Episode 150: Generations

Unknown Speaker (0:10): Welcome back everybody. Today we're gonna be talking about generations. Am I a millennial or a Gen Z? I think I'm a Gen Z. And

Unknown Speaker (0:16): When were you born?

Speaker 0 (0:18): '2 or no. 1999. Almost said 2000.

Speaker 1 (0:20): Generation Z. That's when you're you're oh, no. 90 '7 to twenty twelve is Gen Z, and then Gen Alpha is twenty thirteen to twenty twenty four. Beta is 25 on.

Unknown Speaker (0:32): Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 (0:33): Wow, that's really weird. I am from, there's Gen X, which is from 65 to the millennials, which is 80, 80, 80 to 96. And then boomers, which is me. No, no. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (0:48): It's 46 to six to 64.

Unknown Speaker (0:52): Interesting.

Speaker 1 (0:53): And then they're talking about splitting that and making us something else. And then there's the silent generation is from 28 to 45. And then there is my my father and my mother is the greatest generation, they fought in World War II and all like, and then she went through the Depression. She's born in '26. He was born in 1919.

Speaker 1 (1:14): And then they have before that the lost generation fought in World War I. That would be my grandfather. And then the missionary generation, there's all the people that were tortured with religion. I know. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (1:28): That's the missionary generation.

Speaker 0 (1:31): What what do you think is a category baby boomer? So they ruin the world, do you think? Do you think you ruin the world? Do you think you took advantage of it and you you messed I'm it up for everybody

Speaker 1 (1:41): sad that in many cases, I don't know if if it's just in The US and well, it's we're only gonna compare The US. We can't compare the rest of the world. This is the first year, or yet last year was the first year that life expectancy went down. Okay. So that in itself is, that's a failure on our part.

Speaker 1 (2:04): Our health is getting worse. So, you know, we're we're we're handing obesity to you, but you can take it away if you take a drug. And it's like, maybe, maybe we should figure out a way to stop you from getting obese as opposed to you know what I mean?

Speaker 0 (2:23): Well, I don't know understand why you go to all these different countries and the chemicals that we put in our food are illegal in those countries. I think that's crazy. I think that that's really interesting. It's

Speaker 1 (2:33): part that, but it's like, the number one chemical we put in a food is not illegal in any of those countries.

Unknown Speaker (2:42): How far is that corn syrup?

Speaker 1 (2:43): Right. Use it in any country you want. Really? It's subsidized. It's subsidized here.

Speaker 1 (2:49): It's, we subsidize it heavily to keep our farmers happy. Okay? Because corn is really easy to grow. And so, we can put, we can place it in the commodity markets. We can keep all the farmers happy because they grow a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 1 (3:03): They export tons of it, you know? So that's, that's the reason. And then we, I mean, we even force people to turn it into gas, You know?

Speaker 0 (3:12): That's actually not completely true. Ireland, India, Sweden, and Austria, it's banned. Interesting. Yeah. Surprisingly.

Unknown Speaker (3:20): But at the same time Those are

Speaker 1 (3:22): all the fat countries.

Speaker 0 (3:23): That makes me think of wow. I forgot what I was gonna say. Never mind. Yeah. Continue.

Speaker 1 (3:29): Well, see, I don't think I don't think obesity is is there there's one reason. I think it's societal. I think it's, you know Access to food. I'm sorry?

Speaker 0 (3:41): Access to clean food. I mean, there's a reason why water's more expensive than Coca Cola, you know?

Unknown Speaker (3:47): Right.

Unknown Speaker (3:47): I mean

Speaker 1 (3:48): I I I mean, that's it. We were talking about generations and I I think that that's very clear that we have handed you a less healthy generation. Less healthy I think people are less healthy today than they were twenty years ago, and that to me is sad.

Speaker 0 (4:02): Well, what is the food too? It's like a fifth as nutritious as food was in 1930 or something. It's crazy. It's something like that because of all the GMOs. Oh, I remember what I was gonna say.

Speaker 0 (4:12): Oh, it's funny about corn in this country too. That 75% of it's grown for ethanol. Isn't that wild? 75% of corn crops in The US are grown for ethanol. I think that that's pretty wild.

Unknown Speaker (4:26): Shout out to ethanol.

Unknown Speaker (4:28): I don't know. I mean

Unknown Speaker (4:30): Gen Z though, I don't know. There's a

Unknown Speaker (4:31): lot of

Speaker 0 (4:31): stipulations about problems that we have, you know, a lack of attention in this, that or the other, but I can't imagine. You see the kids with iPads at the It seems like parents are worse now than they've ever been because see You have tools in air quotations to kind of distract your kid from the real world. You know, I can't imagine.

Speaker 1 (4:54): You were in an airport thirty years ago, I just slapped you.

Speaker 0 (4:58): Okay. Exactly. I missed that.

Speaker 1 (5:00): And the neighbor would just slap you and then you would feel pain and you would have fear you and would, you know, do what you do. Now I hand you this little toy that grabs your mind. And in theory, if you follow some of it, it actually teaches you a lot of things. But if you don't follow the rules, you can go look at, you know, Pornhub.

Speaker 0 (5:20): They're very rarely not using it for educational purposes.

Unknown Speaker (5:25): I've I've seen movies. Playing a game.

Speaker 0 (5:27): Movies or games generally. Yeah. Remember the whole thing? Remember the spelling thing that I had to do that mom put me on one year for in third grade or second grade and you had to go around like the universe or something.

Unknown Speaker (5:38): Mhmm.

Speaker 0 (5:38): It was these individual spelling games. I still remember that so clearly. But yeah, things like that. Games aren't the way they used to be either. You know, would you remember Pajama Sam?

Speaker 0 (5:47): Pajama Sam was a great one. It was a puzzle finder and you had to locate different tools to unlock things within the game. I can never figure it out. Oh, yeah. When I was a child.

Speaker 0 (5:57): But yeah, Pajama Sam. Shout out to Pajama Sam. That was a great time. But yeah, no, I don't know. Gen Z.

Unknown Speaker (6:04): You like the winds blowing through my hair?

Unknown Speaker (6:05): Is that? That is kind of nice. You're at the beach. Yeah. You're at the beach and you're here at the.

Speaker 1 (6:11): Yeah, I'm doing, I'm using a different background trying this. If anybody likes it, just pick up. If you don't like it, well, fuck off. I'll find another one.

Speaker 0 (6:17): We need more hate mail too. We're not getting nearly enough hate mail.

Speaker 1 (6:20): And this is how we increase our users is we do we try different things. And if you don't like them, we just tell you to piss off. And then we do it ourselves, and we change it anyway.

Unknown Speaker (6:29): Yep. So that's

Unknown Speaker (6:29): what we're gonna do. Right?

Speaker 0 (6:31): That's what we're gonna do. But Gen Z yeah. I don't I've been told that Gen Z is lazy and that they're not willing to work but it's hard to wanna work for a world that doesn't wanna exist. You know? I don't know.

Speaker 0 (6:42): It it's hard to wanna go to work for somebody. And as Noam Chomsky says, the master and slave dynamic in the capitalistic kind of routine of America is exhausting. It really is. It's And it's it's hard to

Speaker 1 (6:54): do that. Truly it's truly changed. Okay? When I when I first started getting jobs, there was a loyalty factor that you went to somebody work for somebody, and you worked for twenty years or twenty five years, and you got a pension. And then that would be defined benefit as opposed to a defined contribution.

Speaker 1 (7:15): And what that means is a defined benefit means you get paid a set amount of money when you after you worked there for thirty years, you will get paid 5,000 a month or whatever number it was. You would know that you could survive on that. And you would and you would be retired, so you would have saved money along the way, and that would give you and that's defined benefit. All those plans dried up in the eighties. They dried up when Wall Street decided that they could take that pension money and buy companies and take them private and own them and use the pensioners' money.

