It’s hard to speak your mind these days. voicing your opinion is tough and a climate where you’re either seen as an ultra conservative or a bleeding heart liberal. But what about our perspective? What about the Gen X perspective? I I’m totally a latchkey kid from the 80s and 90s. Now I’m in my 40s wearing cargo shorts, collecting Star Wars figures and reminiscing about the days before my first cell phone. The jennex perspective is for us caught somewhere in between boomers and Millennials are we see things a bit differently? I’m tired of staying silent. It’s time to rant, discuss, unload and debate. Join Tony and his guests as they tackle the topics of Pop Culture, Sports, religion, and yes, even politics. If life’s a Rubik’s Cube, we’ve got the experience to tackle it. Welcome to the Gen X perspective with Tony Randazzo. Hey, how’s everybody doing? So, we’ve been promising since we started this podcast that I would be eventually sitting down and doing interviews with folks. In this week, we started with a two part series. The first part is about an hour and a half long and it’s with Trish, the dish from Gen X voice. And we basically cover the full Gambit. In this particular episode, we talk about the pandemic where we’ve lived, Trish being in Twitter, jail, and everything in between, and give you a kind of a neat insight as to Gen Xers running podcasts and kind of our differing opinions and also how much we actually have in common based on our experiences. And all things in between. So sit back, relax, enjoy part one of a two part series. with myself, Tony Randazzo and Trish from the Gen X boys. We jump right into it. Hold on, relax. Enjoy. Well, so the stream yard thing is pretty damn cool. So I’m assuming that all my audio at this point, since it’s all going through the road board is recording there. So I hit the record button. So that’s kind of fun and neat. And I guess I’ll figure out how that works in post production when I want to just the audio. And I thought I’d tease you a little bit like, look what I’m wearing today. Oh, very nice. Cool. That’s awesome. comment about whatever happened up there in Seattle. Music holy crap. Yeah, they weren’t personally a huge fan of grunge. It hit right when I was a senior in high school and, man, it just totally connected with me. Yeah. Yeah, man, the cheese bag. I, I appreciated it just as much as metal and everything else. I mean, because that’s the whole concept kind of behind our whole world was there was so much music, all of it. And, and that’s all we had, because we had MTV. And that’s all. I mean, there was no other streaming anything. You had to go to the damn record store and go buy something and go listen to it. And Tower Records. Yeah, good stuff that doesn’t much exist anymore. So Well, I mean, there’s independent record stores that are still doing pretty good indeed. Well, yeah. Especially now with kind of the resurgence in vinyl. My wife’s totally getting into it now too. There’s a record player in the living room now. Hey, have her have her go to my friends record shop dumb rx.com. Okay. And in man, he’s got he’s got some great stuff. And he he was a former student of mine. He you know, totally opened this record store up on his own accord and, and he was a guest on the show. Oh, yeah. That’s cool. Yeah, we’ll definitely have to check that one out. And we’re going down to where obviously the civilization is now from the North Country. So we’ll be in Florida and hopefully be able to go check out some down there. You know, a little cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which is awesome. So we’ll see how that how many days How many days left? We leave until freedom. So exactly one week. So this time next week, we will be somewhere hopefully south of Pennsylvania by now. So it’ll be Oh, wow. You guys are gonna drive. Oh, hell yeah. We take the dog. We got the dog and all our crap and then I gotta take all this stuff now. Oh, yeah. Computer goes the board goes this dumb microphone. It’s all going so well. That’s so rad. I’m gonna have some fun with that. I figured it’s a good time to take three weeks and try to set up a studio next to the pool. Oh, yeah, I mean, green can do it in his van. Next year. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that’s totally free and awesome. So so we’re not live streaming right now. I haven’t hit the go live button, because I don’t know exactly where it’s gonna go. I think it’s gonna go to my Gen X page. It should. Yeah. And then my question on that one. So once it’s live on the Gen X page, in a couple weeks, when it’s there and up, then I share that live stream over? No, you’ll do a new one. Oh, okay. Because the new one, how it will work. Tony is you’ll straight you’ll choose your page to stream it. And then you’ll share it to pod v COMM The pod big v comm page or Facebook? And then and yeah, and then they’ll, they’ll share it on there. So it’s actually going to be both on your page and their page. Awesome. Okay, that’s what I wasn’t sure about how it if it shares everything through stream yard, or if it goes stream yard, Facebook, and then Facebook to Facebook. So yep, yeah. And, and you’ll have a moderator that’ll, that’ll allow you to come in. Okay. Always do 15 minutes before just to make sure you have everything set up. Which may mean that I haven’t figured this out yet. This is going to be my new thing is I think I figured out the timer when I did my last excuse me live stream with my friend last weekend. You should be able to set a timer for it to go live. And then your moderator will have you kind of in a waiting room and then allow you to go live right at your at your time. Which by the way, I don’t know if you noticed, you’re right after me. Awesome. Back to Back exit. Yeah, you had said that. And I don’t know where that I haven’t seen the schedule yet. I haven’t been paying close. I don’t think that we have I don’t think we’ve made it go live yet. Because we’re still working on who’s going to be the moderators for each sort of duration because it’s it’s two weekends. And in a few of the moderators haven’t signed up yet for their time slots. Got it. So so. So with doing okay, so I’m doing my podcast live? Well, video, I’m doing my video podcast, and am I doing just my normal podcast, my podcast? Am I doing it just like I normally would be doing sitting well here or in Florida. And if I want to bring in a guest that I’m talking to, I can do that. Just like you and I are doing it right now. And then it just, it just gets pushed out to everybody in the world. Yep. Or find somebody to talk to, instead of you know, I’m always I’m always there for you. If you want, I have no problem doing mine and then coming on to yours. But you know, especially if it’s, you know, you don’t really know what you want to do. The other thing does is, you know, you can have your wife if she feels so inclined, you know, or whatever but offer offers out there brother? Well, I’ll definitely I’ll be your your standing guests if you want. I know that we can we can talk for hours. So I don’t think it would be a big deal. No, yeah, we can figure out something to talk about for sure. And also, just as a side note, note, the what I did for when I did the live stream in December for the holiday one, I uploaded it into whatever quick time because I was on a Mac at the time I don’t I’m not sure what I’m gonna use on my PC. And I was able to separate or maybe it was in GarageBand I was able to separate the audio from the video. So I just uploaded the audio for my podcast, right? So I didn’t even and I even I just put a little blurb in the beginning was like, Hey, I’m not even gonna edit this. This is from the live this is 100% live nice. Have fun, you know what I mean? So that takes a little little pressure off of you if you don’t want to, you know spend your whole time editing and like doing stuff while you’re in Florida. Yeah, so I’m starting to I’m starting to like with the road caster what I found was, you don’t unless you totally screw something up. And since I’m talking to myself, I didn’t find that I was having too many challenges that a was just cut it push it into BuzzFeed and or buzzsprout and off it would go and they would do some final mixing to kind of level out any weird audio in it, but it sounded great every time going through. It does sound great. So hey, I really super stoked Oh my gosh. Have you done anything with a lot of audio editing? at all? Oh, okay, so we’ll see what happens. But I have, you know, I have the technology is my dream. I had to buy a PC first. Because my little my little MacBook was eight years old and it wasn’t gonna cut it much longer than 10 minutes to render a track into an mp3. You know, and I was just like, you know, got it and I spoiled myself. It’s a pretty sweet gamer. Good PC, you have to if you’re gonna do anything live, or you’re gonna do any video stuff, I mean, just you just yeah, this isn’t going away. I’m in it. I’m in it, Tony, I meet people like you. Like I’m having so much fun. And you know, like I said, I live alone. And I’m taking the pandemic pretty the pandy pretty seriously, so I’m not adventuring. I’m not doing I’m just drinking and podcasting. Yeah. So today, are you not drinking with me today? I’m I’ve been Yeah, no, I’m not. I was drinking earlier, and I didn’t carry anything. Solo, Oh, my gosh, oh, yeah, you’re gonna have to drink solo for a few minutes. But So today, I gotta tell you this. So I, you know, so I run this business where we’re dealing with humans, right? I have to deal with people every day. So. So what we started doing was, you know, I my tasting room staff. And, and my theory was okay, so this is what I’m going to do, because I wasn’t quite sure about this whole pandemic thing. And it didn’t hit us here, like it did. New York City super early, right. It didn’t hit us until like, November, November, you guys were safe. We were like one or two cases a day until November, what they call the North Country. So it was like three counties. So within the three counties. It was like a total cumulative. I mean, literally north of New York City by an hour all the way to the North Country. You were talking less than 100 cases a day. reported. I mean, so that’s not I mean, that’s nothing. So we knew it was coming. So November hit. And then just in Jefferson County alone, we started getting it started kind of pumping up there and it was getting 100 150 200 cases a day hospitalizations were going up. So it was it was here at that point. So that’s November, but all summer long, I was trying to figure out what this thing was all about and how I was personally feeling about it. And I have a staff of 3040 people working for me. And we’re going through all the motions with all the we were doing everything that you got to do to stay open. But I was kind of freaked out. So I was like, Alright, here’s what I’m going to do. I got one of my office staff that’s working with me for a long time I sent her home. So you’re working from home, and I’m gonna stay in the office, and I’m not gonna I’m not gonna interact with anybody in case everybody gets sick, then I’ll come in and work in the tasting room. Well, nobody got sick. And I just kind of spun out on it not spun out on it. But I was being overly cautious based on our current situation at the time. So now we’re a year in year into it, basically. And I hadn’t up until like a month ago, two months ago, I hadn’t left like 10 miles from where we live and where the businesses like I just my circle got super small. I went to work, I interacted and did what I had to do there but we were being really good about it. Everybody was going home and and today we’re getting ready to go out of town and looking for this goddamn thing I gotta buy that I want to have in the truck when we’re going down south and I can’t order it online. I can’t find it anywhere online to get it here before we leave next week. So I’m like alright, I’ll run to Watertown. So it’s a 20 minute drive. I’ve been there half a dozen times doctor’s appointments there whatever but I haven’t Walmart absolutely not any of the big stores no way just haven’t done it and today I went into a sporting goods store and walked around and holy crap there were so many people in that store. Just everybody’s wearing a mask which is totally fine but the anxiety that I had and then for fun I went into Walmart so I got to the Walmart parking lot and I parked all the way in the back because there’s snow on the ground anyway and people Park like lunatics when it’s snowing anyway but yeah, right so I’m way out in the parking lot and I walk in and it’s Walmart so you know you kind of get the Walmart person mentality hat on and like Alright, let’s see what this actually looks like. So I’ve been watching it in the news for a year right Walmart and how people are all crazy and whatever. So I go into Walmart and there’s the place is packed. And packed like like end of the world packed for no good reason. And then with all these product shortages, because like Long Beach Harbor, the the dock there has something like they said like 100,000 shipping containers stuck. But they haven’t been able to open yet and ship out. So like now we’re dealing with supply chain shortages, everything from screwdrivers to fucking Valentine’s Day stuff that never got out of these containers. Because LA and you know, Southern California has such a bad COVID crisis, they can’t unload the containers. And they have like, I don’t know, they don’t remember what they were saying my wife was telling me about it on the news, they were talking about all these container ships sitting in the harbor, right off the coast that can’t even come in and unload on top of it. So the everybody’s, they got all these containers jammed up. And then they got these boats jammed up and all this crap from China or wherever it’s all coming from. It’s all sitting on these boats. So and I noticed it today in the stores, it was empty shelves everywhere. And it was I went into a hardware store. And they were out of a lot of stuff, which I just thought was weird. It was a passing kind of thought. And then when I went into Walmart, I remembered everything my wife was telling me about the story. And oh my god, it was true. And then all these kind of things started clicking like I had talked to the the local store down the street where I know the owner. And she’s like, yeah, we haven’t been able to get things in even like we were, it’s worse now than it was a year ago after COVID hit and like you couldn’t get anything they’re seeing now again, nationally, it’s and they’re not talking about it in the news. But it’s happening. Texas, Texas doesn’t have any electricity. They have this crisis. Oregon’s going through a crisis with electricity around Portland like, yeah, and nobody’s in there in the time to talk about anything else. They can’t get stuff. So So yeah, I had all this anxiety. And I went into the store today. And I’m like, Well, I guess I gotta get used to. I’m driving to Florida, so I got to get kind of you stay around people again. And it really it was fascinating because I’ve that new anxiety that never has existed ever in my entire life. I’ve never had that kind of anxiety about being around anybody necessarily. But this invisible thing called COVID that now is in the forefront of our thoughts all the time believing it or not depending on what kind of crazy you are. Is there. It’s totally there and it was like, wow, okay, so the sounds I feel a little little knot in the throat like little keep my hands in my pockets. And where’s my hand? Yeah, sir. When I get in the truck. Well, I’m crazy. But I haven’t had the privilege to be in much of a bubble. Outside of I mean, my personal life. My personal life. I stopped. I stopped backpacking and can kayaking in end of June. Wow. I was like we’re at 96% capacity with our hospitals here in Arizona. I mean, we were we were in the news. We were so bad, right? But and I was able to work from home, which was pretty great. Right? But then the school year started. Yeah, and and so I maintained a bubble that with my friend who’s like my brother that I’ve known since I was 12. And, and his wife or sorry, fiance. Um, you know, and she’s a nurse and broke up with the guy was dating because he was like, just still backpacking and galavanting around and I was like, You don’t get it, dude. Like, we can’t be in the back country right now. Like if something happens. We’re not getting fixed. We’re not getting saved. Oh, no. I mean, like, I I have the dream of dying in the wilderness. Just like any other you know, crispy granola. No, but not right now. You know what I mean? Yeah, we can’t come get you right now. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, that’s not Oh, so I go to campus and it’s like, I have to I’m in charge of this scholarship service hours completion thing. Okay. Sure. And, and part of that was we had these tables set up all around campus, and the scholarship recipients would serve their hours sitting at these tables telling people where to go and stuff Right, right. And so I’m checking in hundreds of students. Oh, wow. Every day for five days straight. And you know, the first day I you know, obviously had my mask on I mean, because that’s just I’ve been wearing that since it came out and you know, April was when I started really being maski Yeah, but Tony the amount of like the space you have to go into in your brain is not unlike fuck I’ve got a I’ve got a hike that mountain right there that peak Wow. And you know, the first few you know you’re going you’re having a good time until you realize that you have days of this Wow. And right and and and like this is fucking hard. Yeah. And you know, but you have to you somehow you find it in you You to just sort of like, dig in and go, I’m, I’m not going to worry about anything except for I sat at a circular table and I told the students, you know, like, Hey, I’m old, you know, I get to show off my grades and play that card. You know, proud of that proud of that. Because they will go Oh, I’m so sorry. Like, yeah, she’s great. She must be fucking old. Right? Like, no wonder she’s afraid of COVID. Right. And, and I gotta tell you, like it and I’ve had to work on campus a few times since that. And and it’s been it’s been remarkable. None of my student workers have gotten it. And right now on campus in the fall, it was a little shady. It was it was like they were clearing out dorms. Sure. Yeah. They were all over the country. Yeah, it was crazy. Right. And but but believe it or not, like we’ve got only about 20 cases on campus. And that includes students and staff. Wow. Which is incredible, because we have a campus of about 20,000. Humans, right? Well, in the whole conversation about its low risk in school, they’re not talking about college. They’re talking about Elementary School. You’re talking k? like eight not even high school? That’s right. Yeah. Cuz High School is more Well, in the, the rates, at least in New York state have been historically low across, you know, elementary school, high school hasn’t been an issue. And in here, all the teachers went back. So there’s, it’s either mostly hybrid, or full time, all the elementary is all full time now in person. And it seems to be working, they seem to have it figured out. So whatever it’s working, that’s great. So my nieces and nephews are all back in school. My sister in law, when I kill everybody ask you a question. Let me ask you jennex question, Tony, how do you think we would have done in a pandemic going virtual as a kid versus how do you think that would have worked? Yeah, it sounds like you had the same. Oh, the technology was obviously, yeah, but but it was, but it was us as kids doing it now. Now going in front of a computer screen for eight hours a day? How do you think we would have handled that? That’s a hard one. Because if I go back to if the computer technology was what it was, but there was internet, let’s say, so our apple, two C’s and the big giant computer screens that look like televisions and everything that’s low rez, and everything, everything is just green, green, green, and black or green and white screen, it wouldn’t have worked. I thought, well, I think maybe it might have actually worked better, because we would have been so fascinated by the whole idea behind it. I don’t think we would have had a problem going online, I really don’t. Yeah, I think we would have been totally nerded out by it and into it, at least initially, just like any kid, and then once you get used to whatever, then you’re going to stop doing that. But I think we wouldn’t have had a problem with it. I think if the pandemic hit back then in the technology wasn’t there. If we go back to where we were, when we were kids, they would have just sent us home and you would have got packets, maybe in the mail, you know, she got the packets that you would have got when you had like when you had mono or when you were sick at home with chickenpox, and they sent a packet the ones that we packets on work. I remember though, and we would, and that’s how we would be accountable, which probably would have worked probably right now would have worked better than computers. I think, personally for the younger kids. Like it would have been something like tangible that they’d have to sit down at a kitchen table and do instead of just screwing around on their Chromebooks and doing whatever. I wonder, I wonder if you’re right, that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about maybe me much. So much. So you know, I spent about nine years in the classroom, right? And so much of what I was doing was, you know, the call pair share, right? So so you would, you would you would teach about three minutes at a time. And then you would have them turn to their partner and do whatever exercise to solidify that. We didn’t do any of that shit when we were kids. Right? We just sat there. And we were like, I don’t remember asking a lot of questions. I mean, I never watch. I remember really big classes. Like, I don’t think classes were smaller than 2530 kids. I mean, the classes were huge. I mean, we were just we were packed in there is what I ran California, but the elementary school they couldn’t build schools fast enough because that whole area was growing. We had portables Yeah, the portables. That’s right. Yeah. The portable buildings outside that lined up all the way around behind the schools. And, and then for me, that didn’t, I didn’t make it past sixth grade. Fifth grade is when I ended up in private school. In the private school I went to was initially for kids with learning disabilities, because they figured out I had dyslexia and right right, and so I had Went to the school that started out as a school for kids with learning disabilities. And it turned into a school of freakin delinquents. This by the time I graduated high school there, we were just a raving group of delinquents that just didn’t fit. So it was the nerds. The you know, the jocks was total, it was a live High School of Breakfast Club kids, I graduated in a class of 12. So it was a small school. But we were just a mix of just nobody that could function in regular high school at that point. So it was this really cool experiment. And the school stayed open for years and years and years, and it never got any bigger. And they always struggled along, from what I understand after I left. And but it was an amazing, odd, weird experiment that I was a part of, and it got me through high school. God bless them. I graduated I got my I got my my diploma. But it was this really weird thing that I’m happy that I did it and made it through because I don’t think I would last through high school at all. There’s no way What do you think? What do you think the biggest difference between that kind of school and like maybe a school like I went to like a public high school? Well, I and I still had friends. I mean, you know, all my elementary school friends all went to high school, they all were still my friends, we still lived in the same neighborhoods, and I was still friends with them. And of course, you know, things always change when you’re not in front of your friends every day, as we know, it shifts a little bit. And you know, I made new friends and things kind of changed. But their experiences for the most part were like mine, because the kids I was hanging out with, they were just that much better than I was. And that’s why they didn’t end up in elementary school or end up in private school. My camera was now um, I had it all centered. Perfect. I’m a little anal when it comes to like what the viewer sees. But no one has no idea what I was going through that to say we go first. Yeah, live stream thing. And I’m like, okay, where do I need to sit? What are they looking at behind me trying to do such a great job? I love attention to that. Oh my gosh, yeah, I was kind of looking at the couch and like, Look, there’s something out of place over there. That just looks weird, you know? And it’s like, what are they seeing in my world that I want them or don’t like I have I have fresh flowers. I don’t know if you saw that. Like, anyway, anyway, so yeah, yeah, no, I messed everything up. I have no idea what I’m doing now. Now. Now. I’m like, I’m too ADHD to like be able to do leave it alone this and talk to you and what’s going on? You got the pop of color on the wall. And you know, you got the door handle. It’s a nice door handle. That’s very nice door handle. like yeah, I mean, you walk in right here, so little geeky nerdy. Wow. I have a friend who does. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. And I highly recommend it during the conference. Check him out. It’s from podcast vodcast he’s got a great Castle grayskull in the background. Nice cuz cuz my friend my other friend and I that does pod jerky that you should also check out it’s gonna be a fun weekend. I I really recommend just watching everything. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve listened to the good. Don’t eat great. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of fun to listen to a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. Did you listen to the New York versus America episode that we did? No, I have not listened to it yet. No. America versus Canada. So I was on representing Arizona. And then Sarah from Blackbird advocacy, which is also another good point. I’m just showing doing all the shout outs right now. Right there all the people that are running pod pecan, right, you know, um, and so so we did this, like, you know, these misconceptions row and it was fantastic, because she’s from Long Island, and she’s like, everyone thinks you’re from the city. Right. And we talked about that. We talked about that. When you were on my podcast. Yeah. Oh, yeah. New York doesn’t exist outside of Manhattan. No. What are you talking about? Yeah, mountains, skyscrapers. This island thing called New York. And that’s all there is. Period. That’s it? Yeah. Yeah. The rest of y’all suck. And none of the people that work there that you see on TV, none of them freakin live there because you can’t afford to live in Manhattan anyway, they all live out of the city. Yeah, that was that was a tough time living there. I lived in Chinatown. And I lived I lived while I lived. I lived off of how Stan I don’t know how familiar you are with the actual city. But when I lived there it was I I moved around a lot in the 10 months I was there. And then I also lived in Harlem, or at least one block south of Harlem. And, and it was each place was different because the first place was like across Alphabet City. So it was really bustling and really great. And this is like you know 2001 and then I moved to Chinatown, where my Windows face the Twin Towers. Wow. And that was a whole that’s a whole other podcast. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And then and then moving up near Harlem man that was the best like it was one block away from the most northern part of Central Park. I lived above a these and these are all walkups right? These buildings had elevators and there I was always on the fifth floor or some shit. And I lived above this amazing little punk rock bar called the ding dong lounge shout out to them if they’re still open and and ran a coffeehouse and. And it was just that was a really good couple months, which in New York time felt like 20 years to be really honest. I never got to go to the Catskills and never got to go to the Adirondacks. No, I loved your episode, by the way, on your camping stuff. And Holy shit, no pun intended. Wow. Yeah, talk about some terrible fucking experiences. Yeah, right. So I thought I was thinking about it. And I was talking to my dad about something. And that dumb canoe that I talked about when I was a kid, it’s hanging, hanging in our shop is like 20 feet in the air. And so cool, my dad wants to refinish it. So this thing is still around and and right now we’re there’s another boat underneath it on the ground that we’re working on and restoring before spring hits. And I was just, I was looking up at it a couple days before I did that episode and started laughing and just remember being a little kid shitting my pants in that canoe and how miserable that camping trip was and realizing how traumatizing You know, it must maybe I don’t remember it as traumatizing necessarily. Long term. It was really this crazy. And I was trying to you know, I just there’s just visions that I couldn’t quite get out when I was talking about with sitting in the front of the tent with the green tent zipped open and kind of an A frame tent back in the 70s. You know, yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about told to sit there and not move because my mother was probably really pissed about having to clean me up. You know, I just it’s so young that it’s not, you know, it’s it’s not a linear kind of memory. It’s a really abstract body spotty thing going on. But yeah, that was the first like, outdoor experience that I remember. And then yeah, just just add the craziness on and it was okay at that point. But yeah, getting lost in a campground and they thought I totally, I was like, I was trying to figure out because I think I told you on that episode that we did together online that you know, I was made on a camp rafting trip, right. And, and I was trying to figure out what my earliest memory of camping was. And I can’t I can’t it’s just it. It just always was kind of thing. Yeah, some time. That’s right. the only the only camping trip that really sticks out is I cut my foot on a Pepsi can once my mom was really big into like, you know, hanging out and this was in Illinois. And you know, maybe people are familiar with Carlisle lake in sort of Knott Central but kind of in between Springfield and Chicago. There’s like this, this really big lake. And we found some kind of little spot and and I stepped on a Pepsi can because you know, it was the 80s of course, people are just thrown around everywhere. Yeah. And and and it was those old school cans. Do you remember? The old aluminum cans? They were like they were thicker? Yeah. thicker and deadly. Like I just stepped on it. Like I don’t remember stepping hard. I was a baby kid. Right. And it’s sliced and the blood that poured into the like the River Park or the lake or whatever I was. Yeah. And I remember my mom doing it was like Preston raise Preston raise. That was like her big thing. It’s like you always do this, you know, you’re bleeding to death. That’s right. Fuck hospitals. No, you can’t afford that. We don’t have time for any of that. That hospital stuff. That’s right. And we’re in the wilderness. So that’s really funny. Yeah, we um, we actually almost moved Sage walk the program that I worked at for the longest that we almost moved that program to Southern Illinois. Because I know Southern Illinois, that whole tip the whole second shot. Oh, Tony. We were Yeah, we never ended up going. My I’m the original owner of the program was from that area. And. And he was like, you know, there was something going on in Oregon at the time and he was all pissed. He’s like, we’re gonna move the program. I’m like, Alright, whatever. Where are we going? And this is where I mean he had it all figured out. He had been contacting people down there and then then Brett camp happened and he sold it and then whatever everything changed, but right yeah, we ended almost ended. up in Southern Illinois, it would have been so so Shawnee Yeah, that’s that’s like the only place that you can rock climb in Illinois. Like you can actually rock climb Tony it’s it’s beautiful if you ever get a chance, and Carbondale which is the University City down there like the it’s a college town. Yeah. For SEIU. Oh, man. It’s such a great little tiny little old school Midwestern. But hippie. No, it’s cool. It’s a great. I spent a lot of time there. West is the only I’ve ever spent. Yeah, I was always really east, west, east, west, north or south and never Central. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, as far north as well, upstate New York, but on the West Coast was Montana. And then North Carolina, was south. New York was east and then all over the West. But yeah, nothing. That Southern. Yeah, no. And then but yeah, you know, then I was, you know, more visited the Midwest is a weird Midwest. It’s a weird place. Tony, I it’s funny. I lived there for seven years. Right after I lived in New York, and 911 happened, and I was doing the Harlem thing. And it just, it just got to be I had to get the fuck out of there. There were just too many humans, you know. And so I landed in this town of like, 150,000. Wow, and stayed there for seven years. And it was hard. Like it was very traditional, patriarchal kind of, you know, everyone had a mom and dad and that was fucking weird for me, because everyone I ever knew growing up was divorced. You know? That’s right. Yeah, it was a whole It was like the 80s never happened, Tony, it was like, no, it’s the 1980s just continued on. That’s right. And and, and I show up with short black hair and fishnets and chucks and short shirts, and you know, fucking band shirts. And people are like, You’re the man. I’m like, you were the devil. Where Where have you guys been? The internet has been happening, guys, you know? Oh, yeah. No, it was weird. And it’s still there. So much of our country is still like that. And yeah, you know what, Tony, it was so cheap and easy. And I got to be in a punk band. And there was this little pocket of young people who were like, we fucking hate this, which is why dumb records is such a great company to support because they’re a beacon of this little punk rock scene that we all were a part of back then. That he was like that saved my life. Because I couldn’t do Springfield if it wasn’t for that, like that scene. Yeah, that’s, uh, I mean, I always dabbled in the punk rock music and scene was always a connoisseur. But my, um, there’s a linear line between metal. But my, um, my dad’s. So talk about growing up and becoming an adult as my, I’ll share the story about the sky. It’s his first name’s Michael. And he used to work for my dad. And he was his CFO, Chief Financial Officer. So you know, big time numbers nerd, California. He lives in Boston. Now. He’s done some work for us for coyote moon. So we’re still friends with him all these years later, and he was in the he’s so he’s about. Let’s see. So I’m 47. He’s in his mid 50s. He’s a little older than I am. And he was right in the middle of the punk scene in LA when it exploded. And he was in a bunch of punk bands and new, you know, I mean, Joe Strummer. He ki named us like all these people that he knew he was just number guy this total nerd. Total nerd total if you ever listened to this episode, but he was he is that guy like I mean smarter than smart, like almost so smart that he can’t get the words out. But put them in an Excel spreadsheet and tell him to do crazy number crunching 100 times deep and whatever he can make anything happen with an Excel spreadsheet was early, early punk. Scene LA. With all those people played in a punk band. Had you played the car? Oh, yeah, he’s got two daughters that drive him crazy now that are teenagers in college now and and he was an absolute wild child. We’ve become friends. I mean, I was when I first met him. I was in high school. I was a kid and he worked for my dad you know, suit and tie and yada yada yada and, and then we became a mansion. And yeah, he tells these crazy stories about being in a punk band like he’ll pick up one of my dad’s acoustic guitars and do things with it. My dad just kind of looks at it like what the hell just happened. I mean it’s funny because you know Think about growing up. Yeah. And and being our age, right mid 40s and older is, is that you are you we don’t look or act or have the demeanor of, of like our past life. Yeah. And and like I owner, it’s almost kind of fun now to look at people and think about how they were so long. But But do you ever get this sort of like you? You did this? Oh yeah. Yeah. But I mean, does that bother you? Or does it make you kind of snicker because I always thought it was a compliment when I was doing that to older people that I would look so straight laced. And they’re like, yeah, I went to Woodstock. And I’d be like, yeah, yeah, totally. Like, now I, it’s while it’s getting back at us, because I did the same thing to people. That seems so old when I was a kid, right? It’s our age. And they and they kind of look at you with that kind of glimmer in their eye. Like a they want to slap the shit out of you just like I do when somebody treats me like, I’m 1000 years old. But at the same time, we know that they’re gonna be right where we’re at, and it’s gonna be a blink of an eye. It’s there. They’re they’re gonna have this moment and remember being a jackass youngster. Yeah. And they’re going to be old, and somebody is going to be doing it to them before they know it. And that’s what happens. And I I work with someone who actually really hates older people. And she’s like, anyone. She’s like, Trisha, okay, and I’m like, okay, you’re gonna be this old soon. Yeah. And it’s not like you said, Tony, it’s gonna happen like that. So fucking, you better get over it real fast. It’s already happening to her that people are like, we don’t listen to that music anymore. And she’s like, Oh, you know, she’s like, 35 I think so she’s right at that. She’s not you know, she’s still pretty young. But I’m a little out of touch. Yeah, I’m starting to be a little out of touch. Right. She’s pretending now. Yeah. Welcome to the club. Yeah, well, you know, and they don’t realize, you know, yeah, you just don’t get it till you are there. You don’t get it to when you go to stand up and things hurt and weird things happen to us that just suck no matter what you do. And then they laugh and they wonder why you go to yoga or do whatever you do to try to keep this broken body that we have used for so many years together. And I don’t get it little bastards while they’re out, partying all night and going to work the next day. I can’t do that anymore. Think about how people 20 years older than us are thinking about this conversation. My father reminds me every day. Yeah, my dad reminds me Just wait till you’re my age. I’m like, shit. If it gets any worse, this is gonna die. And I always tell people like, yo, if you’re complaining about shit now, just remember, we may have another 2540 totally in these bodies. So yeah, and he reminds me of that all the time. I start to give him a hard time about something and he’s like, Oh, you just wait Mike. Yeah, cut that out hair growing out of your ears. Will you please your date and women again? You’re single dude. We had to teach my father how to be single again. And you know and he’s seven bless his heart. That’s got to be hard. How is he? So he’s 70 Oh, Lord and and which is young now? Yes. We were kids. He doesn’t act like a crotchety old man. Like a typical I want to give it up to boomers because they have aging Yeah, right. Like, don’t you feel like we’re gonna be fucking cool as shit because boomers are so fucking cool at 70 like, especially there’s no no we have we have 70 year olds like fucking riding their bikes and mountains. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we have lots of made a lot of my friends actually live there because of the weather and they’re all right. And they come up here for the summer whatever. There’s we got snow. snowbirds and and I’m considered a Snowbird because I go to Florida in the winter for long Yeah, you are. You don’t live there the whole six months have not yet. Cuz the weather up here sucks as your videos I love and I show them to my you know, my brother and his and his girlfriend, my brother. And we just you know, I showed you the pictures of me by the pool. And we’re just like, keeping it real for us. We’re like, Oh, yeah, like snow blower action. Yeah, that’s Yeah, that’s crazy. That’s, that’s a hard life, man. It’s um, yeah, I never thought I’d be if that’s the one thing I didn’t think I would ever be was a farmer. And I still don’t call myself that because that is kind of what you do. I mean, we have over 20 acres of grapes on our farm. And it’s a 400 acre farm so it’s legit farming and I don’t know if you saw my message to you. I’m I’m down for some your time, dude, I have you ever sorry not to take us I have ADHD and I’m a little tipsy. But have you ever been to the your pods that are just outside of Zion National Park in Utah? I have not been there. But I know what they are. Dude. It’s a thing. It’s a thing. Like if you built a like a, like, I think there’s about 25 years there. They’re 350 to 800 a night. And they’re, and they have like this little like lodge that you can get like tea and stuff. Like I ended up sleeping on. I camped on a dirt road instead of the your place. I was like, it was cheaper. And also it just I just wanted to do it was to kind of for me, but but it was just the space I was in. Dude, I was so do that on your vineyard. Yeah. We are such a great idea teepees yurts it’s gonna happen over the next couple years. And it’s, um, pretty crazy, that I’d go swimming in that river after that tour. I didn’t in Quebec City like I’m home. It’s totally diverse. It’s beautiful. The water you think they’ve trudged out all the dead bodies from that war? Well, that French Canadian war. Yeah, but that’s over on the Canadian side that doesn’t come over to the American side. Water under water wall there. So. So what I will tell you what happened to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River over the years is the infestation of they’re kind of like crawfish, but they’re not. And they’ve basically eaten all of you. You can see 3040 feet down now. The St. Lawrence River looks like you’re in the Caribbean, especially earlier in the spring. When there’s no when you Yeah, when you have no traffic from the big. The big freighters and the big the big ships going up and down the river when the rivers come in the spring. Especially the water is not it’s not a crystal blue but it’s like a crystal green. And you can see 2030 feet deep now the water is clean clean has been cleaned by an invasive species they came in now they’re trying to get the get it out because it’s too clean. Because the other fish aren’t eating the algae because there’s not enough so you’re losing some of them maybe they’re dealing with this whole craziness, but the water is super, super clean now. And it’s been because I remember being a kid coming up here in the 80s and it always the St. Lawrence River always seemed brown to me although it was still a very clean waterway in the grand scheme of things hooked to you know, the Great Lakes but it was grosser than I guess you know, just like anywhere I mean if you think back to Yeah, I mean even New York Harbor has gotten a hell of a lot better than it used to be back 2034 in the smog and all that jazz so much yeah. Yeah people love it. I mean, talk about swimming and waterskiing and fishing destinations now and the river is is beautiful the water is really good let’s talk about when you go to Florida I want to I want to live vicariously through you like what what do you what do you what are your like main objectives when you get to Florida Are you like alright let’s we’re reading jet ski so nor is it like cabana time like what does it look like? I wanna I want to like I want to know all about this. So this will be our third trip. Third extended trip down there. We went one year we took a year or two years we didn’t go back and we really liked it. Then we went last year was last year a second time there. I don’t remember now. But this will be our longest day 21 days. This is what’s called aging ladies and gentlemen. Remember, so 21 we’re going in and normally because so the pandemics got me kind of screwed up so I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Because I don’t know I know for Florida’s opened up but I don’t know what opened up exactly means in the scheme of that. I know they still weren’t asked to places by the seat of their pants. Yeah, but everything is everything. Yeah, everything is open. But you still have to wear a mask. I don’t know what I’ll figure it out when I get there I guess but and see what your safety zone and what my net is and where we are because we’re not like down in Miami. We’re in really more of a rural. I say rural town we’re in Cape Coral Fort Myers which are big for what they are but it’s not you know, it’s like two and a half hours south of Tampa. So if Tampa and Miami are the big cities, these are the smaller communities along the ocean. Not quite the keys. Not a word like an hour north of the keys 45 minutes north of the top of the key So, I had a boyfriend that lived in the keys. So he was really big into showing me the map of that. And like, this is like these are these like little spaces that you can go on the weekday, and no one’s there. And it’s like, amazing. So normally what we do is, we found our favorite dog beach, because we take the dog with us. So we like to go to the dog beach, so he can run until he can’t move anymore. And we do that. And that’s one of our highlights. And there was, you know, three or four restaurants that we like to hit that were local close to us. Um, you know, Uber isn’t, is normally been an amazing thing, because you don’t have to worry about driving so you can go and drink and have a good time, just the two of us. But I have that stuff. I just don’t know if we’re going to do this time. What I do know for sure we’re gonna do is the house we stay at, has got a pool. So sitting by the pool, hanging out enjoying 80 degree weather. I you know, it’s screens. And that’s all you do. That’s all I really have planned it. If that’s all you do is living What? And ladies and gentlemen, if you have not seen what it looks like in the upper most part of New York State these past few weeks, I don’t know where you’ve been wicked, but it looks, it looks tough. Because you know, I’m in Phoenix, and it’s like, we’re gonna hit 80 degrees next week. But we’ve had bright blue skies for like, Well, you know, I’ve I’ve been very mindful not to send a lot. It was sunny today. Today was a Sunday and it’s been and it’s been overcast for like a week. And then we’ll get one Sunday and then it’ll be overcast for a week again. And that and that is the hardest part about being up here. The snow isn’t it is what it is. The cold is what it is. But the vitamin D, the lack of vitamin D is the reason we lived in Oregon though. No, I was on the east side of the Cascades. We were in the high desert. Oh. We’re basically in the desert. Yeah. So it’s just sunshine every day year round. You know, let me whatever 327 days a year they have their whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, I got that’s how it is here. I you know, I tried leaving. I love the I love the desert. I loved Arizona either. I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but I’ve lived here three times. I’m not even from here. It’s just that it keeps fucking pulling me. So I went to NYU in Flagstaff for undergrad. And then I left to go seek my fortune in the world. And then I went to Tucson, which is in the southern part of the state. And then I left to go to Portland. And then I came back and now I’m in Phoenix. And it’s just like the state will not let me go and I love it. It’s just so wrong with vitamin D is not overrated. I mean, I look great. So I’m sure people are like this chick does ever go outside. But it’s a pandemic. And so I have chosen to really, I don’t go adventuring. So the only sunlight I get is when I walk my dog but right, you know, but yeah, that’s what’s the pandemic so far. I’m gonna go out at Well, I got my first vaccination shot. So