with conversations in the balcony between two guys. Every night at the height of the pandemic in 2020, we would go out to the balcony, sit down and have a conversation over a drink, or a smoke. We would talk about the news, whatever was trending in social media, politics… and eventually we would drift into education, science, religion and life.
We had fun. With an education background, a minor in psychology, and raised conservative evangelical Lex would bring his mature point of view to the table, along with his playful, extroverted sense of humor. Tony, an engineer with a passion for science, art, languages and all things empirical and logical, with a deadly-dry sense of humor and bluntness would be the counterpart in our nightly chats. And while we seem to have opposite educational backgrounds and passions, we have lots in common: we come from latino families and share similar values, a passion for food and travel, we’re members of the LGBTQ community, and share a love for TV and all things Sci-fi and Star Trek. We would talk about the news, the pandemic and eventually drift into debates on heavy topics; we could talk for hours! Sure, we didn’t always agree on everything, but we were willing to listen to counter-arguments and opposite takes on life. At the end of the night, we had learned something new and had enjoyed the sparring. It was too much fun to keep it to ourselves. That’s when we thought a podcast with our conversations would be even more fun!
Playful Introductions
We had enjoyed our nightly chats so much, we decided that when the pandemic was over, we would record our conversations for a podcast. We began playing with cameras and audio equipment. We wanted to make a show that would entertain people and more importantly that we would have fun creating; an artistic outlet to connect to the community. On February 8, 2023, we launched our Instagram page with a reel telling everyone to “anticipate great things” which featured some of the footage we had recorded with our new camera around Central Florida. The page was originally named TLNTS.Studio in order to keep the name of the show a secret, as it had not been revealed yet.
We experimented with nature shots, timelapses and skits set to music—there was a particularly raucous skit on the theme of moving set to “The Barber of Seville’s Overture” complete with a robot dog that tested Lex’s patience as he tried to deliver a message on kindness. Ha!
Other reels involved introductions to Lex and Tony and some behind-the-scenes shots.
We unveiled the name of our show “The Lex and Tony Show” on March 2, 2023. The show in its early stages consisted of 5-minute conversations on a couple of trending topics, like the Academy Awards, AI, freedom of speech, TV shows like Beef and Barry among other topics.