Speaker 1 (7:46): And then a lot of those pensions failed because and basically, all they did was they reworked the comp they they reworked the interest rate on what or the return rate on the money. See, they had saved, like say, for instance, I had a million dollars that was gonna pay my workers in ten years, and and the interest rate that it was going to earn over time, I I have a million today, and it's going be 30,000,000 in ten years, it's going to earn 5% a year. And I'm I'm gauging it to I'm gay I'm saying it's going to be 5% a year, because that's what the average that the market's been doing for the last fifteen years. Well, people came in and they took the company, and they said, no, it's going to do 10%. So they the pensions were underfunded, so

Unknown Speaker (8:31): they wouldn't have enough money to pay off the people, and then they go bankrupt. And then there's insurance.

Speaker 1 (8:36): I mean, it's just all sorts of horrible, horrible things, know, that that part of the wipeout. And that's when they came up with the four zero

Unknown Speaker (8:43): one ks, which is your defined benefit.

Speaker 1 (8:46): I mean, defined contribution where you put in money, and the idea that in the future somehow you will have saved enough that will make you able to survive and live. What do think? Loyal. But today, it's like, they'll fire you in an hour.

Unknown Speaker (8:59): Do you think that they're lazy? Well, also, Any they're required

Speaker 1 (9:04): any more lazy than and then they were when I was? You and I, we're in a different economic class. So when I when I think about you, I don't wanna say lazy. I wanna say you had a different opportunity. I was not if you were middle class, you would have gotten a job in high school.

Unknown Speaker (9:22): Okay?

Unknown Speaker (9:23): I did get a job in high school.

Unknown Speaker (9:24): Oh, yeah. That's right. You did. Okay. You did?

Unknown Speaker (9:27): Yeah. McLean Hardware.

Unknown Speaker (9:29): Oh, yeah. That's right. You did.

Unknown Speaker (9:30): Yeah. Worked there for three years. Two years?

Unknown Speaker (9:32): I forgot.

Unknown Speaker (9:32): Two or three years. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (9:34): So maybe you would have gotten a high a job in middle school. So but a lot of people didn't have the same amount of, I guess I guess my my train of thought is just kinda fucked there on that because you're right. You did you did work during you did work during high school.

Unknown Speaker (9:53): Well, I'll tell

Speaker 1 (9:54): you that.

Speaker 0 (9:55): Well, I'll tell you something that I've noticed is the barrier for entry for entry level jobs is insane now. Working a retail job, need to go to through two or three interviews, which is absurd. That's stupid. To to hawk somebody's product that they made in China for 4¢. I don't understand.

Speaker 0 (10:12): Why do I need five years of retail experience to sell something? I don't think I do. Especially for a non luxury brand which is ridiculous. I find that to be incredulous. Especially for entry level positions for higher level analyst things like, know, I don't know, working at a sales position at a certain legal company or things like that.

Speaker 0 (10:29): You need five years of experience but where are you supposed to get the experience from? I don't know. Supposed to make it up and you're supposed to lie. That's what I did. That's what I did to get my job is I lied and it helped a lot.

Speaker 0 (10:40): I'm not gonna lie.

Unknown Speaker (10:42): You know, you know, in thirty years, somebody's gonna pull this up and they're gonna say, see, he lied. And they're gonna use that against you.

Speaker 0 (10:49): Well, I think that people should lie more on their resumes because you're competing with other people that are also lying. So, I mean, it's really If

Speaker 1 (10:55): everybody lies and it's okay. Right?

Speaker 0 (10:57): Everybody is lying currently on the resumes that are my age. I swear they are. They're stretching the truth and it's because people won't respect them. And it's almost We stretch

Speaker 1 (11:06): the truth too. Mean, I I I when I my resume, my first resume, I had a 3.4 GPA and and my and my concentration. And I picked the classes that were in my concentration.

Speaker 0 (11:25): Okay? That's funny. Do they look so GPA or 3.4?

Speaker 1 (11:29): And I could show you the classes and add up to that, but I but I didn't take I didn't put it in international finance because mine was business finance, not international finance. So that was outside of it. And I really fucked up on it. I got like a d or a b. I got a c.

Speaker 1 (11:42): And, you know, that would have really pulled it down. So I I did things like that. And that's you could say, well, yeah, you're right. But did that really matter? Did whether or not I got 3.4 or 3.2 or 6.8 or whatever the hell?

Speaker 1 (11:55): I mean, nowadays, everybody's I hear people, yeah, they're going in. They got a four two. And I'm going like, well, a four is perfect. How's they get higher than that? They did extra credit.

Speaker 1 (12:04): Like, so you're better than a 100%. That's weird.

Speaker 0 (12:07): It is odd. But at the same time too, I see people that graduate from school that have close to a four oh and they can't get a job because it's kind of interesting that school taught me as an English literature major, write a 20 page paper, write a 20 page paper, write six to seven twenty page papers a semester. And what I found when I got out of school is nobody wants to read that much. Everybody wants everything condensed. So why are you teaching me to write so long when in fact it doesn't matter at all?

Speaker 0 (12:38): And I think that that's kind of an interesting thing.

Unknown Speaker (12:40): And that was that, well, you went to a shitty school. I mean, you went to UVA. So, I mean

Speaker 0 (12:44): Public Ivy, not even an Ivy. I would say that I'm a loser. You know? I would just Loser. Take my socks off, put them over my ears, look like an elephant.

Unknown Speaker (12:51): That's what I do. Wish you

Unknown Speaker (12:53): could have got into ODU.

Unknown Speaker (12:54): Oh, you know, I really wish I could. You know, you would've

Unknown Speaker (12:56): got in if you'd applied.

Unknown Speaker (12:57): I would've gone there if they still had the monorail, but they got rid of the monorail. How stupid is that?

Speaker 1 (13:03): That was the best thing in the world.

Speaker 0 (13:04): The monorail was probably the best thing at ODU. You know what also is down there? Busch Gardens. Busch Gardens is a fantastic place that I've actually never been to. Maybe one day.

Speaker 0 (13:14): You know, there's a Busch Gardens in Tampa. Did you know that? Really? I thought it was a Virginia Beach thing, and that was it.

Speaker 1 (13:19): No. Not. Busch Gardens. You know what Busch Gardens is?

Unknown Speaker (13:21): It's a theme park.

Unknown Speaker (13:23): Where did it come from?

Unknown Speaker (13:24): Tampa. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (13:26): No. Who invented it? Who owns it?

Speaker 0 (13:28): No way. George Bush?

Speaker 1 (13:30): No. Go a little further. Bush beer. Anheuser Busch. Really?

Speaker 1 (13:37): That was they used to when we went to easy. The first time I went to, Busch Gardens, I went with my mother. I was, like, nine years old. My sister was 11. And they had a, the the brewery the Busch Brewery, you could do a tour of it if you bought tickets into Busch Gardens.

Speaker 1 (13:57): And we went to the brewery, and we had I think you can still do it. And and at that time, there was not a limit on the number of beers that they could serve you, But they didn't serve me. I was only nine. Those cheap bastards. Anyway upsetting.

Speaker 1 (14:12): My, my mother, who did not drink at all, went in and had a, as she called it, a Micolobe.

Unknown Speaker (14:20): That's funny.

Speaker 1 (14:21): And she had that and she had two of them. And she she came out, and she we were sitting on our we were sitting out we were waiting out front because we couldn't go in because they didn't have anybody under 18 in the bar. She goes in there and goes, I'm just gonna have one beer. You go, and you guys gotta use the restroom. She sent us to the restroom by yourselves, you know, and, which is different, I guess, than the way that we coddle kids today.

Speaker 1 (14:43): But we went, we peed, we come out, and she comes out, and she's hammered. And she's she walks over, and she sits on her. I gotta pee. You know? And she gets up, and the lady's line is, you know, out and around the corner, and Leslie's near the front.

Speaker 1 (14:58): And she walks up, and she looks at it, and she goes, I ain't waiting in that. And she walks in the men's room. Goes in, gets in a stall, pees, and comes out and goes like, you're in a stall. Who cares? I was just like It's fair.

Unknown Speaker (15:12): That was a

Unknown Speaker (15:12): long thing. That

Speaker 1 (15:14): would have been '19 probably in the seventies. Wow. Early seventies.

Speaker 0 (15:22): Don't you think gender, restrooms, gender neutral entirely? Men and women restrooms would just save the world a lot of time. I don't understand. We're all doing the same thing in there. It doesn't matter.

Unknown Speaker (15:32): It might make us closer as well.

Unknown Speaker (15:33): I would also let

Speaker 1 (15:34): I think that there's a stall. Want more stall. Be a certain amount of creepy if you go into a stall and That is good point. There listening to it because we're I mean, when it all comes down to it, we're all just I mean, are we fuck monsters or just perverts?

Unknown Speaker (15:47): Kind of. Yeah. Everybody's a pervert.

Speaker 1 (15:49): It's some it's some particular thing. You're there's there's gonna be men's and they're audiotaping and videotaping, audiotaping people urinating and.

Unknown Speaker (15:58): But you hear about the the rug guy? The two rug guys in New York?

Unknown Speaker (16:02): No. They roll themselves up in a rug. I thought

Speaker 0 (16:05): they were really like to get stepped on. No. No. They roll themselves up in a rug. They sit in Manhattan on a sidewalk and people step on them.

Unknown Speaker (16:14): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (16:15): That is Okay. Bizarre.

Unknown Speaker (16:17): Isn't that crazy?

Unknown Speaker (16:18): I guess.

Unknown Speaker (16:19): I don't get that at all. Yeah. But, you know But, hey, whatever turn on strokes for different folks.

Unknown Speaker (16:25): If you're not hurting anyone, you know?

Speaker 0 (16:29): Well, you could argue that a lot of things don't hurt people, but they kinda are weird. So I don't know.

Speaker 1 (16:34): Oh, weird. Go you know, that oh, I don't I I wasn't saying it wasn't weird. I I think it's Yeah. But it doesn't it's it's not enough for me to go to the senate and the house and write a new rule on it.

Unknown Speaker (16:45): Well, that's taking advantage of the public thoroughfare. I don't know. I'm a bit. Okay, yeah. Defender.

Speaker 0 (16:49): Set it down like that. That's an inevitable thing that you are kind of forced to do. And I would say that I'm against that, you know? I would say that that is wrong, but I wouldn't personally care at all, but I I don't know. Maybe some other people would care.

Unknown Speaker (17:04): Well, you know, if you had to go pee pee, that would be a great place.

Speaker 0 (17:07): That'd be funny. People step on his head on burp as he gets mad. Yeah. I've heard that. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (17:12): No. I've heard that a lot.

Speaker 1 (17:13): Well, I would yeah. I'd be like, no.

Speaker 0 (17:16): You ever go to sleep at night and you think about Eminem World in New York, three story Eminem Building? I think about that sometimes when I go to sleep at night.

Speaker 1 (17:23): All those things. It's crazy.

Speaker 0 (17:25): There's three story Eminem building. Why? It's crazy. It's awesome.

Unknown Speaker (17:29): Because we're not fat enough.

Speaker 0 (17:31): But then you got the 30 Rock. It's funny. The I think it's was it Warner Brothers or something? And it's the smallest gift shop you've ever seen. And I and it's not three stories.

Speaker 0 (17:39): That's just a small little Warner Brothers gift shop or NBC. NBC. NBC. Yeah. Sorry.

Speaker 0 (17:44): Sorry about that. But yeah. And that's not.

Unknown Speaker (17:45): We would go there and see the with the Christmas tree. Remember the Christmas tree?

Unknown Speaker (17:49): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:49): In the square? And it was right behind the skating rink. Right?

Unknown Speaker (17:53): Yep. I remember that.

Speaker 1 (17:55): And then if you look at that Christmas tree, the very tippy top of it, they they usually were like 10 or 12 stories. There is a firm that was in that building called Caddawallader with Wickersham and Taft. And on, and then on the 44th Floor of that building, they had, that was their library. And we would roll the window up and hang outside looking down at the top of that Christmas tree. Had a buddy of mine that worked there and, Don and, mister M.

Unknown Speaker (18:26): Don Julio.

Speaker 1 (18:27): Great. He he worked at Cravath, and then he worked there just really, really smart, easygoing, kinda guy. And I remember him going there saying, you gotta see this. You gotta see this. And he goes over.

Speaker 1 (18:39): And those buildings are so old. The windows, they slide up and down like this. Like, you

Speaker 0 (18:45): you Oh, there's no guards. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:46): Yeah. They're up and down, and he pulls it up, and he and he leans out, and he puts his thighs against the the window seal and just goes out. And I'm just like, I I'm I'm I'm I'm for those who don't know, I am deathly afraid of heights. And, I almost peed in my pants just seeing it happen. It was just like rattling me.

Unknown Speaker (19:10): Yeah. There was times when you

Speaker 1 (19:12): see a lot of heights and stuff like that.

Speaker 0 (19:14): Mont Blanc, I remember that you would not go near the edge. Even though it was like a up chest high. Yeah. And you were like, nope. Not doing that.

Unknown Speaker (19:21): I'm not doing that. You know what? That's a people are always like, oh, I can't believe people were afraid. I'm like, that's a very natural fear. I feel like.

Speaker 0 (19:28): I don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:28): I feel like I'm getting pulled over the side.

Speaker 0 (19:31): I feel that way somewhat, but I think my fear center is a little less than a lot of people because I went rock climbing today. And we're about 25 feet off the ground, no rope and it's not, I, I'm like, I don't really care. Like, I don't know. Yeah. You know that you have the strength to get up and down.

Speaker 0 (19:47): That was the problem too is we had to down climb. When you get to the top, you have to climb back down. You can't just top out and then because it's funny because it's 25 foot rock but all the sides are hard to get down. So you can't really go up, stand up there and then like find an easier way down because it's the easiest way down is the way you went out. It was it was funny.

Speaker 0 (20:08): No, I think Gen z I don't I wouldn't say that we're lazy. I wouldn't say that. I think that we're disenchanted disenchanted with the world that has been bestowed upon us and we're disenchanted with the corporate industries like BlackRock that own 75 to 80% of Los Angeles housing. I think we're just disenchanted with that, you know? I think.

Speaker 0 (20:29): And they're restricting housing. A lot of that.

Unknown Speaker (20:31): More houses built. You know why?

Unknown Speaker (20:33): Why?

Speaker 1 (20:34): Well, what happens if you have more supply?

Speaker 0 (20:37): More demand.

Unknown Speaker (20:38): Price goes down.

Unknown Speaker (20:41): Interesting. Right.

Speaker 1 (20:43): If you can control supply and you have a you have a fixed demand and you and you you have a fixed demand and you shut down the supply, guess what happens? The price goes up. It's a great way to get a return. You know?

Speaker 0 (20:54): Oh, shit. It's a and now they own the Suez Canal. That's great. They're not the Suez Canal, the whatever it is. Is it the Animals.

Unknown Speaker (21:02): There we go. Panama Canal.

Unknown Speaker (21:03): That's what they own.

Speaker 0 (21:04): You know what's funny? Suez Canal is a Battlefield one map that I played for years. I played Battlefield one for about five to six years. Really? And there's a map on that.

Speaker 0 (21:13): One of the best maps in my opinion called Suez Canal. That is the best game, one of the best games ever made. Oh my gosh. Really? Incredible.

Speaker 0 (21:19): From campaign to online. Battlefield.

Speaker 1 (21:21): Wouldn't that funny that that you grew up with what would you call that? First or second generation? Probably second generation. I mean, I got I started to see like, pong and race car driving, just a little bit of crappy race car driving. Duck hunt.

Speaker 1 (21:41): And, and my and duck hunt and stuff like that. In my senior year of high school. Okay? Very, very little. A little bit of pong and then, heist and then college late high school was Pac Man.

Unknown Speaker (21:57): That must've been fun.

Speaker 1 (21:59): And then, asteroids was a big one.

Unknown Speaker (22:03): Do you remember when we would go to z pizza in Great Falls and play Pac Man? You remember that? Yeah. Yep. Great.

Unknown Speaker (22:09): Do you remember that? That's great. No.

Unknown Speaker (22:11): I don't remember that at all.

Unknown Speaker (22:12): You don't remember that? The pizza was so good. It was so so good.

Speaker 1 (22:15): Z Pizza Pizza in Great Falls. You sure that was me?

Speaker 0 (22:18): Then there's a Pac Man there. Yeah. Think that was my other dad. Yeah. But we used to go there in 2008 and play and I was so bad at Pac Man.

Speaker 0 (22:28): Oh. And then I never understood how people got good at it because I was eight and stupid.

Speaker 1 (22:33): Where were you? Where were you? Where where was Z Pizza? Help me.

Speaker 0 (22:36): Z Pizza. Alright. So you're going in the Great Falls, right? You know where the tavern is? You remember that?

Speaker 0 (22:40): That's now LTOs on the left. Yeah. Keep going straight. And then there's that Mediterranean bakery in that strip mall. And then on the left, there's the, what is that?

Speaker 0 (22:50): The sandwich place, the Italian place. Z Pizza was in that strip mall on the right near the Mediterranean place where we would get the honey ball thing.

Unknown Speaker (22:59): Oh, god. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Unknown Speaker (23:01): Okay.

Unknown Speaker (23:01): Now I remember. Oh, good.

Unknown Speaker (23:02): That's it.

Unknown Speaker (23:03): Oh gosh.

Speaker 1 (23:04): And then we're going next door.

Speaker 0 (23:05): I swear I inherited some aspects of your father's memory because I will talk about things like I was talking to Saad about a year ago. So, you remember that time that you did that Benjamin Franklin well, presentation in sixth grade and then you wrote a poem about how it you were friends with Benjamin Franklin. He's like, how do you remember that? I don't even remember writing that and I'm like, I don't know. I still do.

Unknown Speaker (23:32): I still remember that. Elephant memory. Yeah. Elephant memory. Feet on fire.

Speaker 1 (23:37): Well, that's it. That's the, I mean, that's great for tests and stuff like that. The thing is, can you can you can you take it and then change it and formulate different things with it on what you memorized? Oh, you mean like apply it? Yes.

Unknown Speaker (23:53): Apply. I

Speaker 0 (23:53): would say that I was always somewhat of a good test taker. SATs though, not very good. ACT. ACT I did okay on, if I remember correctly.

Unknown Speaker (24:02): I think you did better than me on SATs.

Unknown Speaker (24:06): I don't even remember what

Speaker 1 (24:07): I thought. Of course, was still drunk when I went.

Speaker 0 (24:11): Well, you get a six fifty for just writing your name down. I remember that. And it's out of 1,600. So I think I was like I was not great. It was like

Speaker 1 (24:20): I got a ten forty.

Speaker 0 (24:21): Well, there was like a twelve fifty or something. Maybe it an eleven fifty.

Unknown Speaker (24:24): Amazing.

Speaker 0 (24:25): It was something like that. It was not great. But I also had private tutor, which makes all the difference in the world because it's not the knowledge that you apply to the test. It's how you take it. Right.

Speaker 0 (24:35): Exactly. There's such a strategy to it. The ACT. I remember I was training for the ACT and he was like, you know, if you just read the graph like this on all the science questions, you can get them all right and I'm like, how? Like, what?

Speaker 0 (24:47): That's crazy.

Unknown Speaker (24:49): So, you what?

Speaker 0 (24:49): Yeah, if you read the graphs because like for the ACT, there's a science section compared to the SAT, there's not and on the ACT in the science section, there's rectangle like this is going down the slope like this, at this angle, what, volume is this thing that it affects? And that sounds like a really difficult question, but if you read the question, there's always a number within the question that the answer is. It's crazy. And I was like, the way that he taught was really, really well.

Unknown Speaker (25:18): Wow. Well done. That's like cheating.

Speaker 0 (25:21): In a way, but you're not cheating at all. You're just taking the test.

Speaker 1 (25:24): So so basically, it was a was a cue for rich white people.

Speaker 0 (25:30): Pretty well, that's what I think private standardized test taking is always going to do and it's the no child left behind thing is kind of crazy because you have these public schools that are underfunded and can't have high SAT scores because they're competing with these higher income people that have access to private tutors that are always going to be able to test higher and then, the public school closes down and they establish a charter school when they have a raffle for the few left that can try to get in to the charter school that were at the old public school and then, there you have it. Capitalistic entity in the education world which I think is a little absurd and then you have all these underprivileged people that no longer have access to public education and it's crazy and that's why we're.

Speaker 1 (26:12): Yeah but but you gotta you gotta you gotta $10.00 chip there and it I mean, that's the thing about public and private. Public, we have to accept everybody. Private? Well, we can pick who we want.

Speaker 0 (26:24): The no child left behind thing really destroyed a lot of underprivileged community public schools. And I think that's why as well you then start seeing these people that are in one county that have to go to a different county to go to school. And then a lot of the times people that are underprivileged don't have access to transportation. Right?

Speaker 1 (26:42): Right.

Speaker 0 (26:43): And things like that and it's it's a nightmare.

Unknown Speaker (26:45): It's a. So they go sporadically.

Speaker 0 (26:47): Exactly and they don't go. Remember our memory in your class.

Speaker 1 (26:50): You had the kid that was taking a taxi every day from

Speaker 0 (26:53): Maryland. Like Gaithersburg.

Speaker 1 (26:55): No. He was over on Route 7, Bailey's Crossroads and he was coming really plain.

Speaker 0 (27:00): Yeah. I thought he was in because he told me that he lived in Maryland, Gaithersburg. He and I was like,

Unknown Speaker (27:05): No. This

Speaker 0 (27:07): No. He didn't say in a castle. He said that we I live up there And I was like, why? But we're not in the district. He's I don't think he knew where he lived, which was interesting.

Unknown Speaker (27:15): He was also a notorious liar. Oh, was he really?

Unknown Speaker (27:21): Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 (27:23): Yeah. I mean, he said a lot of things about, I don't you know, you were just really?

Unknown Speaker (27:30): You're talking about Zeke? Yeah. Oh, really? I didn't know. Was.

Unknown Speaker (27:34): Yeah. I didn't know about him.

Speaker 1 (27:35): Yeah. Yeah. No. He was more about he was bragging about his family's relatives and things like that.

Unknown Speaker (27:42): He's always very

Unknown Speaker (27:43): secure in it.

Speaker 0 (27:44): Yeah. That's what happens. I mean

Unknown Speaker (27:46): You know?

Unknown Speaker (27:46): You grow up and you try to be secure as a kid.

Speaker 1 (27:48): Well, wants to if come to somebody's house and it's much it's a nice place, you immediately be you're worried at, you know, you feel uncomfortable.

Unknown Speaker (28:00): What they might think of you.

Speaker 1 (28:01): Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because they automatically must think less for you because that you have less. And we have in this society, we've made money as being a product of being correct, right, and better. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (28:15): If you have

Speaker 1 (28:16): money, you are correct. If you have money, you're right. And if you're if you have money, you're better. And that's just not, you know. What is the age What are doing there?

Speaker 1 (28:25): And it's like, well, so?

Speaker 0 (28:27): There's this age old thing about, oh, I always ask my son how his job is doing or something but I never ask him if he's happy and that isn't that interesting. I don't know. Yeah. It's really what we valued. We looked at nature and we said, let's put

Unknown Speaker (28:41): a dollar. How's your how's your job going?

Speaker 0 (28:43): It's going well. It's going good. It's going well.

Unknown Speaker (28:48): I just want you to know that I'm happy.

Speaker 0 (28:52): Isn't that the truth? Isn't that the truth? But yeah, I don't know. You gotta

Speaker 1 (28:56): plan yourself. You know, that's it. That's it. That's that to me is the the path to happiness starts with you taking a step toward it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (29:05): You know.

Speaker 0 (29:06): Well, it's exploration more than anything because a lot of people are like, I don't know what I want to be and I'm like, try a thousand different things until you know what you want to be. Reading one thing, reading is just what has changed my life forever.

Speaker 1 (29:15): You're amazing.

Speaker 0 (29:16): And and that will, that will continually change my life because I'm I can compartmentalize my life better that way. I don't know and it's it's really helpful. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:27): I'm really jealous of that that ability that you have to do that. You know, you've you've like, I I mean, I would say that during my 20s, I was very inquisitive, and I wanted to learn. I was reading the classics because I thought the classics would make me smarter from when I was like 19 till about 26 or 20, 28, somewhere in there. And then, then the whole business, you know, life, family, all this stuff became more important than reading the novel. And I set the novels on the table and stopped and I.

Speaker 0 (30:07): Oh. That's not entirely true because I remember you would read WEB whatever his face was and. Webb DuBois. We go. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (30:15): On the on the John And you would read Tom Clancy. You read like.

Unknown Speaker (30:19): Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (30:20): Okay. 100 page books. Yeah. Yeah. On the John for like four hours.

Speaker 0 (30:24): And I'm like how are his legs not numb?

Speaker 1 (30:26): Oh they were numb. But but the thing is is that allowed me to get away from you and the screaming wife.

Unknown Speaker (30:31): Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the man was gone.

Speaker 1 (30:33): That's why all men pick up fat books to go to the toilet because they're they're they're unhappy, with their child and their wife.

Speaker 0 (30:40): You know what's funny what my girlfriend was telling me about her father when, she was growing up? She's like, we used to call him toilet writer because he would go into the the bathroom at for, like, I'm three and a half hours. Three and a half Yeah. He would go in there. And I'm like, I think he was trying to escape the the kids.

Speaker 0 (30:59): You know? Well, he's also outnumbered because it's three women, one man. Oh, wow. Not that everything's a gender war, but but yeah, that Toilet rider. Yes, it is.

Speaker 0 (31:08): Yeah. Everything is a gender Toilet rider? Yeah. Toilet rider. They would call him that.

Speaker 0 (31:12): I love that. When she was like eight or nine. Yeah. It was funny.

Speaker 1 (31:15): Well, I'm hitting Toilet Rider a lot. Always have No.

Speaker 0 (31:19): Yeah. You've always been in there for five times a day, couple hours.

Speaker 1 (31:23): Yeah. Mine's more like quantity of times to visit as opposed Yeah.

Speaker 0 (31:28): It adds up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, people say, did you see your father a lot when you were growing up? I say, no, he was always gone.

Speaker 0 (31:35): And they say, well, he was at work, right? I'm like, no, he was always in the bathroom. He

Unknown Speaker (31:41): he hit the crapper six times a day.

Speaker 0 (31:43): I just never seen him. It was like he was had a second job almost.

Unknown Speaker (31:46): Yep. That's it.

Unknown Speaker (31:49): Yeah. Oh, it's not true.

Speaker 1 (31:51): Well, I did spend a lot of time going, but, I mean, until until I was until you went into first grade. Was it first grade? 2,000. Third?

Speaker 0 (32:00): Third. Third grade? Think third is when you started coming to school. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (32:04): But I think the difference in generations will be very telling of those who read and those who don't. Yeah. And I think that a lot of people can self actualize better when they do read and maybe that's why boomers were so able to pursue their dreams other than a more stable economy and other than more opportunity because it seems like there's an overriding of things that are too saturated now, too many occupations that are too saturated and there's too many people in the world, you know.

Speaker 1 (32:34): Do you think that your attention spans are shorter?

Speaker 0 (32:38): Oh yeah, yeah. A 100%. Without a doubt. Like for reading, I took a pretty heavy break off because I read Infinite Jest last year. And then I only read like, I think 15 That a comic.

Speaker 0 (32:50): That year. Surprisingly not written by David Foster Wallace. And what is argued to be the best novel of the last twenty years. Is not, I don't

Unknown Speaker (32:58): understand I think any of that Saved Scotland.

Speaker 0 (33:01): Yeah, exactly. But yeah, no, I don't know about people that are going to be able to self actualize and look at their lives and say, this is who I am and this is what I've become when in fact all you do is look at other people's lives through a two inch metal device,

Speaker 1 (33:20): you know? Measure yourself against that.

Speaker 0 (33:21): That's why I deleted Instagram is because I was self comparing. Was like, oh my god, I can't believe I haven't finished this movie yet I'm like, wait a minute. I'm 26 years old. I'm I just need to exist. I just need to exist.

Speaker 0 (33:32): You know? You just need to exist and things will happen to you. Yes. As long as

Unknown Speaker (33:36): you put right through the I can't post on Facebook until you finish it up.

Speaker 0 (33:40): See, exactly. Right? That that's what I was coming to as well. It's like I was looking at other directors that were posting things that are around my same age and I'm like, wait, this project is way bigger than anything that they're doing and yet, like, it's, it takes a long time. It takes a

Unknown Speaker (33:54): long And you have to

Unknown Speaker (33:55): be okay with that. You have to be okay. Because people say,

Speaker 1 (33:58): what's Zach doing now? Yeah. Like, as though, well, I did a documentary in twenty minutes and now I'm doing this and I and I'm telling him, I said, you know what? You should go to ZHB productions, go to his website, and he can see Go he's

Unknown Speaker (34:11): to the website.

Speaker 1 (34:11): That's it's a much better story than what I can say. Because I started realizing that I would go, oh, well, he's doing the documentary. He's doing this. And then, you know, it's like, it's like one hundred hours of filming. Oh, well, it's done.

Speaker 1 (34:22): It's like, no, no, then they have to color, then they have to translate, then they have to segregate, then they shave it down, then they edit it, then they edit again, then they make a story, and then they have a background, you know, and it's like.

Speaker 0 (34:34): There's a reason why Tarantino takes five to eight years to make a movie, you know? There's a reason because he's also writer, director, and narrative which is entirely different than what I did. I did a documentary which is arguably easier because it doesn't require the planned shot list or I guess it could require a shot list if you really wanted it to. It also requires a whole story, you know, and it requires an interesting story that will captivate people which is exceptionally difficult to do very well if you have a long spanning career and a level that you need to perform at. I think that that's incredibly difficult.

Unknown Speaker (35:15): Crazy, isn't it?

Speaker 0 (35:16): It certainly is. It certainly is indeed, but I think people in my generation are aspiring to find an easier way out that doesn't involve working a job for thirty years. I think that that's what they're Well, you think it

Speaker 1 (35:30): you think it comes down to the fact that, I mean, in my generation, it was like you got you got a job and you stay for twenty years. You retired from it for thirty years. I mean, in my neighborhood, the people that work that most of the people there, one guy worked for the Park Service, one guy was a Navy guy, got twenty years in the Navy, retired and then went to work for the prison system. And he got twenty two years at the prison system, and he retired there. So he had two retirements.

Speaker 1 (35:58): Everybody was working the double dip, you know, military or Park Service, and then government, government, get one government job and then get a pension and then get another one. And it was like, everything was that way. I mean, my brother, when he said he went into this years ago, when he went to work for the Censeless Bureau, Census Bureau, senseless, senseless, I'm not sure.

Unknown Speaker (36:21): He called it the Censeless Bureau then.

Speaker 1 (36:23): Yeah. But I remember him saying that he said, was I was a weekend to work. And that's when I knew I had to leave. And it's like, And he goes, there were people there that had been there under a year. And they were calculating what they would get paid when they retired in thirty one years.

Speaker 1 (36:44): They, they were, they were, everything was about reaching 58 or 57 or this is the star. You were nothing until then. You will earn money, and this is what you will do, and you'll survive. But then you'll be free, and you'll have and there'll be you'll pay this fixed amount. It's like, wow.

Speaker 0 (37:07): You know what happens a lot of the time too when you're not allowed to explore in your early twenties? Yeah. Is that you just become this dissatisfied alcoholic and very bitter later on and I've noticed that.

Unknown Speaker (37:17): Yeah. I I can I can identify with that?

Unknown Speaker (37:19): But no, no, no.

Unknown Speaker (37:21): I'm very bitter.

Speaker 0 (37:21): A lot of people that felt like their life was not lived out on their own terms. And I think that that is especially common in The US. Because on teaching written by Mark Edmonson was a wonderful book about how people in my generation too will not try a thousand different things. They will try to find this one job that will kind of satisfy and check all those boxes so that they can then have a or have a child or.

Speaker 1 (37:45): You're going pay me or eat. I I I gotta eat I'm gonna the I can get the best job I can that will allow me to eat. Or when I say eat, I mean pay for your will, you know, house and all that kind of stuff like that. And then I'll have fun outside of that.

Speaker 0 (37:58): Exactly. And he goes into depth Yeah. About how he was a roadie. He basically did all the sound equipment for a hairband for five years. He did another thing where he was a manager at an amusement park.

Speaker 0 (38:10): He did another job where he worked as I think a gardener and then he also went back and he's like, well, I think I want to be a professor and he went back to UBA where he graduated from about fifteen years later and then he found what he wanted to do which was right and yeah and now he's a published author 70 years old for any he publishes under Penguin Random House. I mean, that's a pretty big accomplishment.

Unknown Speaker (38:32): Yeah, that's real.

Speaker 0 (38:33): Great book, Mark Edmonson, by Mark Edmonson on teaching. I actually gave Jeff that book, funny enough.

Unknown Speaker (38:40): Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (38:40): No, it really easy read. I actually have a book that he wrote to the death of Sigmund Freud and which was about Sigmund Freud's later life. I haven't cracked it yet, but I'm excited. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (38:52): So

Speaker 1 (38:53): so the more you show me your intellect, the the more disappointed I am.

Speaker 0 (38:57): Yeah. Let me keep talking about how smart I am because it's really important. It's really important. That's all this narcissism, right?

Unknown Speaker (39:04): What did you say? What did I say you were? What generation again?

Unknown Speaker (39:06): Gen Z.

Speaker 1 (39:08): Gen Z? And so but Gen z, it's now going to alpha, beta, whatever we're doing here.

Unknown Speaker (39:13): Yeah. I don't know what that is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:15): That's like after you. And people are always hammering the Gen z because that's you. You're in your mid twenties. So, I mean, I'm kind of of the mind that since we have an extended life and we live to 80, that that instead of retiring at 65, that and starting at 23 or four, and or starting your your professional environment, why not start what you're really going to do when you find it in almost 30 because and then retire at 75.

Speaker 0 (39:57): It takes a lot of people out of exploring to find what it is and a lot of people are like, why am I not good at this automatically? And I'm like, takes time to hone your skills especially if you're doing something that involves artistry. I think that it's I often wonder, I'm like, why haven't I made the best thing in the world and it's because it's new. It's because it's new, right? Yeah.

Speaker 0 (40:19): And it's like, why don't I have available opportunities? Well, it's like, I think about too comparing like James Cameron. I mean, James Cameron didn't do a movie till he was 40. I think Tarantino didn't do one till he was 35 and then another person famous.

Speaker 1 (40:32): They probably did a lot of movies before that. They just didn't share with anybody.

Speaker 0 (40:35): Yeah, exactly. A lot of shorts probably, right? Yeah. Like a lot of shorts.

Speaker 1 (40:38): Or a lot of movies that you would never know or hear about because they were trash.

Speaker 0 (40:42): Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:43): And they never got they they the script never got bought. No one funded them. Nothing happened. Exactly. You know?

Speaker 1 (40:49): I mean, it's rarity to be able to make a full length movie at your age. It just doesn't happen.

Unknown Speaker (40:54): It is. No. It's a privilege.

Speaker 1 (40:55): You know? It's just like for me to be starting a company at 28 and to have it be successful in itself is ninety nine point four percent fail. Ninety five or ninety in the first year, ninety five in the first ninety eight in the first five years. So, you know, very, very incredibly lucky. No.

Speaker 1 (41:23): I I had, I ran across somebody that made me feel like I was the most brilliant guy in the world and that's why I said, think it's sales. I said, and he was telling me that you were my mentor, blah, blah, blah, all this. I was like, why, why in the world would you be looking at us, our company, what we did? And he said, you were the first guys in legal tech to bust 2,000,000. I'm like, What?

Speaker 1 (41:48): He goes, Nobody. He said every company started, they'd start out really fast, and they grow to 2,000,000 revenue, and they peter out and they crash. And then somebody else would come along, copy their idea and go to 2,000,000. You guys, like, lap that five times. It just kept going.

Speaker 1 (42:07): And I was like, because I didn't, we never had a ceiling, you know? You know, last couple

Speaker 0 (42:14): Who was this mentor that you're talking about?

Speaker 1 (42:16): Oh, oh, it wasn't him. He he he just looked at me because he called me and asked me after I'd sold the business to come and talk to him. And it wasn't a competing business. And I went sat down and talked with them about what they were doing and how

Unknown Speaker (42:28): they were doing and looked at

Speaker 1 (42:29): their stuff. And I do that today to anybody that calls me. I'm not a paid consultant. If you want to, if you're starting up a business, I will talk to anyone about anything, and I'll give you my opinion. And it's, you know, it's worth every penny you pay for it, nothing.

Speaker 1 (42:44): But if the thing is, is that I generally look at a business, and I want to know what you're selling, who you're going to sell it to, how you're going to sell it to them, how you're gonna make a profit at it. And then I need you to give me a pitch where there's three reasons that they should buy your product, and one of them is not price. These, I mean, it's a very, it's not that deep of a scenario. And I'm, I'm very, very direct with people. I I don't I don't sugarcoat things.

Speaker 1 (43:11): I I I'm very I mean, I'm honest, because I feel like if I deter you from starting a business that you're going to fail in, that I will save you huge heartache. And and the other side is is if I can if you can point you can clear all these hurdles and be wonderful, I'll be like, wow. You got it. You got it going. You you there there's no there's no hammer.

Speaker 1 (43:36): That's there's no one no one sitting on the other side that you're that you're selling to is gonna say, piss off. You know, you're you're you're gonna you're gonna succeed. I mean, those are the kind of things that I think that are good. And people talk about, oh, you give back. And I'm like, fuck it.

Speaker 1 (43:49): I never took. I didn't take anything. I earned everything I got. I I work with people. I I I have helped people.

Speaker 1 (43:56): People have helped me, and I've been decent all the way through. I've never been a shitbag person, but I see that kind of stuff that you you know, now for me, it's like, it's it's enjoyable to share my experiences with others in the hopes that they won't commit or have the same number of mistakes that I have. Because I have thousands, thousands, and thousands, and thousands of mistakes. And it would be nice to hear to be able to tell someone, hey, when you're when you're running out the door know, you when you're running out the sliding glass door, before you run into the door, you should open it. Okay?

Unknown Speaker (44:37): Just just open the door.

Unknown Speaker (44:39): Sometimes that needs to be told.

Speaker 1 (44:41): Oh, okay. And they open the door, and it's like, hey. You didn't smash your face in. I would consider that that's a win, man. That's that's it.

Unknown Speaker (44:49): That's that's it. That that's my satisfaction. I think, you know,

Unknown Speaker (44:52): but it's something that

Speaker 1 (44:53): die. Mhmm. I I didn't I I had no idea that that was that was the thought until he told me, and I just ran into him the other day at one of

Unknown Speaker (45:02): these shows. And I was just I was shocked that that was the whole

Speaker 1 (45:06): that was the whole point of the the admiration. But a lot of other people that I, you know, work with for years and years and years is because I'm not I'm not out to fuck people. And I'm very direct, because I've always happened.

Unknown Speaker (45:22): Good business ethics.

Unknown Speaker (45:23): And it's work it's work you know, that's it.

Unknown Speaker (45:25): I mean, when you think about people you're

Speaker 1 (45:26): to work with, it's like, you gotta have ethics. I got to like you. You got to, and you can't be too curmudgey and mean and asshole y and all that. I can usually work around a lot of that. Because I'm, I'm a, I'm such a flexible guy.

Speaker 1 (45:39): But if you lie, you cheat, can't do that. It doesn't, work. I can't. Those are things I cannot, first cannot forgive. Second, cannot work with.

Speaker 1 (45:49): It just just doesn't. Because then trust to me has got to be absolute. Sorry. Every time. You know?

Speaker 1 (45:58): Wow. So anyway, we were talking about hemorrhoids, right?

Speaker 0 (46:04): Yeah. That's exactly what we were talking about. That's what this episode is about today, actually.

Unknown Speaker (46:08): About hemorrhoids?

Unknown Speaker (46:09): No. I had a question. I can't remember what it was though.

Unknown Speaker (46:12): You're gonna ask me about What the

Speaker 0 (46:14): it was? I already did. I already asked No, but it's gone. But yeah, no, I don't know. I'm happy with where the project is currently.

Speaker 0 (46:23): It's bustling along but generationally, I don't know. I think that people want to be their own boss. I think that gen Z people want to be their own boss. And it's also funny too that like, I think there's a statistic that it was like seventy two percent of people now want to be influencers or something. But what people don't realize is that's a twenty four hour a day job.

Speaker 0 (46:43): It really is because you got to post all the time. Yeah. And you have to be willing to create content all the time. You have to be willing to monetize your life, which I think is a very interesting concept that we haven't really seen before where the day that I wake up in the morning, I'm filming myself throughout my entire day.

Speaker 1 (47:03): There's a guy makes like 8 or 9,000,000 a year, Indian, I think. I saw Omar in sixty Minutes and he is one of those influencers in in India. And he has two cars, and he lives in a house, his wife, and has three kids. And from the second that they get up to even going to bed at night, they have a video they have a camera in, like, when they're falling asleep. I don't they didn't do sex or anything like that, but when they're falling asleep, they have a camera and watch them fall asleep.

Speaker 1 (47:36): And I'm just thinking to myself.

Speaker 0 (47:38): I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah. Yeah. That's. It's also something to be said for monetizing your children at a young age which I think is wrong inherently.

Speaker 0 (47:46): Oh. Because I I really respect the people that post that are famous, that post pictures of their kids with their faces blotted out. Because I mean like do you really want that kid to grow up in a world where they have been exposed since the time that they were five or born even and then they are constantly kind of forced into this business that they never even asked to be in, you know? No. And I think that's that's incredibly detrimental.

Speaker 1 (48:14): They have to break out of it or not. You see like, it seems like so many run into horrible, horrible problems. Yeah. You know?

Speaker 0 (48:23): I mean, we were talking about Alf the other day. The kid from Alf died of cirrhosis, 53 years old in a Walmart parking lot in his car. Wow. And then the other guy, I mean, the dad from

Unknown Speaker (48:32): Alf. 53. I think he was

Unknown Speaker (48:34): in a car. 53. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (48:36): Oh my gosh.

Unknown Speaker (48:37): Cirrhosis. Alcohol cirrhosis.

Unknown Speaker (48:39): He was homeless.

Speaker 0 (48:40): The dad was outed at the crack den as well. And I don't I don't know. I'm not sure what he died of, but I think he died in a pretty horrible way as well. And yeah, no, it's just that that show was cursed. I don't know.

Speaker 0 (48:53): It seemed like that show was almost cursed. I don't know about the mom though. I don't know how the mom did. But yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (48:59): No, really cursed show. Alf. What are you gonna do?

Speaker 1 (49:03): Well, was because they're all Gen Zs.

Speaker 0 (49:05): I think that's so. I think that's so. But yeah, whole old people. Be your own boss thing is is becoming more and more appealing to everybody. But what happens when we reach the point to where all the content has been made?

Speaker 0 (49:19): I mean, you know? Cause it's seeming so that like there's this kind of quote that people say no original experience because people talk about what they go through on a daily basis and they're like, oh no, I actually go through that as well. I got all the comments and they say no original experience because it seems like a lot of things in life that are niche and that people go through are actually very well involved across the world, you

Unknown Speaker (49:42): know? Right.

Speaker 0 (49:43): It's like your individual experience is actually blanketed across many other people's lives.

Speaker 1 (49:47): Right. Thousands and thousands of not millions. You know, you look at that all the time. You know. I think I think that people that want to be their own bosses underestimate the effort and time it is to do that to be successful.

Speaker 1 (50:05): I think that they underestimate what you have to give. You know, people generally that become their own bosses, don't give forty hours a week and don't give and then get a pension at the end. And, and the horrible thing is, is they don't get a raise. That that's not, that's not how it works. And the four companies that I've been early stage involved in or at the beginning, money was not discussed until we actually started to make it.

Speaker 1 (50:39): So Yeah. You weren't gonna make any. You were that wasn't, you know, and nobody said, Hey, Zach, you got to work forty hours a week or fifty hours a week or sixty hours. There was no, there was no discussion of how long the day would be, because the answer would have been, well, when we're done. There wasn't there was never, well, we're gonna start and then we'll come back tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (51:02): I was like, no, it's when you're done. I mean, that's kind of the that was the mentality all the way through. No one no one ever I never got paid overtime for work for working Sunday mornings at 04:30. It's funny, an Uber driver, I was talking to the guy and he goes, Yeah, Sunday mornings from 04:30 to nine are the busiest at Dallas. And I was like, Wow, I didn't realize that.

Speaker 1 (51:23): Because I used to always take off then. That's when I would go to shows. Was like then and Saturday morning, really early. So I'm working all weekend. So when you're your own boss, you're not really your own boss.

Speaker 1 (51:35): I mean, I just all I did was remove one person from the equation up there who would have been called by the person that I was selling the product to to yell at me for doing a shitty job and selling it. And now they just talk to me directly. So, really, I I I by by being your own boss, you're you're cutting out, of course, the person who's telling you to be good to the customer, even though the customer's wrong. You're cutting out the person that's telling you to get rid of the customer because they're not financially well. You're you're you're you're telling you're you're doing you're doing the thing.

Speaker 1 (52:14): You're firing the people that will hurt your business if you don't let them go.

Unknown Speaker (52:19): Cutting up the middleman.

Speaker 1 (52:20): Yeah, you're, you're, you're the one that's doing that. If, if you're okay with that, that's, I would, I would say that for me, the hardest thing was getting rid of mediocre good people. And when I say mediocre good, and you're like, what the hell does that mean? Mediocre at their job, but good personalities, actually good people. Our job, our our our atmos our job was not something that they could do well.

Speaker 1 (52:47): They need to go somewhere else. They need to find something, they need to find the right job. And those people, and they were happy and easy and easygoing. And you're just like, wow, that that that's the kind of hardest thing to do. For me, it was, you know.

Unknown Speaker (53:01): For sure.

Unknown Speaker (53:02): I think about that as far as like influencers and stuff like that, you know, you're like, wow.

Speaker 0 (53:07): Well, then they're commanded by the brands that say do the, what is it called? It's called a HGC or UGC. UGC content style which is kind of like the commercials that you see on Facebook or Instagram where it's like, here's me with my drink. Yeah. Do drink this drink.

Speaker 0 (53:27): It helps me run fast And they they're, I mean, you're still commanded by a brand to do things. So I guess So you're lying. Yeah. You're not an entire Well, mean, sold right.

Speaker 1 (53:36): Yeah, that's right. We sold our product, which is an online software product and people log into it and they liked it and it was we sold directly to end users. So there was no redistribution. Or, and we had marketing and stuff. No, never had redistribution, I don't think.

Speaker 1 (53:51): But hey, you know, I think about that. So anyway, as far as generationally, you know, we're we're we're still talking. One of the things you can find from my generation is I can't keep on a subject more than thirty seconds. Have to jump from one to the other.

Speaker 0 (54:05): It seems like that kind of was, bestowed upon me as well.

Speaker 1 (54:08): Yeah, you're you're pretty you're pretty ADHD as well. I think the difference that that happened in my generation and your generation is we were it was beaten out of us, or it was managed out of us, or we had to figure out how to manage it, or we failed. Whereas you, we as parents turn to drugs because they worked. They changed you, but they are lifetime drugs, which is kinda like, I'm I'm I'm in opposition to that. I don't I don't think that I don't think that children should be put on drugs.

Unknown Speaker (54:43): They

Unknown Speaker (54:43): should crazy.

Speaker 1 (54:44): You need another way to but I never had someone that was so unruly and so crazy that nothing would stop them.

Speaker 0 (54:53): So I was talking to a woman the other day that she has been on Adderall for the last twenty years, and she says, if I was not on Adderall, I can't I can't function. Because she did take a year off and it was it was hell because her ADHD is so profoundly terrible that she cannot function in society. She cannot sleep.

Unknown Speaker (55:11): Yeah. You can't.

Unknown Speaker (55:12): It's just thousands and thousands

Unknown Speaker (55:13): of things that

Speaker 0 (55:14): do or complete tasks and on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 (55:18): So maybe maybe the best thing for me to say is to don't be judgmental. Everybody has a different story. Let them all live their life the way they wish to live as long as it doesn't infringe or hurt me.

Speaker 0 (55:28): Well, you have a part of this that I'm in agreeance with where it's I don't think you should be able to prescribe amphetamines to children. I don't think that should be legal.

Speaker 1 (55:38): You could as long as you're giving me half.

Speaker 0 (55:40): But why are you prescribing amphetamines to children for acting like children? I don't get that. Yeah, I don't get why we're looking at a kid

Speaker 1 (55:48): because it makes you more productive and it makes you easy to take care of in school. And it means that no one will be calling us every day that Zach is a bad person.

Speaker 0 (55:59): Well, yeah, you also now don't that is kind of funny. Well, I think we talked about this before where corporal punishment such as hitting your kids is now seen in pill form. I think that that's incredible.

Speaker 1 (56:09): But they didn't they didn't do that when I was when I was a kid beating me for my ADHD wasn't the thing. They would nose in the corner, go stand in the corner, nose in the circle, go outside, go to go to the office. And but I I did that every single day. Okay? Until I learned how can I how can I, you know, not get kicked out of class today?

Speaker 1 (56:36): Mhmm. How can I not get suspended from school today? How can I I mean, I remember that in in tenth grade? A guy wanted to start a fight with me. I've been suspended four times that year.

Unknown Speaker (56:48): Mhmm.

Speaker 1 (56:48): I was told that if I got the next time would be expulsion. It was an automatic expulsion. And the guy pushes me, and I and I and to this day, I wanted I I I I stopped. And that's that's like one of those epiphany moments that you look at sophomore year in high school. And I looked at the sky.

Speaker 1 (57:09): I looked to the right, and I'm looking, and the guy's yelling at me and calling me a pussy and everything like that. And I just remember that I was like, if I if I if I do anything, my whole future has changed because I would have been expelled from high school At tenth grade, I would have probably got a job at a gas station.

Unknown Speaker (57:32): You wouldn't be here too.

Unknown Speaker (57:33): Mom wouldn't be

Unknown Speaker (57:34): here. Bologna's

Speaker 1 (57:35): bombing you. That's one of those moments that that I think about. I just I remembered it when we were talking about it. That was like, woah. Change.

Unknown Speaker (57:45): Change point. Change point.

Speaker 0 (57:46): Millions of doors a day open. You know? Millions of

Speaker 1 (57:50): doors. But who knows? I may have been a rock star if I'd gotten kicked out of school and been a great guitar player and That would've cool. Whatever. We can always look to the bright side of things.

Speaker 1 (57:59): But as far as generations, I think that every generation that's older always looks down on the next generation.

Unknown Speaker (58:06): Every time.

Speaker 1 (58:07): And they like to say that they're giving something better. I don't believe we're doing it, and I think there's proof that we're not. I think that, we're we're we're giving you less longevity. We're not giving you more health care. We're making you, we're we're making you fatter.

Speaker 1 (58:22): We're making you weaker. We're may I mean, we have we have not made you amazing.

Unknown Speaker (58:31): We made you less amazing in the

Unknown Speaker (58:32): last year.

Speaker 0 (58:33): Given to survive. Well, also a house in 1970 was a little cheaper than and it was also like you could actually work a job for a couple of years and afford a house. Well, so many different things that

Speaker 1 (58:45): we're we're doing bad.

Speaker 0 (58:46): The majority of the people I know will never buy a house. Right. Never. And that's just a matter of fact. I really think that we're going to see people flee this country the next couple of years mainly because it's just unaffordable.

Speaker 0 (58:59): You know, and I think we're to start seeing things like Ireland is offering stipends for people to come and live there. I think it's €500,000 and it's like, yeah, that's crazy. But they need to,

Unknown Speaker (59:12): you got to clean cattle farms.

Speaker 0 (59:14): It's like €500,000 over the course of ten years or something like that. It's something. Wow. Something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (59:20): And I don't know. That sounds pretty attractive to me. Yeah. The Irish.

Unknown Speaker (59:24): Maybe I should move there.

Speaker 0 (59:25): They're great people. I've been thinking about, I'm not even kidding. After we go to acquisition, I think that that's going to be in the the cards. I thought you're gonna move to Mississippi and live with William Faulkner. Oxford is really is really popular in my mind as well.

Speaker 0 (59:38): Because you know, John Grisham lived there. Yeah. And a handful of other very, very famous art

Unknown Speaker (59:43): It would seem to me that you would wanna go to a place and live there for at least a couple months before you decided that.

Unknown Speaker (59:47): That would definitely rent a year or something. Like, you're at a you're at LA right now. You've been there

Speaker 1 (59:51): for three years. You you know what LA is. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 0 (59:57): It's so funny when I first got here. I never thought that I'd understand it. It isn't it is it's interesting when something's new in your life and you don't know if you'll ever be able to grasp it.

Speaker 1 (1:00:07): But there's certain things about it that are amazing.

Speaker 0 (1:00:10): Oh, yeah. I mean, weather. Weather's crazy. The baseline for food is incredible. It's really hard to find bad restaurants.

Speaker 0 (1:00:17): And then I mean, the avid, the sports, I mean, you can go rock climbing in twenty minutes. Yeah. That's great working

Speaker 1 (1:00:24): with I had the person told me around. Go hiking. Some of the the greatest views and scenes in the world in under an hour.

Speaker 0 (1:00:31): Woah. Woah. I always tell myself this. I live where people vacation. I do and it's incredible.

Speaker 0 (1:00:37): And I take I definitely take it for granted. I definitely do. Without a doubt. I mean, how could you not? It's it's really, really nice.

Speaker 0 (1:00:45): It is.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:46): Yeah. I like going to the top of your building and looking at the Griffith Observatory.

Speaker 0 (1:00:50): Yeah. That's why. I could walk there. Yeah. Well, it's like I just won rock climbing today and it took a thirty minute drive to go outdoor bouldering that I could go to year round.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:59): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:59): It's

Speaker 0 (1:00:59): crazy. I could take you a handful of classes that I want to and meet industry professionals. That's really why I moved here. Think was to become an actor, which I see that I'm getting more and more away from every year. But I really found that making people feel seen through documentary filmmaking is really my cup of tea.

Speaker 0 (1:01:19): Cause I really had horrible stage fright that I was like, why am I doing this? But it was weird too. Cause me and Brian did that play at UVA and didn't really have stage fright then, you know, maybe I did. And I just don't remember

Unknown Speaker (1:01:32): when it clicks. It's amazing.

Speaker 0 (1:01:35): Well, we did 10 or 15 shows and I had what, like fifteen, twenty pages of dialogue. Yeah. And after the first show you get, you get it out of your system and then you can play with it. And then it's fun, you know. But they choreographed that thing way too much.

Speaker 0 (1:01:49): They did too much blocking where it was like, let the characters live in the environment. Don't block the entire scene because it it just looks robotic when you do that. You want your characters to live in that world. You don't want to tell your characters how to live in that world. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (1:02:04): And I think that that's an especially important lesson for theater directing and regular directing in general. Yeah. Think it really is. Yep. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (1:02:12): But I think we're done here. Yeah. I think we're wrapped.

Speaker 1 (1:02:15): We've solved we've solved the Gen X Gen Z.

Speaker 0 (1:02:18): We did. We ended the Y and J. It's done. Well, thank you so much. Go check out our reels.

Speaker 0 (1:02:24): We've been more remarkably consistent on the market.

Unknown Speaker (1:02:27): This is episode a 150, and the one thing I wanna know is

Unknown Speaker (1:02:29): Oh, wow. It is. Background. Is a 150.

Unknown Speaker (1:02:31): You're right. Thing on my background. I gotta know, man. I I I'm trying a new background.

Unknown Speaker (1:02:35): I think it's phenomenal. I think I'll try

Unknown Speaker (1:02:37): another one next week.

Speaker 0 (1:02:38): I'm out of 10. Well, happy episode 150. Let's go 150 more. You better not die. I'm gonna have to do this by myself.

Unknown Speaker (1:02:45): All right. See you later.