The ConverSAYtion
The ConverSAYtion is simply a couple of middle aged men sharing company and conversation. Psych and K take their time sorting through so much to say about society, culture, relationships, education, finance, technology, health, and more. Inspired to find engaging ways to entertain and enrich the lives of their listeners is their primary pursuit. Join them as they invest themselves in providing value to their audience. Welcome to The ConverSAYtion.
The ConverSAYtion
Wine Tales, AI Art Debates, and the Holiday Mosaic: A Cultural Exploration
Imagine raising a glass of wine that's more than just a drink—it's a story, a memory, a cultural tapestry. We've journeyed from box wine to exquisite selections, sharing stories that turn wine glasses into cherished keepsakes. Pour yourself a glass of Red Blend Portugal from Casa Santos Lima as we explore how wine weaves its magic, connecting us to our roots and to one another.
Ever thought a pen lid could spark a debate on the nature of art? We did, and it led us down a rabbit hole of AI creativity and traditional artistic values. With a blend of humor and insight, we challenge the boundaries of what art can be, exploring themes of sustainability, ethical shopping, and how social media might be shaping our mental landscapes. Can AI truly create? Or is art destined to remain a uniquely human endeavor?
Holidays aren't just about traditions; they're about inclusivity and understanding. Picture a high school bustling with diverse holiday celebrations, each carrying its own story of faith and culture. We share experiences from Kwanzaa celebrations to diverse school settings, examining how these festivities shape our sense of community. Alongside this, we ponder the impact of generational shifts in cultural sensitivity and the role of socioeconomic factors in shaping our perspectives. Through personal stories and thoughtful reflections, we invite you to explore the vibrant mosaic of holiday traditions and how they enrich our lives.
You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. It's just a suggestion. It's a good series of claps. It was yes.
Speaker 2:They don't always come out.
Speaker 1:The way, I would like.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Listen to that ring. These are good glasses.
Speaker 2:I know that you always select the finest things um I do like to surround myself, and you know, with the finer things and these are nice.
Speaker 1:I know you have commented in the past on how I've got two pair of wine glasses and two of them are pretty decent and two of them are kind of thick and cheap. Yes, but obviously you don't make those mistakes.
Speaker 2:So you know, I don't blame you. Maybe somebody gave you a wedding present or a gift or something like that. I don't think you selected them, or selected them at the time.
Speaker 1:What if I did?
Speaker 2:Well, I know for a fact when you started wine tasting and drinking wine.
Speaker 1:So those glasses predate that I've been drinking wine a long time. Yes, I've been drinking wine a long time, but not gosh, I don't want to say it out loud Wine out of bottles, yes, yes, we were just talking about how my table wine was box wine for a long time. And there's nothing wrong with box wine, it's just fucking wine. Wine's main focus is to bring you to a level of enjoyment that brings in a certain level of celebratory endeavor. And you know what? Box wine's fine, but there are much better wines out there and when you start to engage regularly in those finer wines, you will find it more difficult to go back to the box wine, for sure. And yes, when I was younger I used to drink wine. I mean, you know box wine or you know, like the less expensive table wines. Delicato was one of my favorite Delicato. Merlot was one of my favorite wines, before they rebranded to Gnarly Head, which is kind of a middle upper.
Speaker 2:I didn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, delicato, the Delicato family does Gnarly Head.
Speaker 2:I've got Gnarly Head in my refrigerator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like Gnarly Head. Does gnarly head? I've got gnarly head in my refrigerator? Yeah, I like that, um, but so yes, and I haven't to this day. During a secret santa at work, a an, an 18 year old, got my name and asked her mother for help, and they selected a pair of wine glasses. No, and while they were babe I mean you're talking about buying co-workers in a supermarket gifts and while they may not be of the best quality, I have them to this day and I am day and the only person to ever mention that they don't have the quality that might be necessary for fine wines.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to play that role in your life.
Speaker 1:And I didn't throw them away. So from 20 years ago, thank you. So so, from 20 years ago, thank you. Uh, welcome back to the conversation podcast with me. As always a psych I am, I am, of course, letter k, and we kind of kind of exhausted our last topic, pet peeves. Uh, we actually had some really good discussions on it, but it kind of kind of ended. So we mentioned last episode, which you did not remember, and I had to remind you that today we were going to ask chat gpt about the hot topics of the day and we were just going to have kind of have a discussion on various topics and things over the next two episodes. This could go so wrong.
Speaker 2:This could be bad.
Speaker 1:This could be bad, or this could be brilliant.
Speaker 2:It might be.
Speaker 1:I'm hoping it's good, and so the scotch is gone. There was a little bit left before we filmed today and we drank it.
Speaker 2:It was delicious yeah.
Speaker 1:It was pretty good, so, to engage in this kind of hodgepodge endeavor that we're going to engage in now. I decided we were going to have some red blend wine. It's a blend of topics and a blend of grapes, and so today, on this episode, we are having Red Blend Portugal from Casa Santos Lima. You know, I decided that this would be kind of a fun thing to start off with, uh, being of portuguese descent and enjoying, you know, enjoying a little bit of the culture from my homeland, wine being the most significant I?
Speaker 2:I almost went that direction when we what episode was it? Or series? It was the. We're talking about families.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was when we had the Friends and Family and we're doing the Jack Daniels Single Barrel, jack Daniels Special Reserve. That might have been it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that might have been it when Family came up. The longest, the longest distillery. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Was that the Scotch? The Scotch was the oldest distillery in Scotland.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I almost went that direction with wine, Because I figured wine had been around for ages and there were lots of family-owned wineries.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm glad it did so. A lot of you recognize this bottle from Costco. I got it from Costco.
Speaker 2:In California yeah.
Speaker 1:So, according to their website, as of these days, 90% of all of this winery's wines are exported, and I bet you Costco has a lot to do with that, okay, so I? So I imagine if, no matter where you are in the us, if you have a costco, you're getting this wine. But looking at their website, they've been around forever. Kind of a fun history. Uh, casa santos lima created to ensure the continuous development of Santos Lima's wine producing activity. It was first established, you know, generations ago.
Speaker 1:We're looking at they talk about how it was started by Joaquin Santos Lima, who, by the turn of the 19th century, was already a great producer and exporter of Portuguese wines century was already a great producer and exporter of Portuguese wines, and it's been going on since then. They were doing a lot of traditional tradition of blending grapes, which they want to say is a Portuguese tradition, but everyone blends grapes, and since 1996, which is the year I graduated high school they've started bottling it under their own brand and exporting it, and so, like I said, to this day, 90% of its production is exported to almost 50 countries and five continents. It says in the five continents there are seven. Right, how many continents? There are seven, okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, they change things with the planets and Pluto and we know that. So no, but the continents have remained the same.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, so that's what we're drinking today.
Speaker 2:Cheers. Let's get a first sip Now. We took the extra effort, at your suggestion, to decant the wine.
Speaker 1:I'm a big fan of decanting ever since I went to the kitchen the Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Reno yes, restaurant in Reno, yes and I think I've told that story about how the guy decanted the wine and it's an amazing experience. But, yes, yeah, nice, mellow, light, smooth, smooth Everything you expect from a blend. You know blends are designed to put together a palatable, accessible wine, right.
Speaker 2:One that would pair with almost anything you're serving, and I think this would if you're having poultry, if you're having seafood, if you're having a steak, I think this would accompany any of those. If somebody's going to a dinner party and they don't know what the person likes, if you want to bring wine, yeah, bring a nice red blend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes. So when I was in the supermarket industry, red blends were coming out. You know, apothic Menage, a Trois. They were like the early red blends, right, but they're much bigger now. I would used to tell people people would come I didn't know anything about wines and they'd be like, hey, we need a wine for a dinner party, we don't bring. I would always tell people the same thing find a bottle of wine in the price range that you're comfortable with, the label you like. At the end of the day, you know if you're doing, if you don't know anything about wine and you're going to a dinner party and you're drinking wine, chances are if that person is a wine person, they've already got the wine selected.
Speaker 2:So if you're looking for a gift cool labels are fun Just do that we went to Sonoma County here in California wine country back in 2020. And we went to a barrel tasting and this.
Speaker 1:I just did that for the first time.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, sorry, go tell you, sir. We went to this barrel tasting and basically I mean you know cause you just went. But you go to where all the barrels are stored and they have open barrels there and they're just like they have, uh, like a turkey baster that they put in there and they, they bring out some wine and he was the gentleman was serving them in. They were plastic half gallon pitchers. He was just putting them in there. He was bringing out multiple to our table and we were mixing them, Sight unseen, making our own blend.
Speaker 2:This is this wine and it has these characteristics. And the next, and describe this one.
Speaker 2:We were just going this guy, I will say, had been drinking with everybody and our our appointment at the time with the pandemic in 2020 was later in the afternoon and he was just. I was surprised he was standing up, but he was functioning and people came in after us and he forgot that. He left about a gallon of wine on our table and we we just I mean, if we had wanted to just overindulge, just Just gets shitty. He was completely allowing that to happen.
Speaker 1:It's from the barrel. So I just recently went wine tasting with Basie J, Big Larry, the wives. Yeah, okay, it was fun and we went to one of Jim and Tara's wine clubs, of course, and I have the bag that I bought wines Lange Twins.
Speaker 2:I know where that's at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Lode I am and they're members, they're in good with the folk. And they asked because we were talking about it and they took us to the back and we did a barrel tasting and it wasn't this goofy shit that you're talking about. It wasn't just like oh, fucking wine.
Speaker 1:It was actually really informative. The guy spoke a lot about the youth of the wine, the age, the characteristics, and he had this special pump that he pulled into the wine, he pumped it out and he poured us each pour-ins and glasses. It was an exceptional experience. I would recommend it for anybody who has the opportunity. It was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, barrel tasting, if you want to taste what this wine is before it reaches this age, yeah, as it evolves. And he brought out it's like, okay, here's a tasting of this and here is a year in, here's two years in, here's three years in. And he did describe everything, but he was, he was really casual, he was enjoying himself. Yes, yes, he was, he was enjoying him and for the longest time we were the only ones there because it was appointment based, and so he was just. It was me, the wife, wife, two boys and he sat down at the table with us. We were just kicking it. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, full conversation, just us. We had the whole place to ourselves so, yes, blended wines today.
Speaker 1:Um, if you're not, if you've never been wine tasting, your psych took me wine tasting for the first time and I talked about it for years and he finally forced me to go and I've never looked back. It's such an experience, such a fun experience, and it makes you feel like a bougie motherfucker, right, like you're just highfalutin, you're.
Speaker 2:Is that a 2010?
Speaker 1:I say Do I get a hint of cigar box on the nose? Yes, yes, if you really want to elevate your status in your own mind, wine tasting, and you can find it. You can find it in most any state, and it's obviously we live in california, so you can't, you, so you can't, stumble and fall backwards and not find wine tasting.
Speaker 2:But oh yeah, Cigar box, oh yeah, who wants?
Speaker 1:to taste. No, it's on the nose. It's the aroma. So a lot of the wines and murphys cigar box notes is one of the things. That's why I brought that up. Got me a pen look at this shit. He was like you should be writing things down, okay the pen does not, the lid does not post the lid doesn't post.
Speaker 1:How fucking fancy is that? Sigh, sigh. The lid does not post and she's like I can show that shit too. I'm going to take notes, keep the ink wet. So today, random topics Keep going Rules. So I've asked ChatGPT to give me topics of the day and I gave it. I asked it to do things that are more socially oriented, uh, focusing on current and maybe ethical. Come on, hella dumb.
Speaker 2:Merch coming later yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, so. So Syke has no idea what I've looked up. I'm going to read off the first. You know four or six things, and we're going to talk about as many as we can get through in the time that we have left, even though we've spent the first 18 minutes talking about wine, which is fine. So you have the ability to completely veto at least one of these topics Me too.
Speaker 2:I pride myself in being well-versed and well-informed in all topics?
Speaker 1:I'm not. I had to ask her to. I'd ask chatty to narrow this down, because the original topics featured things I had no concept of like. Like I mean, it mentioned the presidential election, which let's just not go there, uh. And then it mentioned top, top topics kendrick lamar's music I don't even know who that is yeah him okay, alright, and MrBeast's content innovations who cares? Is that another podcaster?
Speaker 2:it is some would consider to be the he doesn't podcast YouTuber anyhow, I had it parsed down.
Speaker 1:Uh, here are the top five things that it came up with and I will let you select what we discuss. Number one ai generated content and creativity diving into the controversies surrounding ai generated art, music and writing. Two sustainability eco-friendly holiday shopping, innovations and renewable energy. People sharing ideas and reducing waste during the festive season. Three social media and mental health. I like that one ongoing conversations highlighting the double-edged sword of social platforms connecting people versus amplifying stress, misinformation and comparison culture. Four holiday inclusivity. How do different cultures celebrate December holidays? This includes growing trends and acknowledging diverse traditions in schools, workplaces and media. That might be interesting for you You're talking about. I'd be interested on your take about diversity in holidays as an educator. Four no five I already did. Four Five ethical shopping for the holidays. Discussing about fast fashion. I have to look up fast fashion, buying locally, which I'm a fan of, and the rise of second-hand gift exchange trends. I'll have to look that up too Okay.
Speaker 1:So do any of those spark your interest.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of them. Well then, I'm super glad that chat gpt selected them.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, so with first ai content, a content as far as art. Right, that was the focus there. Yeah, so recently. I mean, if you would be so kind to look up the actual working definition of art. Art in it of itself, if I'm not mistaken, is basically a form of human expression, and so many would consider that ai generated content in the form of art. It cannot be assigned that definition, that nomenclature could not be given to something that was artificially created.
Speaker 1:So the traditional definition, according to ChatGPT, is art is the conscious use of imagination and creativity to produce works that express ideas, emotions or a worldview. These works are often visual, auditory or performative and aim to elicit an aesthetic response and examples. The philosophical perspective is oh, this is by the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that art is a form of beauty that exists for its own sake, separate from practical function or moral purpose. And, in contrast, leo Tolstoy viewed art as a means of communication, stating that its primary purpose kind to find the miriam webster version of of that definition.
Speaker 2:Basically, the argument is if it does not come from a person, entity, uh, a being on planet earth that is biological in nature, then it cannot be art. So if we're if we're going to talk about generated content, I'm I'm happy to have that conversation, but if we're going to ascribe art being what we know painting, sketches, sculptures and and and the like, you like this?
Speaker 1:so, according to merriam-webster, the definition of art encompasses the the following facts one a skill acquired through practice, okay. Two creative expression. Three works of creative imagination. For a liberal study, which is defined as art can also signify areas of study that cultivate intellectual and aesthetic values. Five an occupation requiring skill. So the first thing that I would say is can AI-generated content be considered to have a conscious use of imagination and an obtained skill? Because we use AI to generate our thumbnails for our podcast and all they do is type in some shit, but could the words that I type into the generative request box be considered learned or a conscious use of imagination?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I don't think so either. I do not think so. I that's, that's a. That's a bridge too far. I appreciate content. I use it, use it weekly for what we're doing and and uh, it definitely helps. It streamlines things, it makes things faster, it gets us from point a to point b in a manner that values our time and allows us to accomplish many other things in the process. But is it? Is it imagining? Is it creating things? Is it pond?
Speaker 1:oh, should I do this, this, this or this?
Speaker 2:It is selecting from a myriad of options that are available to it after other human beings have already encountered or offered something from them to evaluate and select from, and then they could collage things together to bring another result in. So here's the thing Some of the AI out there currently being used, the generative AI, is basing what it finds off of past AI offerings, so now it's beyond what humans have offered that it's pulling from. It's not limited to just that, because, well, even some of the stuff that we've put out there based on ai, it's now out there in the interwebs and it can be pulled from and selected and put into use elsewhere. But the ai doesn't know that that piece was also generated from AI, and so now it's just this cycle of human interaction, ai interaction and now AI selecting the next thing.
Speaker 1:So yes, I see AI generative content as a business model. A business model. We are using it to quickly create something that is usable, to produce our podcast, which is a business. I don't have the artistic ability to create the things that we are just doing with AI. However, as somebody who has produced original content throughout his life, I've produced and released three studio albums, I've produced many episodes of television and now the things that I've done, the quality can be reproduced by AI, but not the emotional expression, the content. You know, the little things.
Speaker 1:I see things on the Internet all the time that where people ask AI to make a song or a music video song or a music video, and it's always something stupid like hey, make me a country song about smoking crack with a panda bear, something like that, and it does. And it does because it it can find those concepts. But if you asked it to write a Connie Francis style song about heartbreak with real emotion, you couldn't do that. And so, yeah, I think that the separation between between art and art imitation, it's not art imitating life, or is light imitating art. It's a computer imitating art yes.
Speaker 2:So art aside, the content's good, art aside, the content is useful, as long as we're not calling it art, which is something that I would only view as something able to be made and achieved from another human being. No, I'm good with that. Yeah, yeah, I like it. Yeah, you talked about skill. It can be skillful. It's not practice. They can't. It doesn't practice it. People get in and they work on the, the, the program and the algorithm that's what we do and then you let it run and then it produces something it doesn't go let's practice this called me unskilled because there's no skill in putting text in a dialogue box.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, there really isn't, Because you have no way of pushing the AI-generated content you receive. You may put in a random strew of text. You're going to get a random strew of results. The last episode, the episode that I produced just recently have you seen the thumbnail for the latest episode? I put in a creative emotional construct for that. I didn't put in any facts or any desires. I put in a very stream of consciousness idea and I got that. I thought it was great, but you know it's like the for anything you know I spent. We did the episode on on the, the, the tumultuous nature of family. I tried to create unsuccessfully for like two hours, a family in a hurricane, right, it just didn't happen, Just did not happen. So there is no creativity or skill involved in asking AI to produce something, Because, even though you have an idea in your head and you put your idea into words, you will have no control over the idea you receive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, next topic.
Speaker 1:Yes, let's move it on. Okay, so I will select as the next topic. I really like the idea of holiday inclusivity. How and this is how it's defined by chat gpt how do different cultures celebrate december holidays? This includes the growing trend of acknowledging diverse traditions in school, workplaces and media.
Speaker 2:So one of my co-workers, Say it again when are the places it's acknowledged?
Speaker 1:Acknowledging diverse traditions in schools, workplaces and media. Obviously, obviously, we live in a, in a Christian uh, my majority environment in the United States One of my coworkers he told me a story about. So there's a community of uh of, of, of of Middle Eastern culture up up where he lives, the largest in the US, and I hate that. I can't remember exactly and I will not guess, but he said that it's a part of their religion that they can become closer to their God when, right around now, every year, they give away, and so by being selfless and by being generous, they kind of reset whatever happened throughout the year and give themselves closer to God, their God. And he said that in this town, where they have set up the majority of their roots, they have a festival where you can go in and you have, and you know, he said, he said that you know, all they ask is that you adhere to their, to their cultural standards.
Speaker 1:Like you wear, you wear a hood, a face covering, and when you go, it's this generous festival where people are just trying to give you things, the food and items and stuff. And he's like he said, he described it as you know, you go in this thing and they offer you this food item and they're like, hey, take five more. And it's this massive giving right, and so I'd never heard of anything like that. I've lived in California and it's only 80, 90 minutes north of where I have lived my entire life. Never knew this existed. So when I think about the diverse traditions, I don't know that we spend enough time really really embracing these things or informing people of just how diverse our American culture is.
Speaker 2:So a couple of things struck me. Correct me if I'm wrong. You said holiday inclusivity, right?
Speaker 1:Holiday inclusivity is the highlighted.
Speaker 2:Okay, and according to your story, the first thing that needed to be done was the people entering, as you said, as long as they're wearing appropriate garments, please respect our traditions and we welcome you in this time.
Speaker 1:And yes, holidays are traditional, so I have no problem with respecting another person's tradition if I am going to tourist into their traditions.
Speaker 2:And neither do I. I don't tourist into their traditions and neither do I I don't. But some would argue that if you are not going to include everybody, regardless of what they're wearing or not wearing, then that's not true inclusivity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree with that notion, but I think that this concept of holiday inclusivity is broader. I think that this concept of holiday inclusivity is broader. It's discussing and believing and understanding that there are more holiday-themed concepts culturally than just the ones that you're used to. It's like Thanksgiving with the holiday turkey or it's Christmas with the tannenbaum tree, or it's Christmas with the Tannenbaum tree. You know those kinds of things are norms to us, but somebody who grew up in the middle of Africa has no concept of cutting down an evergreen, a tree that does not die Sure.
Speaker 2:So I guess my question is is is this a private event? If somebody just wanted to walk in, is this like a block party? Did they have things permits to block off streets, is this?
Speaker 1:like a street fair sort of thing, like a huge festival okay, so can it.
Speaker 2:if can anybody go, yeah, so my, so my co-worker. Or is it like you don't meet the dress code, you can't come in?
Speaker 1:So I did not ask that question. He offered the information about the coverage. Oh, okay, but he is.
Speaker 2:I acknowledge it's probably polite.
Speaker 1:If you're going to go to this thing that's organized by this particular culture, it would be respectful to do that particular culture it would be respectful to, if you always do that, if you are, if you are, if you want to learn and understand a culture, you should be willing to embrace that culture's norms. And so at least try it out. Let's try it out, just try it, you know, put it on for don't, don't, don't show up hours pull the pull the fucking light beer out of your pocket, crack it open.
Speaker 1:Be like oh, what are we doing here today? Free shit, yeah, no, no. Embrace that culture and allow them to take you on a journey of their existence. I think that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:I like it. Yeah, yeah, no, there's nothing about it that I do not appreciate, and the story you shared is heartwarming. Yeah, yeah, no, there's nothing. Nothing about it that I do not appreciate, and the story you shared is heartwarming, yeah. My first two thoughts was okay, if we're talking about inclusivity, if there's no, you can't come in. If there's already a discriminatory process from the gate, only people like us can enter and enjoy. Then you're. Then it kind of washes away the whole inclusivity portion of it I.
Speaker 1:So that part I completely understand, but at the same time, I think that you know so, holidays, so many holidays are religiously themed and religions are full spectrum. You know, there's so many different beliefs, so many different ways to carry yourself, and if you want to engage in a festival where people are embracing their religion and they're inviting you in and all they're asking is that you respect their culture's religious norms, you know what, if you want to, if you want to experience this, yes, I say. I say they should be able to dictate that, uh. And if you, if you want to bring your cultural norms into their cultural norms and and push away their, their norms in order to in and have, have yourself, be a part of their, their culture's, religious uh celebration, yeah, go home, fuck off so what happens?
Speaker 2:here's my question.
Speaker 1:You're talking, you said school workplaces, oh yeah I seriously wanted to ask you a bunch of questions about this specifically. So yes, my story done holiday traditions at a public school, or is it still, by and large, a christian themed endeavor?
Speaker 2:so with my particular classroom. My students are not aware, at least, at very least they're not able to express their thoughts, and I understand, but you are aware of the campus culture. I try not to be. The campus is near approaching 3000. And I am really not involved. I am housed on a high school campus, but I am really not a high school class, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:It does yes.
Speaker 2:I'm there, but at times I don't want to be there and at times I think the school would rather we not be there. So it's kind of this awkward trying time. What'd you write there?
Speaker 1:psych is unaware of high school life, circa 2024, oh no that's too broad.
Speaker 2:What she wrote is way too broad. You you narrow that to holiday.
Speaker 1:Uh, traditions and practices just like, just like, uh. The song says it's the impression that I get no, no, the, I mean coaching soccer.
Speaker 2:I am well aware of what is going on at the high school and the trends, and I watch enough social media to know, trying to get ahead of my about-to-be high school student. But holidays, holidays. Where do I start? Here's the thing the school approaching 3,000 plus students, not even accounting for the faculty or the faiths, morals, standards, expectations, conflict. So then, what do you do with that? What do you do with that? My religion says this. Okay, I accept that. My religion says this, I accept that.
Speaker 2:And then one tenet here and one principal here are counter each other. Well, do you or don't you? And how do you resolve that? And can you coexist? Could you have a gathering altogether? Hey, we're just going to forget all of our differences and we're going to find something central that we can all agree upon. That's fine, that's great. I applaud that. I don't see that happening as much as I would like, simply because groups are with clubs and hey, on Wednesday this group meets, and on Tuesdays this group meets, and then we have have this club on Wednesday and every day has almost a dozen clubs, and we're almost self-segregating throughout the entire year and, holidays aside, we're, if we used to call it Christmas break, right when, when we were growing up. Yeah, it was Christmas break, it's winter break.
Speaker 1:Yeah, honestly, I tend to agree that winter break is a better name for it in our current cultural landscape.
Speaker 2:So yes, Because there's many other things that are celebrated during that time. I get it.
Speaker 1:We are embracing the fact that we're we break during this time.
Speaker 2:I get it.
Speaker 1:We are embracing, we break during this season and a lot of holiday traditions follow the lunar cycle and December, january, february, that period is. You find a lot of religious significance across different cultures in that period and so, yeah, the semantics I mean. You hear people it's called Christmas, happy holidays, you know, say Merry Christmas and no. Neither of those arguments I feel are incorrect, but I feel that if you need someone to say merry christmas then you are doing the potential of another's culture a disservice I've never felt the need for somebody to say merry christmas, but what are you?
Speaker 1:special you're so you're so clean and crisp right now thank you yeah what?
Speaker 2:and you know I'm not but what, what? I am against people being afraid to say that if they want to. And yes, we've been seeing this evolution for a while I don't know if you've noticed in various clothing or printing or periodicals, it seems like this particular season it's all mary. There's been so many things with mary on it. Absent of christmas, there's been pajamas and coats and sweatshirts and coffee cups with just mary on it.
Speaker 1:That's so odd? I'm not, I'm not cognizant of that.
Speaker 2:It is just mary, and they completely took out christmas. But they but it's red and white stuff, or red, white and green stuff, red and green stuff, and it's just merry, it's traditional Christian holiday colors, but we're all just merry, yes, but you know what?
Speaker 2:That's a really good business acumen, because you are identifying that there are so many different cultures everyone wants to be married come on, and so I can sell more sweatshirts with the word just marry on it yes, absolutely, we should come out with one, and it should be like a matlab marry lying blank adjective or or cultural, cultural significant statement yes, yes, I think that's great oh, I think that's fucking brilliant mad lib, mad lib.
Speaker 1:so in the context of holiday inclusivity, it sounds like. It sounds like you don't really see. So here's a good question to kind of conclude this Do you see or think that high school age kids are engaging in cultural awareness at that level, to where they're to work? So I mean obviously so in the supermarket industry, you know, I encountered a lot of people who, like a cashier, would say hey, happy holidays, and someone would turn back and scowl Merry Christmas. Do you get the impression that those kinds of divisions are occurring in high school, or is it something that we're learning later in life?
Speaker 2:I don't think the high schoolers mind that much, at least the ones that I have encountered, the ones that I coach, I mean my team student athletes are outliers. They're exceptional right they're. They're meeting all the demands of their schooling and then they're doing extra right and they're also meeting those demands as well. So that group, those are the people I spend the most time with, but the greater population I would say they're not into it. They don't know, they're relatively oblivious to what's going on in life around them and I think if they are indoctrinated to have those beliefs or thoughts or ideas, it's probably coming from their families.
Speaker 1:Of course it is so I don't think that they own those ideas or thoughts at at this stage and we all I mean we all know that concepts of racism, prejudice, cultural disbelief are learned, they're trained, you know, they're familial. It's interesting and I wonder if it's just because I mean, you're talking about kids and I don't deal with kids. Obviously, you know, cats don't have opinions, except for, you know, I think that we should get snacks right now. That's a pretty solid opinion for cats. However, I'd like to believe that, as we grow as a society, that the younger generations are less intolerant and that they are believing less of the indoctrinations that are being thrust upon them by their parents and by the generation before them because of all of the information they have available to them.
Speaker 2:Now I will say I don't disagree with all of that, but I will say my particular school and my experience. I'm coming to learn that people in the area that I work know my site to be one of the more well-off right when you drive into the parking lot and the students are in-.
Speaker 2:You're not the only Mercedes lot and the students are in. You're not the only mercedes, bmws and mercedes and land rovers and teslas and rivians right there. If that, if those are the cars that the students are driving into work right, the parents must be all out of control.
Speaker 1:So I went to. So when I went to high school, we I went to a very strange high school was the largest high school in stockton where I went to high school. We, I went to a very strange high school. It was the largest high school in Stockton where I went to school and it was people picked from all these different areas. So you had those affluent kids in the fucking convertibles and the goofy shit and you also had people on bikes, people walking in, people in these beaters that they that they had to learn to maintain, as you know, these beaters that they had to learn to maintain as high school kids. It was a very diverse environment but there was never really any. If I had to think about it in retrospect, maybe it was just my perception at the time, but when the holidays came around, it was very Christian-th came around, it was very christian themed, it was very christmas. Well, I was not aware, I didn't know. I mean, I mean chinese new year. Yes, lunar, lunar. It's not chinese. No, lunar new year but, it's.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was once known as chinese new year, now it's lunar why is it known as lunar new year now? Because there are other asian cultures that also celebrate it interesting.
Speaker 1:My apologies, lunar new year I was. You know that was a thing, um, but very large khmer uh population, very large Middle Eastern population. We had a bit of black culture there but we didn't really do things. I don't know. I grew up with Cambodian kids and I don't know any of their religious holiday stuff. I didn't go to a Kwanzaa celebration until rest took me to one. I was 23, okay, uh, things like that, like so. So those kinds of things, they were not.
Speaker 2:They were not offerings when I went to high school in the in the mid 90s I find them all interesting, yes, and intriguing, and I would encourage anyone to learn about any and all of them if they have the option I loved the kwanzaa celebration that I went to with russ.
Speaker 1:Uh, it was at a place where we used to go to do poetry, slam stuff, okay, and had a pastor there and and so one of the traditions is to water a plant right Giving life to something in celebration of the death of others.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's something I'm doing wrong here. I should water the plants.
Speaker 1:Kwanzaa around at your house, yes, and he asked the preacher. He asked us to call out people who had died, who meant something to us, and every time someone said something, he poured a little water into this plant. That was there. It was really. It was an enjoyable experience and people were, like you know, calling out their grandparents and calling out figures from history. Someone said Frederick Douglass, things like that, right, right. And then people would start calling out and I loved that. The man was so, so, so stoic with all of these things yes, yes, you're, yes, your grandmother, mary. And then people like people.
Speaker 2:Somebody yelled out not marry the mother of god.
Speaker 1:No, no, no and somebody yelled out rosa parks. He said rosa parks is not dead. And and then someone yelled out Jesus Christ, jesus Christ is not dead. And it kept. But it was. You know, I found the humor in that the people didn't know that Rosa Parks was still alive at the time. But you know the celebration, you know the uniqueness of the celebration of life stuck with me. This is 23 years ago. You know the uniqueness of the celebration of life stuck with me. This is, this is 23 years ago. Wow, you know, uh. So, yes, I love, I wish I spent, I would. I would like to spend more time embracing the religious celebrations of other cultures so do you think?
Speaker 2:I mean, I grew up in the bay area, I was surrounded very diverse just about every culture and it was normal. That was, that was I went to grade school with a guy from lebanon and many people from all over the world, and also, as an adolescent, my parents sent me all over the world, so I had different opportunities. Yes, obviously, all of those experiences shaped who I am and my perception of people in general.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, growing up at your particular school in well, as you traversed and navigated yourself from grade school elementary middle school, high school, if one is to go through their schooling all in one area which I did that would absolutely influence and affect your perception 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went to school. I went to a K-8 and then high school and they were a mile apart.
Speaker 2:Okay. So at what point in your educational career did you learn of somebody else's holiday traditions? When did you first become aware that, oh, they don't celebrate Christmas? I didn't. Until when I was an adult, oh, okay yeah. Until when I was an adult, oh, okay yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, much later. Yeah, I grew up with all these people and I knew not everybody celebrated Christmas. I knew that. Yes.
Speaker 2:But celebrating something other than Christmas came.
Speaker 1:Much later. I mean, I just discovered about this thing my boy was talking about at work. I'm still discovering, I am, I am tragically sheltered.
Speaker 2:We need a side conversation. Road trip You're taking some trips coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you want to hop on a plane with me? I, I'm going to places. I'm going to Phoenix. I'm going to Seattle. I'm going to Boise. I'm going to places. I'm going to Phoenix, I'm going to Seattle, I'm going to Boise. I am going places. I'm going to West Virginia.
Speaker 2:I commit to crashing at least a couple of this man's escapades, so good and with that, so good, because I got to pee hell bad.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on our random conversations, no no, that's good content. Ai content, holiday inclusivity thank you for joining us. Hey, hey, like. Share, subscribe, comment, comment. Please tell us, tell us what you like and don't like. We are. We are creating a thing that is for you. Obviously, we enjoy talking to each other. We could do that without recording ourselves. So you have, you have a voice. We do most, yeah, no. So, with that being said, it just rings.
Speaker 1:So dumb. Join us next time. Thank you, we're hella stupid. Dude that's going to sound so bad in the recording. Go Dude. That's going to sound so bad in the recording.
Speaker 2:Go yeah, put those AI.