I’m hoping Oh, yeah, well, yeah, you’re in education, right? Yeah. And I volunteered my time. And so my university set it up so that we’re a shot spot. Yeah. And so I volunteered for a few hours and got jabbed and my second job is March 4. And family and La are getting their jobs because they’re both you know, 65 My dad has soccer today, actually. Oh, yeah. Oh, check on it. check on him. What do you know if it’s Madonna or Pfizer? I don’t know my wife knows because she set it up. I want to check because I heard that the second shot is really bad. My nurse friend right that I keep talking about Tina. She She said it was a pretty rough 48 hours at least in the first 24 Yeah, it is. Your body really is on hyperdrive for super, super suiting up, I guess to fight the virus. So you might want to check on him and just be like, Hey, bro. Well, I Hey, Dad. Not bro. How you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Wow, I didn’t think about that. I’m here. Yeah, something about that. Actually, last week, we were talking about it. That um, that some of the older people that are above 65 it’s not as bad for the second shot as it is for the younger people that are getting the second shot. I remember getting mine on a Thursday and I’m hoping it doesn’t really hit until like a Saturday. Yeah, so interesting. So originally before when they first all the shots came out and they were you know, they were doing the schedule. CDC guidelines and the New York schedule of course is different than the CDC guidelines because New York is New York. And you got Cuomo and we got Cuomo and the governor. So email after email through kind of the winery Association in New York was coming out saying, Hey, we’re having active discussions, because New York is such a farming state. You know, it’s not just in New York City, there’s so many. Rural, there’s so much per capita, there’s more farming land and farmers and there are people in New York City, really. And so they were talking about farming farmers, and wineries is such a huge portion, which is all public facing people that they were, you know, we were going to be, we were already considered essential because we stayed open through everything. And they were going to say, Yep, you guys are going to be when one B comes out, you know, you guys are going to be right there along with, you know, grocery stores and the elderly and, you know, your co workers and we’re like, Okay, cool. I didn’t think much about it. You know, it’s like, again, we didn’t get it super bad up here. Right, you know, pretty healthy anyway, but yeah, good. Okay, cuz I have some staff that really want to, you know, that they’re ready to do that. And, you know, letting people do you can do it or not do it. It’s your personal choice. And then you’re not gonna be like that one restaurant that fired that chicken year city that refused. What the fuck is that shit? That’s so I mean, you know, that is, that’s that that’s that business owners desire to be like, we’re gonna fucking open and we’re gonna be safe. And we’re gonna we’re gonna brag that everyone’s got their vaccination shot. And all this chick wanted to do, although I feel like she was a little lazy, because it’s been, you know, like, Yeah, I know. She wants a kid. So she wants to make sure there’s no side effects of that. There’s not a single fucking vaccination on the planet that’s ever had a side effect with with fetuses or pregnancies. So yeah, women are amazing. They keep it all safe. Yeah. Crazy. I don’t understand. I mean, think about all the vaccination shots we got as kids in the 70s allowed to go to school. You couldn’t do anything without that shot. This whole this whole like, I don’t trust vaccinations thing. I don’t understand. Yeah, you don’t get it now. To deal with shots. Sorry. We’re both all like excited. And who knows what they gave us when we were kids, right? I mean, come on. Seriously. Come on. Tony. I have a weld. This is very intimate. I’m about to get real, you know, real intimate guys. But I haven’t I have a huge welt on my right butt cheek. That I have never known what it was until my most recent doctor. She goes, Oh, you were vaccinated in the 70s. And I was like, yeah, just that’s what that is. It’s just they botched your vaccination. So I’ve been walking around with this thing that I thought was a cancerous weld on my app, which is some vaccines. But there isn’t that weird? That is pretty funny. Do you remember your vaccine? Do you have memories of your vaccination? Because I do remember having my legs pinned and just being on my stomach? I swear to God, I might have been three or four. But I fucking remember that. Remember? It was dark, dark shit. I mean, I remember the 100 needles in your arm little circle thing that everybody had that we like they were tattoos. I forgot about that. I don’t have I don’t have one any more. But yeah, I can. You can see those 17 folks, they’ll pull up their arm their sleeve. And you. You got one of those two didn’t Yeah, I don’t remember what it was. But my ass. I must have been. I must have been like 79 so they were like, let’s just ruin her ass Jake. So I could never compete in a fitness challenge. or post nude for Playboy. I mean, my whole life has been ruined. Tony because of welt on my butt cheek. Because, you know, that’s what I wanted to do with my life. Right? Yeah, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Brenda. So I hope that’s okay, that I talked about my cheek. It’s just this is a very genex thing to talk about. Yeah. vaccinations, fucking get vaccinated folks, when they’re not fucking trying to kill you. If the if the President of the United States and the VP are getting vaccinated. You can you can bet your bottom dollar that you’re okay, you’re gonna be okay. They’re not gonna walk around with this too. Yeah. So getting back to that whole thing. So one B, right. That’s we’re supposed to be one B, everybody’s kind of you know, I’ve talked to all my staff. The wineries have talked amongst each other. You know, maybe we’ll do a vaccination site for although, you know, there’s 10 wineries in our area, maybe we’ll do some stuff. We were gonna we were, we’re not now because one B comes out, and I’m going down the list of all the people so you got, you know, a trend. It workers and we’re going right down the list go right down and get to the end of the list. Like, what happened to farm workers. We’re not in there at all. It’s that we were taken out at the last minute because of the shortage for vaccines. The governor said, Nope, pull them. I don’t know how many other groups got pulled that were considered essential workers. But originally, even grocery store workers were yanked out and school teachers were not in there at all. When he first came out in New York State, it was literally 65 and older, and then it was, you know, police and medical and other people that should be vaccinated. So for me, it was like, Okay, well, it makes sense. But why the hell did they even say anything? And oh, and now they’ve said, So then, about three weeks to three weeks later, grocery store workers pop up on the list, finally, as they should have been, and then the school teachers in New York State popped up on the list as they should have been, which they weren’t originally. And then I get another letter email through through our association that said, Look, if you go to a state managed vaccination vaccination site, they considered winery employees, either vineyard or winery employees, they consider you grocery store workers essential and they’ll do them but only at the state sites. So if it’s a if it’s a, you can’t be a site, we can’t be a site and any of the local sites because the closest state site is like tonight, well, Syracuse, so it’s an hour and a half, two hours away, South, or you could be an hour and a half away, and you sit in the line for five hours, and then you get to drive an hour and a half back. Yeah. And, and they’re not, they’re super not clear about it. So we have this paperwork that says, you know, based on what we’ve been told from the governor’s office, you can do it, you can only go to a state site, but you go to the state site, and you go read all the literature, and there’s nothing mentioning it. So the last thing I want my staff to do is go drive down there, get an appointment, go dive down there, and then be denied because you get some worker that doesn’t know so none of nobody’s gone yet. And we’re all kind of still waiting for something definitive to come out of the governor’s office. I was hopeful to time myself and get like my first shot then go to Florida for three weeks and then come back and get the second shot was kind of my thought that that would be good, but that’s not gonna do it. Did you hear about kind of the drama that’s going on with Cuomo right now though? Oh, God, like he’s scandal of the nursing home. I’m not gonna lie. I was looking at him as like this beacon of No, I don’t, I don’t really put many people on a pedestal. But I really appreciated how he was speaking out against Trump. Sorry, to get a little political perspective. So my political perspective here from a gentleman’s point of view, and and I was thinking like, okay, I don’t know much about this guy. Cuz, you know, I lived in New York City when Julia, you know, Judy, sorry, Rudy Giuliani know how to get this, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason why I cannot say Rudy Giuliani, right. It’s the first time anyway, so so. So I was thinking like, here’s this sort of like punk rock governor, who is like, pissed off that this President isn’t taking this stuff serious. And he’s, you know, he’s doing good by his people. He’s really you know, let’s MIT let’s mask mandate. Let’s Let’s like, tell the people the truth. And for this to come out. Yeah. So like, Oh, yeah, he’s still a politician. He’s still fucking piece of shit. Yeah. So I have to be slightly careful because he does control my liquor license. And he’s been really nasty to New York businesses that say nasty things about him that if liquor licenses end up getting harassed, oh, but, but what? What I read all well, and I’ve heard this from people all over the country. They’re like, uomo Oh, my God. He loved TV. Every day. He was on every day. And then he went to three days a week, which is what he’s currently doing now. A little more now because he’s got a little hot water. But so what he did really well that nobody else was doing was he was he was talking every day and about all the stuff he was doing because New York was early on hit wicked hard and crazy and they were flying by the seat of their job. He did that. Yeah, he did it really well. about community he communicated really well to everybody. I in virtually in the world of video. He got the word out what he did, what kind of the perspective of business owners and people within the state It was really challenging and really hard because it was literally just New York City. I mean, and then there’s the rest of the state that had low infection rates up until November, October. And there was some hot spot. I mean, the rest of the state didn’t get affected until six months, seven months in. And, and he, in the level of decimation of businesses, and this has happened all over the country. But it happened here too, because he was so strong armed, that it was the same everywhere for him in his perspective, which I think logically made a lot of sense, right, like so. So I’m doing the same thing in New York City where there’s, you know, 1000 people a day dying. I’m doing the same thing in York City as I am in Clayton, New York, because I don’t want people from New York City to go drive and live in Clayton, New York, I want it the same everywhere. And then all the states around us kind of do the same thing so that nobody could travel because, as you know, New York City, you know, you’re you got New Jersey, and you’re hopping all the time if you want. So I get it. I get the logic behind everything that he did. And it makes sense in from an outsider’s perspective, looking at what he did, and how well, he communicated. He did a good job. Right? They’ve politicize this whole thing with the nursing home so bad that you don’t know what to believe anymore. So I think they made some really, yeah, they made some really stupid mistakes early on in the pandemic, but they made a lot of stupid mistakes. It’s not that he made a mistake, and that people died by sending he sent COVID positive nursing home people back to the nursing home. For whatever reason, at the time, I don’t remember what they were doing. But what what’s got him in hot water is the cover up. So instead of saying early on, yeah, well, maybe that wasn’t the best thing that we can do. He supposedly covered it up and didn’t give the right numbers out and didn’t do everything that he’s in trouble for now. And now he’s in a bunch of hot water for covering up what happened when he probably he probably could have just apologized at the beginning of the whole thing and said, Yeah, let’s look at this, folks. And maybe, you know, maybe we did screw this up. And I owe an apology to some people. You know, nobody’s gonna say that because you end up sued, so I get it. I’ve been in politics, I understand that you don’t ever. But yeah, it sucked. He all the good that he did, in the way that he did it. He was a great model for the country. And I think people were looking into Cuomo instead of Trump because Trump was being so fucking crazy in his press conferences, that his press conferences sucked. So bad on all levels, that promos were how they probably should have been. And if anybody other than Trump was in office, they would have been more like promos and nobody would have been paying attention. The Cuomo administration came out and said, they said, Listen, if we don’t know the answer, we’re going to tell you we don’t know the answer. And that’s right. And, and it’s like, I just can’t help but think like, obviously, okay, I’m a little cheesy. I think everything happens for a reason. I think that, you know, you can’t have X without y, and you know, Z and de la, like, all the things have to line up to be in the sort of place that we are, but I can’t help but think if Trump wasn’t an office, if we had a true politician, what would it be like? Right? Because being that Trump wasn’t a politician and was a businessman, and a shady businessman at that. His gut reaction was downplay, don’t stress out the employees, because he looked at all of us was just employees. It was very, it was it was very much a monarch is the closest we will we’ll probably ever see in America as a monarch. Right? Because Yeah, I was a politician. Right. Yeah, he was running it like a business, right or wrong. So the parts that, you know, that thrived because he ran it like a business. That’s great. But the other parts suffered horribly, which was dangerous and dangerous, how you interacted with other humans and other stuff. And that was there. I think it’ll be very interesting, because I don’t know if you heard this. But you know, Biden discovered that that that Trump really kind of slacked on getting enough enough doses for everyone. Right? Yeah. That he didn’t know enough initially. Get a dose. Right. And the whole reason why you were cut out because Trump, the Trump administration didn’t purchase it up. Yeah, and I think they’d probably politicize that on some level because they knew how many people are in the country and why didn’t they order enough right off the bat? Were they not allowed to and know what they’re not saying is why they didn’t. They just are saying that they didn’t and now we’ve ordered and I mean, you know what, Tony, I’m so glad you said that because that is something that is so high. In today’s political climate is to take a step back, right? And instead of be like, of course, he didn’t order enough. He’s a fucking asshole and being like, Oh, yeah, there may be other spirit saying that. I have a tendency to get a little, little, little Bobcat cat. Yeah. Well, you know what? That’s okay. Well, that’s because you have to have an opinion. I mean, that’s important. But yeah. And he was hoping to win logic. He was hoping to kind of win the election so he could stay president. And he couldn’t be not given vaccines to people and having a bunch of people die. I mean, he’d never get elected again. So if you think of it that way, because of course, he was the kind of guy that would think he’d get elected for a third term, because he was kind of nuts like that. But yeah. Just you know, just that, just so that you can spend the rest of it working on Yeah, and you can spend the rest of the day thinking about the idea that he’s probably gonna run again, because he’s a narcissist, like, Oh, he’s 100%. And he’s gonna probably win. That’s the crazy part is that the media, the media will give him all the attention in the world because they’re losing all crazy right now. Because the new administration is boring, because their regular politics are working, because they’re working, or they’re just boring, because they’re, you know, they’re not tweeting every day and doing the Trump things, I guess. Tony, I don’t like to think about what’s happening. I don’t want to think about it. I think that it was, like living in my bubble been like, the government, people in government stuff. And let me move on with my life. And I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a dangerous thing to say, I love living in my bubble as a white person. I want to throw that out there. Because there’s certain things that I think have come to light with the Trump administration. Like I said, I think everything happens for a reason. And I think lm movement, which started during the Obama administration, let’s not forget that. Right. But But really, you know, the fact that Obama at least would come out during Trayvon Martin and be like that, you know, his shooting? I don’t know if you remember that. Right, that was a national thing we all paid attention to. When BLM started, and and, you know, he had the the sort of compassion and wherewithal to be like, yeah, guys, my heart goes out to that family. And I acknowledge that this was a really painful thing. And Trump just didn’t do stuff, like bleaching your arms or whatever the fuck do you know what I mean? And yeah, yeah, he didn’t. He did not do the the little bit of politicking that if he would. And this is I mean, it’s kind of a scary. Oh, yeah. If you would have done it, just a little bit of that. Even if it was scripted a little bit, he probably would have run the election again. I because people would have just tolerated him because he was doing a good thing or doing good for the economy or whatever, you know, but she was compassionate. He showed compassion. He couldn’t even fake it. He couldn’t even wait a little bit. You know, everyone said, Tony, no, I only for Trump, because I don’t want a politician in office anymore. Right? And that’s what happens when you don’t have a politician in office anymore, is you have these people who they don’t they don’t feel inclined to be compassionate to you. And and I know French, so I looked up the French prime prime minister’s sort of chat about when COVID first hit. And I gotta tell you, Tony, like he he was so compassionate. And he was so rallying like, we are in this together. This is the whole French thing is like brotherhood and legality like, or sorry, equality. I put a little franglais in there. But like, I thought, Well, yeah, that’s kind of what you need to run a country. I don’t have any problem having a politician run this country. Because I like having that front of like, guys. Yeah, it’s gonna be okay. Even if shits burning in the back would like I don’t, I want to tell you deal with it. So I can live my life. And, and that’s how it’s always been, you know, politicians. No one’s calling Trump. No, and not at all. I mean, Obama was elected, I was like, whatever. Yeah, never even thought about it. I mean, you get the anxiety right around the election, but then it goes away. You don’t think about it for four years. You don’t watch 10 minutes of news as an adult ever until now, and we seem to be watching it. Now, I’m so scared about what’s going on. I’m like, What the fuck are they doing now? Yeah, so I watch. It’s funny. So I watch fox news in the morning. And then I’ll watch national news at night. You know, ABC or NBC, whatever it is when it comes on at seven o’clock or six o’clock at night? I’ll watch them. Friends. I do. Yeah, I watch them. Yeah, yeah, I do watch them. I don’t watch Tucker. I’m not I’m, he’s, yeah, no. I mean, I watch fox and friends in the morning. balance it out. Yeah, I watch. You know, I like the five at night too. But I’m usually not home to watch them on Fox. But you know, those are more like, that’s more like political entertaining, it’s more entertainment than it is news. So I’ll watch the fox news in the morning and get there kind of, you know, right wing slant on everything. And then I’ll watch the same basically newscast at the end of the day on ABC or NBC and get kind of their slant. And then I feel like I got something kind of balanced. Lee is different. It is. To me it is I mean, they’ll, you know, like Fox 10 concern you? Yes, an NPR ad? That’s right. So Exactly. So I ended up landing. I landed somewhere between K and PBS. Right. So I listened to my news. That’s all listen to like news hour, the 15 minute clips on PBS when I’m driving. PBS news. Yeah, I’ll do that. That is very cerebral. And because you got to get the balance, you got to figure out what’s actually. So if I figure if I listened to the middle of the road, what you hope is the middle of the road. And then you listen to the two extremes, you’re gonna be able to figure out most of it. And some of figuring out stuff is not. I don’t want to figure it out anymore. I just want to go back. Yeah, lying and doing stuff and button grumpy. Where NPR is, is NPS are the be all end all. Yeah. Well, we grew up with PBS Ryan, like, wasn’t that such a huge part of your childhood was? Yes. Well, and then that was that law that changed in the 70s about the news. So the fair and balanced I don’t remember what the law was, they brought it back. I think, a fair amount until whatever it was mid to late 70s. Legally, if you were a news outlet, on the airwaves, national airwaves, when there were national airways before there was internet, you had to be fair and balanced. You had to always tell both sides of the story. If you were a news agency, period, it was law and law of the land, you had to be neutral and right. And they somehow and change that law and now we get what we have which so some people know. Better, but it’s really just a no better. No, no, it’s not better because No, we don’t. We don’t know what to believe. How many times that I have confidently because I consider myself a very intelligent and and and well researched human Yeah, that I’ve reposted something. And and it’s like, Facebook comes up and says hey, this isn’t true. And I’ve been like, Are you fucking kidding me? I really thought I did my homework. I really enjoy. Tony. I hate to do this, but we’ve been talking for an hour and 15 minutes. I’m gonna take a small pause. Because I I’m a smoker and I just need to. I’ll smoke off camera. it’ll it’ll look more like this. Yeah, see, my wife doesn’t let me smoke in the house. You’re a smoker too. Should we just take five and have a smoke break? Sure. We can do that. Yeah. We know it’s bad. My wife just quit. Like, I don’t know, a month ago. But um, what’s her heart? Yeah. And I’ve quit and I’ve quit a bunch of times. We don’t ever smell I quit. I quit more times than Michael Jackson has had number one hits. Yeah, so to be honest, she lets me smoke in the back corner of the house with the window open this time of year because it’s so fucking brutally cold outside. She tolerates it in the winter. But even as smokers we’ve never actively smoked in our houses like this is really the first time that we’ve ever smoked indoors even a little bit. And it’s because of the weather. But yeah, we smoke well and the only reason that I’ve been actively smoking inside is because some jackal who’s older than me. smokes and his apartment downstairs. I was one of the tenants who said I don’t know Nope, we should ban smoking in our apartment complex because I also do yoga and meditation so anyone that’s that’s listened to those Yeah, no, that’s okay. I know that I’m I’m a walking contradiction. I am too spiritual. Yeah, a couple weeks now I’m back into doing yoga again. So I walk to yoga when I’m when I’m, sometimes I go to work first. But if I’m leaving from the apartment, and I always think about it when I’m smoking a cigarette, or I’m walking to fucking yoga classes. How stupid is this right now but I remind myself When I’m in there dying, I, I have to say this and, and maybe this is a terrible thing to say because we’re probably the last generation of cigarette smokers, right? But I have a justification. And I’ve always said this so so anyone anyone that’s ever known me has known me to say this because I’ve been a meditator and and for 20, over 25 years, and I’ve been doing yoga for over 20 years. And and what I have to say is this is that cigarette smoking is the the only time in society where one can take pause and and do breathing exercises. And no one notices, no one has a fucking clue. That’s what you’re doing. To me. I know, I know, it sounds like a, like a cheap way out to justify smoking. But it is it is this ability to take this sort of pause without going into lotus position. Or dancer pose. And, and, and, and having this sort of timeout. Now granted, I’ve put a million times because there are times when I do yoga and meditation where I can feel like, oh, like, I gotta put a handle on my smoking. I can’t smoke a pack a day. I can only be five a day. Do you know what I mean? Like, I know, I know. Yeah, I know a lot of I know more than one chopper instructor that smoke cigars and smoke still, I mean, you know, it’s a Native American people that I know smoke. Yeah, whatever it is. There’s, there’s there’s many ceremonial and probably I should, it’s it’s very unethical of me to speak of Native American culture as a white person in today’s world. But I’m just gonna say just remember when they used to call it Indian style, just saying, our generation. That’s all we heard in elementary school. And, and and, and we thought it was cool. And it wasn’t like appropriation or you’re never It was. It was just the thing. You did this. When you cross your legs in style, call them Indians. Fucking Gen X man. We’re the last of the politically incorrect generation. Because politically correct came about when we were about to late teens, early 20s. Where we had to start going, Oh, fuck, I can’t say the things that have been a runny, quirky, whatever. Like we can’t say oh, that’s retarded. That’s gay. Yeah. These are things that we can’t say it. You can edit all this out. Sonia zombies. Oh, oh my gosh. You can’t say no, there’s canceled culture. And you and I could be canceled. Oh, yeah. This conversation right now. Yeah. Did you? Did you end up in Facebook Jail by posting that stuff? Did they? Did they put your account on? jail if you are only in jail? Yeah. Because and you know, if you can figure this out, Tony, I will. I will send you something. I don’t know what I’ll send you. Perhaps this piece of paper right here. This is a nice piece of paper that I use this today. I posted. So I usually go as you as you know, because you’ve been the the the guest of honor this week on an exploit. I post on all my socials about my guest. Right. And so I had a guest who talked with me about her heroin addiction. Yes. Shout out. Shout out to the Haitian American podcast. You’re wonderful women. And Jennifer is the one who came on after sister came on. Yeah, that one? Yeah. Oh, it’s so good. Right? Oh, yes. Great. I was so honored that she shared her story. So I posted on Twitter the week that she was the sort of you know, guest of the week. And Twitter gave me a message back that said we do not allow you’re in violation of Twitter guidelines, because you’re promoting sexual violence and I was like it’s a heroin addiction. And it’s a woman that has battled and and won this addiction. Seven years clean I might add Wow. When you’re looking putting me in Twitter jail, so I have emailed them. I have tried to fight this. And it’s going on seven Yeah, that I Twitter jail. So that’s why you’re not. So they still they didn’t just do it for 24 hours or a week they just indefinitely they booted yes Twitter because apparently, heroin and conquering heroin equates sexual violence. On that note, I’ll be right back. Thanks for listening. To the Gen X perspective with Tony Randazzo, where we see things a bit differently. Let’s get social. Find us on Facebook by searching Gen X perspective, Twitter at Gen X underscore podcast and on Instagram at Gen X perspective, you can also find us online at Gen X perspective.com. And reach out to Tony directly at Tony at Gen X perspective.com. to maybe you can talk strategy on how to beat Super Mario Brothers three. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Gen X perspective wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening