Time to talk!

Random thoughts about starting this podcast and how to find happiness in the age of COVID!

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Tony Randazzo : 0:12

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? Hi, I'm Tony 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 Gen X 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 toThe Gen X perspective with Tony Randazzo Hey, how's everybody doing today? Welcome to the Gen X perspective. So,sitting here on a beautiful day here in upstate New York, just pondering life in all it has to offer. Andyesterday was a really interesting day I was taking the day off withmy beautiful wife, we were hanging out at home, which we never get to do run in our own business row is going crazy and running around in different directions all the time and today, and yesterday just happened to be a couple days where we got to spend a little time hanging out, watching TV, being lazy, enjoying the weather, and all that good stuff.But I got to a really interesting, very quick, very short video phoneCall with a friend of mine. And it just got me thinking about how long we've known each other and how differentour lives are today. And if I met her today, would we still be friends? As opposed to when we were?I don't even think we were 20 years old when we met are still kids basically running around, trying to figure things out. So after a short little video conference and saying, hey, different parts of the country, she's all the way out west and I can't get much further east.Just got me thinking, wow, this is a really long and magical and crazy relationship that we've both had. And, and we're still friends today. She's living her life out west andI'm here in New York and running my own business and married and doing our thing and it's just kind of fun to connect and also make surerealize howold you're actually getting when you start talking in terms of 10 year or even 20 year chunks of your life how crazy that is. So we were,you know, telling each other how much we missed each other. And this is what we're doing. And this is what's going on today, etc, etc. And the more I thought about it last night, the more got me thinking about all the crazy things that we did, and that we thought were important when we were kids, and how that' followed us through our relationship with our group of friends that we've had, you know, we all have that group.We tend to have a group of friends when we're really young, elementary school, growing up, neighborhood kids, and then sometimes those same kids follow us through until adulthood. But more than likely, we end up with kind of a pod or a group of friends that we have,that we get usually out of high school into college and those are the friends that are kind of those life.Long relationships that carry us, at least has carried me almost 50 years old. I'm still in my 40s but, you know, close enough creeping up on 50 at least. So it was really wild thinking about where we're all at. Somy, my, my friend there that were, we were talking yesterday andshe works in the beauty industry.And of course, she's has her own set of challenges right now and during the whole COVID thing. And, you know, she still lives alone in her apartment has her dog, which is her best friend in the whole world, still likes to go up to the lakes and rivers and exercises and gets out and lives a very outdoors lifestyle, and has been doing that same thing in her life pretty consistently for well, as long as I've known her for 20 years. And not a bad thing. It's justwhat she kind of defaults back to normal.matter what's going on in her life that's kind of our happy place. Now, everybody always joked about me and my life because they call it different phases of Tony are different Tony's there was motorcycle riding Tony and there was wilderness Tony and there waswork all the time Tony and restaurant, Tony and all thesedifferent jobs, or lifestyles that I was engaged in or into at the time all of our friendswould put a moniker in front of that. And God bless my wife, she would just kind of play along sometimes doing the same activity with me, or lifestyle choice at the time she would play along, or it would be something that she was into that I wanted to do like, I don't think I ever would have owned a motorcycle or ridden bikes seriously if it wasn't for my wife's love. riding motorcycles. So afterTrying to get home from work before her for a number of years and jump on her motorcycle and take it for a ride.We finally went out and I bought my own so that I didn't, she didn't have to share with me anymore, which I can appreciate. So we got really into riding Harley davidsons. And going out on the weekends and being weekend warriors, we were by no means the traditionalRenegade bikers.You know, we had mortgage payments and, you know, were weekend warriors for what it was worth. But you know, we would go out and we would have a good time and we had lots of friends that were doing it as well. But in our group of friends, none of the other people in our group rode bikes. So you would think that well, you know, you don't have anything in common with your friends or these people anymore, you would switch and that never really happened with us. We always kind of stayed grounded with our group of friends inI brought my wife into this group and moved her to, to the area where we were living at the time.And she became fast friends with a lot of a lot of the people in our little pod there. But we always kind of stay grounded with those folks no matter what Tony was doing at the time. So if I was being biker, Tony or wilderness, Tony was more of a jobwhere I was working outdoors and backpacking and hiking and working with kidsin an outdoor setting, it was always that same groupof people who was very diverse, and now I look on it and I was so I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity tobe friends withpeople with varying belief structures, and ideas on everything from politics orcourse to religion. You know, one of my very, very good friends is grew up in a Jewish household, an Italian Catholic from New York. So he'she grew upin Southern California in the entertainment industry his family was involved with. And, you know, you couldn't be any different. So you have this crazy Jewish guy from Southern California and this crazy Catholic, Italian kid from New York. And that made for some pretty interesting and entertainingconversations slash fights slash arguments slash you name it, we argued, fought and had a good time about it. And you know, it is what it is. So, whanowadays in my 40s, you run into somebody like that, and more than likely you wouldn't have anything in common with them. You wouldn'ttolerate them and you wouldn't want to hang out with them. But as, as kids, we tend to be a heck of a lot more open minded. And you get toappreciate people for who they are and not judge them so harshly like people do nowadays. SoI'm thankful to have those kinds of relationships. But getting back to my friend that I was on the phone with yesterday.It just struck mehow much when I talked to her,it takes me back to the times in our lives, when we were all living, literally down the street from each other. And when we weren't all working, surviving, trying to pay our bills, we were hanging out together. This was before we all had kids, or got married, or whatever, you know, when we were still running around trying to figure out life and what we were doing andAnd out of all my friends she was always the one that really keptthe energy and excitement in life andand was always so passionate about literally having a good time and being positive and she always was sometimes a little crazy on the edges but you know, we're all a little crazy around the edgesandand she always made me feel really grounded and really positive about myself whenever I talked to her over the years and never really thought about it in the way that I did yesterday when I waskind of relaxing and not stressing out about a whole heck of a lot yesterday and it was just really one of those moments where I thought to myself wow, this is reallyamazing and and really important to have in your life and you forget on a day to day basis when you're running around trying to get things done.Taking that deep breath, and realizinghow important these relationships and friendships in your life really are. Andembracing those, and in seeking them out, especially now. So, you know, not to get into doom and gloom and talking about all the crazy things that are going on right now. But, you know, we all know we're in an election year. politics are superheated and crazy and we have the corona virus, pandemic, whatever you want to call it happening and, you know, people fighting in the news and talking heads on television and on cable with all their opinions.Right, wrong or indifferent. Everybody's got something to say. And what I've noticedin my travels,people generally are angry right now, which is really annoying.And I think it's because of the level of stress that we're putting on ourselves and the fear of the unknown and the invisible virus and all this stuff if you're a conspiracy theory person or not. Some people believe that it's, it's nothing that it's contrived and made up. Some people believe in the doctors and the facts. We're not here to debate that necessarily right now, but people are so amped up, and they're being so mean to each other.That it's just really disheartening and frustrating, because I work inthe service industry, I work trying to make people happy and try to enjoy themselves, and they come to our business. We own a family winery. They come to try some wind, unwind, have a good time and not stress out. But seeing people in the grocery store and seeing people out in general. And if you watch three seconds of news a day you're going to hear about somebody doing something horrible and mean to somebody else because they were wearingA mask or warrant oryou know cut in front of them in line or you name it, people are freaking out on each other and it's really crazy to see thisbehavior towardsyour, your neighbors, your the people that are living next door to you and that you interact with every day. And, and in the environment that we live in. At least where I'm in right now is a very tourist dependentarea. So you know, we rely on the tourism and people coming up especially in the summer along the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York to come and go boating and go fishing and have a good time and, and spend their weekends and their vacations up here. But people have gotten somean to each other. I mean, you know, I've seen everything from people stealing toilet paper out of people's carts in the grocery store tYou know, we've all seen thepeople freaking out on the news because somebody's not wearing a mask or yelling at each other and just really sad and dishearteningin that short interaction that I had withmy good friend out there in Oregon yesterday, kind of brought me back tohow important it is to treat each other well and be nice to each other. And not be sodamn nasty and mean.I it just takes a second to take a deep breath and put a smile on your face. Now remember, nobody knows you're smiling because you got that mask on in theory.And just be kind to one another. Now I know that sounds super hokey and stupid and people tend to roll their eyes when you say just be nice or just be happy. But the reality is is what you put out there is what you get backAnd I don't think anybody could argue the point that nasty mean rotten miserable people get a lot of joy and happiness back their direction when they're acting that way. So when you take that extra second, I still open doors for people. Yes, I still do it for women and you know, maybe that makes me a racist or makes me something that I'm not supposed to be because I'm trying to be a gentleman. But you know, I still try to do those things in life the way I was raised, to be a good person, be courteous to others. I've noticed so much more that people don't do those kinds of things anymore. And, you know, they're just as quick to steal that last loaf of bread out of your shopping cart asas they are to cut you off to get through that light so that they don't have to sit an extra 30 seconds of their life Waiting for a light to turn green. I mean, people are really on edge and it's really sad to see it.Kind of unfolding right nowYou know, early on in this pandemic thing everybody thought, you know, this could happen one or two ways and they all talk about, you know, September 11 how the whole country came together. For whatever reason, again, I'm not getting into politics and was it right or wrong, what happened?But everybody kind of came together common goal, common, you know, love thy neighbor, respect for each other common goal kind of thing, and we thought early on that COVID-19 slash Coronavirus. The plague was gonna bring people together, they were going to work together. You know, in New York, our governor always said New York strong andall of New York would come together and fight this thing. Well, I think that happened in general. But New York was also a very unique and different kind of thing, as in the entireState was focused on the city of New York. And there's a whole bunch of New York State left that wasn't not gonna say not included, but there's so many people in New York City that live in such tight quartersin one little itty bitty space, that um, that's where all the focus was, as it should have been, because that's where the majority of all of our Coronavirus cases were. So the governor and the mayor and everybody was focused on New York City.So with all the focus being down there, the rest of us in the state weren't having a big problem with the Coronavirus. We were kind of just playing along with whatever was happening. So as shutdowns happened andpeople were out of work. I was fortunate enough that our business was considered essential. The governor had one thing figured out don't take away people'salcoholyou left grocery storeis open, don't let don't take away people's food or booze. And, and, you know, let cable and internet run wild so people were able to be entertained. And it kept people happy for the most part, you know, they were just they still had life to stress out about and bills and money. But you know, they could have a glass of wine, I would say after work, but they could have a glass of wine whenever they wanted. If they weren't, quote unquote, working from home, and, and things were good. So we were considered essential workers. The vineyards in the growing season was still happening. So our grapes were growing. And we needed to be out in the vineyards, taking care of those things, and we had to still continue to make wine and run our business. So we were thankful enough to have that opportunity to be able to do that. But watching peoplewho wouldnormally be working 4050-60 hours a week, hard working,blue collar class people were out of work, and they were at home. And you would think that they would be, I don't know, happy,more pleasant to be around. But what we found was that underlying stress kept building everywhere, all sorts of people, all sorts of industry, whatever it was going on. There was just everybody was stressed out. And I think of course, it was about the unknown and what was going on.So I kept trying to figure out how to circle it back and Bepositive, be happy, put out good energy.Try to keep people calm, when they were stressed out. I mean, we had our own levels of stress and concerns in our business with our staff. And what we were going to do andhow we were gonna function and keep working every day, but you know, you just take it one day at a time.Again, just try to stay positive, try to look at the good in the day, or the person, whatever your experience was at that moment. And I found that getting harder and harder to do every day. This podcast was born out of the idea that I needed a platform to be able to speak my mind,where we're at, and where I live. And what I do is such a small townwhere you really do have to kind of censor what you say and what you do.Out of general respect for your neighbor, maybe not wanting to upset potential customers that might not come in because they don't like what I'm saying or what I'm talking about. More than likely.in big cities, you're just the number out there and people you know, you can kind of fade into the back and nobody knows. Maybe even nobody cares about whatwhat you're doing and what you're saying, but living in a small town, a small community, where kind of everybody knows everybody, you got to be kind of careful about what you're saying and what you're doing. Your own thoughts aren't necessarily your own thoughts. You've got to kind of play in the community and, and owning your own business in that community, you got to be kind of careful. You know, you gotta think abouthow your personal feelings and the things coming out of your mouth are gonna affect other people. Now, it's not just me, I have employees that work for me, other family members that rely on our business to be successful, so that they can live. So you have more of a responsibilityto everybody else in your life, to not be an idiot, and just kind of not pay attention to what you're saying or doing out there.So that makes it a little more complicated when you're wanting to speak your mind.Gotta censor your thoughts. Maybe filter what you're saying. And the word censor I know is a bad word in the large scheme of things, but you really got to pay attention and think about what you're saying before you say it.And in the service industry, of course, that's important if you always said everything you wanted to say, especially when you get some dumb ass coming in and being stupid. Now, you know, we're in the alcohol industry, so people drink and it's not like, a winery is a hotbed for drunk people, but you do get people that are out enjoying themselves having a good time, and we all know you know, alcohol instant, well idiot comes to mind. So you gotta be kind of careful sometimes, especially when you're behind the bar and you're working with people, being careful what you're gonna say, and how you're gonna react to things that really in the scheme of things probably don't matter all that much. Sotrying to keep that in check for over twoYours, throw in a pandemic, a little bit of stress with your bankers living in a tourist community that's maybe not going to see a lot of tourists. And you have this kind of recipe of stress, at least in my life. So I thought, well, hell, let's put a podcast together. Somewhere I can go and talk and kind of ventabout who I am and what's going on. And that has kind of morphed and changed into you know, who I am and why my opinions are mine. And so much of that has to do with how I grew up and where I was. So the catalyst for today and talking was a short video conference or phone call with a friend of mine that just has this unwavering undying excitement and joy of life and is always super positive, no matter what's going on, and how much I've always admired that in her inand enjoyed that and how contagious it can be, no matter what life you're living in at the time, or how you're feeling or what you want to say.Or what you're doing. You know, so God bless her forbeing that person in my life on and off throughout the years and we'll go months and not talk. And all it takes is a quick text or a littleshort little video through text or anything to kind of bring me back towhat's important.And what's important is treating people well, being nice to each other.You know,and just trying to get through what's call it life or the generalday to day craziness that's going on right now. You know, we all got we all got our crosses to bear inWe got to remember that, yes, we have our own problems. But I guarantee you, somebody else has got something more stressful and more dire in their life than maybe you do right now. And it's good to remember that a little generosity, a little understanding.A little bit of joy can really go a long way to helping people out in their lives. Andit's really important to rememberthat, you know, we're all good people, we all get dressed the same way. We all havethe same things in our lives that are kind of essential to life we havebreath that we have to breathe, we have a heart that has to pump blood and we have God Willing eyesight in the use of our limbs. But those aren't things thatWe need to live. But what we do need isto be able to breathe. And in.I think the most important thing isto be kind to people to be kind to each other, to not be an idiot.And to realize thatthe guy or gal standing next to you,all's they may need is a smile and that could change the whole trajectory of their day. And it could be a huge difference. So, now that I've really ranting and making myself sound like an idiot

Unknown Speaker : 26:41

thanks for spending some time with me. I hope this crazy ass rantcauses you to think that maybe I can put together let's call it more of atraceable thought process when we're talkingThinking about other things like growing up in the 80s latchkey kid, all the stuff we say in the intro, you know, being a child of a boomer or boomers and being a Gen X or you know, MTV generation, all that wonderful stuff growing up in what I consider one of the greatest times, you know, I mean, wake up in the morning, get thrown out of the house get told to not come back to the streetlights Come on. And all the way up to carrying that boombox around and listening to Metallica or AC DC or whatever it was at the time that we were into, and, and hanging out to, you know, backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail or hanging out in the woods in Oregon having a good time or going out in the boat. Riding the Harley or whatever it was, through this crazy adventure we call life that we were able to do that. And and I couldn't imagine being a kid in high school right now. Especially with the whole lockdown thing because I grew up basically not being allowed to be home. Not because I was a bad kid, but because that's was the norm growing up was get out of the house. You know, there's, there's no reason to be in this house, get outside, go play with your friends. We'll see you at dinner. You know, I think that's the way that at least I grew up in my life. And, and was amazed and still am amazed every day to see how different it is nowadays. You know, kids aren't told to just go out and get on your bike and go play and I live in a small town where that would be very realistic for a tribe of kids to be running around on their bikes or skateboards for hours on end. But even here That doesn't happen, that parents keep such close rein on their kids and where they are and what's going on at all times that it's just really crazy and different. And in some cases, fascinating, in other cases, frustrating about what's going on nowadays out there in the in the world. And I'm excited to be able to share those things with you guys and go over targeted topics and different things we can talk about instead of kind of all over the board, which is where I've been today. AndI hopeto have some more fun and get some insight and learn some stuff and have a good time. Andthank you guys all for listening and we'll talk again real soon.Guys have a fantastic and great day.Thanks for listening to the Gen X perspective with Tony Randazzo, where we see things A bit differently. Let's get social scientists 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 calm 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 jennex perspective wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening