Enormous!
Two older gay guys telling stories and discussing anything, everything and nothing in particular.
Enormous!
Enormous Interactions
Remember when conversations didn't involve emojis or GIFs, or have "LIKE" buttons? You're not alone! Technology has undeniably altered our lives in unprecedented ways. In this episode, KC and Harley discuss how the evolution of smart phones have not only changed the way we converse, but have altered the way we live. Amidst these technological advancements, they highlight the importance of real-life interactions, especially in today's online world of curated social media and the rise of "social influencers".
Laugh with KC and Harley in a brand new surprise segment where they share their collective frustrations with traffic due to inept drivers. And, don't miss "Soundtrack Of Our Lives" where they each share a song and personal memory from their pasts.
Tune in as they navigate this digital age, share their insights, experiences, and explore possible solutions to the challenges it presents. Get ready for an engaging and insightful conversation you wouldn't want to miss!
Enormous Website: www.EnormousPodcast.com
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Link: The Soundtrack Of Our Life Video Playlist
Link: Male Diva EDM Spotify Play List
Link: Songs Of Our Life Spotify Play List
Okay, let's do it one more time.
Speaker 2:Fatty says enormous and Frankie says with your host, harley and KC. What are you going to say after that?
Speaker 1:And here's one of your hosts, KC.
Speaker 2:Wait, I'm going to play the part of Big Fatty Online and I'm also playing two parts the part of Frankie Enormous, With your hosts Harley and KC.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Enormous. This is Harley.
Speaker 2:And this is KC Welcome.
Speaker 1:How are you doing today? You know what I'm doing. We've just had a whole podcast together and we're doing the opening at the very end Behind the scenes. Yeah, let's pull back the curtain here for a moment. The Big Fat Curtain. Here's the Big Fat reveal. The Big Fat reveal. If we've been working on this podcast for over an hour, it's probably going to end up about 20 minutes long by the time we cut out bathroom breaks We'll allow the bathroom breaks and barking dogs and ice cubes and everything else, the drink break, all the breaks.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Enormous. We are just getting ready to quit, but you can listen to a whole episode right after us. We are going to do something new today. We have a new segment. We do. Well, you thought of it, I did, yeah, I don't know, even know what it is. Yet what is it? It's a surprise. Stay tuned Well that's what you told me anyway, stay tuned for a big surprise, yep.
Speaker 1:We have a new segment that we're going to introduce in this show, and I don't know if we're going to keep doing it or not. After you listen to it, let us know what you think and if you like it, we'll do it again. If not, we'll, just can it?
Speaker 2:Right, stay tuned for Enormous Surprise, and if you have suggestions for something to add to that segment, let us know that as well, right?
Speaker 1:As usual, we're also going to have the soundtrack of our life. Casey and I have both chosen a song that represents a part of our lives that was important to us. And is there anything else? No, let's dive right in.
Speaker 2:So, prosecuting attorney, would you like to rephrase the statement? Yes, I would like to.
Speaker 1:Okay, go ahead, you do. You do say I'm like a lawyer in court asking questions. Okay, here's the statement. Tell me if you agree. Okay, social media has changed the way we interact with other human beings in such a dramatic way that we can never return.
Speaker 2:You did a question, but then you kind of answered the question, so you should have just done the first part and then stopped while you were ahead. Okay, let me try again. All right, one more time. Okay, take three Casey.
Speaker 1:I'm here. Do you solemnly pledge? I do.
Speaker 2:You do, okay. Well, it all started when the grocery store decided that we could start checking out our own groceries and not interact with the person. Oh, that's interesting. So it really started before social media, but it's been now exacerbated by social media and the cell phone.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Do you remember that switch over? You remember when you started pumping your own gas and buying your own groceries?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then not interacting with the person anymore. You didn't have to.
Speaker 2:Right. So any kind of skill development for having a conversation or visiting with someone or making a little eye contact, all that began to change, because now I can at that point, then I can go get gas, go to the grocery store and buy groceries, go to the bank, start doing all these things that used to always be an interaction with another human being where you'd have to, you know, maybe smile or make nice or have some small talk or something like that. And then along came the cell phone and we were still interacting somewhat. But then what happened with the cell phone is we're at the point now with that where, if you and I go out to dinner or to the bar, like we did last weekend, you see people that are together, but they're not even really together there, because they're all standing there staring at their own individual phones. Yeah, that's right. So there's that part. Then now, on top of that, we'll put the apps on the phone and so then you are interacting with people, but in an artificial intelligence sort of way.
Speaker 1:I think that the core may be a little different though, because I think of social media as a way to interact with other people, and when grocery stores and corporations started trying to save money by not having live people I mean it happened with telephone trees on large corporate phone systems, happened at the grocery store, like you mentioned, and pumping your own gas it was a way for large corporations to save money, but it really wasn't a way to enhance interaction or social contact with other people. To me, the big change was when Apple introduced the iPhone, and the reason why I say that is because it was the first time that we ever had a device in our hands. It could be with us all the time where we did not have to talk to use the phone.
Speaker 2:Right, but I have this question for you when you first got the phone, then did you start a text with someone. What do you call that? A thread, A text thread, I guess, with someone. And there might be a point where you or the other person you call them Sure, and you go let's just talk about this on the phone because this texting thing it's too much and we can finish our thought process faster by just voice talking to each other on the phone. But then that changed over time.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, Sure. I mean I was texting on a telephone or I shouldn't say that I was texting on a mobile phone before the iPhone came out. I mean, you could do you remember how you could push one button two or three times to get to a different? Letter.
Speaker 1:To get the proper letter of course I was pretty good at that, I was pretty fast, but the thing about that was it only did one thing you could write words and send them to someone. It was basically just a short form of email Right, a quick way to send somebody a short message. But when smartphones came out, then all of a sudden it was different. We started being able to take pictures, and then we wanted to share pictures, and then Facebook sort of crept into our reality and we started posting who we were and what was going on in our lives, and then our phones allowed us to access Facebook. We didn't have to be on our computers anymore, and so that was to me sort of the takeoff of social media, and it just exploded from that point on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree. A lot of the sharing apps are based from probably what was the one before Facebook. Myspace was first and then came Facebook and then anything, whether it was Instagram or whatever. I mean it was still kind of a sharing with your friends and I'm saying friends, making little rabbit ear quotes with my fingers, because even the term friends has come to mean something different than what it did for you and I in the beginning. If we said we had a friend, that meant a real person that I knew and had stood in the same room with and breathed the same air with and looked in their eyes and had a conversation. But now friends is a different thing. We try to get likes and we try to get friends, but they're not that same kind of friend.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm trying to remember. I heard something I think it was a podcast in the last year or so about when everything changed. There was a new element that was introduced, and I think it was the like button, and Facebook started that, so now you could measure. It wasn't just interacting with people, it suddenly became addictive when you could measure how many people noticed and liked what you said or a picture that you posted or something like that, and I forget what year that started. We'll have to look that up and figure that out. They like me. They really, really like me. I think that was that's the core emotion that she expressed, and I think when they came up with the like button, bingo, all of a sudden, things went crazy. Right.
Speaker 2:Because enough likes now and you can even develop a big enough platform to be monetized, so likes can even turn into money for you. And I have a question about your phone. You do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, A telephone was a device that we used to talk to people. What percentage of the number of minutes that you have your phone turned on do you think you talk?
Speaker 2:Actually use it as a telephone nowadays. Yes Wow, a really small percentage.
Speaker 1:Less than 5%. Yeah, probably Less than 2%. Somewhere between that two and five probably, so really, the device we call our phones has really nothing to do with talking to people anymore, if that's just a small app that we occasionally use.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not very much anymore. Isn't that think about that, yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty impactful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how long has it been since we came that way?
Speaker 2:Right Now, that's you and I. There's probably other people that do. There is other people Not probably. I know that there is, and why I know this is because I've been in the grocery store and been subject to that person. Okay, that's walking up and down every aisle with an earpiece, in talking on their phone, their cell phone, to someone the whole time they do their grocery shopping. So their percentage is probably apparently higher than mine.
Speaker 1:I would think the older you are, the more likely you are to spend more time talking on the phone versus using the phone for everything else.
Speaker 2:Do you remember? I remember my grandmother's house. There was a little setay there, a little seat Next to that. It had shelves and that was a little unit built on the same four legs. So this seat with this shelf it was a phone table. And that was a phone table and I remember her sitting there and talking on the phone.
Speaker 1:Yep, you certainly didn't wander around. No, you didn't drive, you didn't shop in the grocery store, you didn't work at your desk, you didn't do a zillion other things. If you were talking on the phone, check it out, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the beginning of it. That's the beginning of it. Then we got the longer curly cord Right and we could move about a bit little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody had a phone in their kitchen.
Speaker 2:Yep, then we got phones all over the house. I remember my first phone at home. I think they had an add-on service to the main phone, so to my parents' phone they could get this thing called Teen Link, and that was another phone number and another line in the house. Oh wow.
Speaker 1:Is that?
Speaker 2:a lesser price.
Speaker 1:I remember that. Yeah, so we've really come a long way, right? The question is is it a good way or is it a bad way?
Speaker 2:I mean, there are parts of like anything. There's parts that are good and bad. Right, there is some good parts of being able to streamline things and accomplish things quickly and gain information or find out facts or learn things or connect in a way with somebody, like get a hold of them quickly if you need to.
Speaker 1:I mean navigation systems in cars are kind of useless at this point. Yeah, you don't really need one anymore? No, because the phone has it Right and the phone is always updated.
Speaker 2:Right when we first bought the noodle car. Of course it didn't have navigation built into the dash and we were appalled by that, simply appalled. But it has a car play which connects to your Apple phone, so your navigation is there.
Speaker 1:So who needs a separate? My Jeep is 11 years old and every 30 days it asks me if I wanna update the map. Well, no, I don't wanna update the map, because why would I? I have a current map on my phone. Every time it updates.
Speaker 2:And at this point you're gonna have to let your car run for probably about three hours to do that update. And then the truth. Yeah, I bet you would.
Speaker 1:But what are the things we use our phone for that are necessary? One is directions, notes perhaps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean still communication, but just not voice communication.
Speaker 1:Social media, then is something totally different.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Social media is where people connect to interact and exchange ideas and to exchange photographs, exchange whatever. It's an interaction. It doesn't seem like the face to face interaction is nearly as much as it used to be.
Speaker 2:No, that's where I see it getting harder for people to interact with each other in a real life setting, because they're not kind of learning how to do it as well.
Speaker 1:Is there anybody that doesn't have a phone that wants one?
Speaker 2:Not well, very few people, I don't think.
Speaker 1:I know, when I drive around Denver and I see the people that are living in tents that don't have houses to live in, they all have phones. Yep, they do they actually do. The people asking for money on the street. They have phones.
Speaker 2:Yep, I don't know how that works, but it works.
Speaker 1:Somehow they get phones. I don't know if someone gives them to them or if they pay by the minute or how that works. Right, yeah, but that's part of something that is I wonder if it couldn't even be implanted into us at some point in time.
Speaker 2:The phone- yeah, we're just wearing it yeah.
Speaker 1:Within ourself. I mean, we're close to that. Yeah, that's true. We now can pay for groceries and gas with our phones. We don't need a wallet anymore. In Colorado they have a digital license.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:So you don't even need a physical license anymore. Right, still not accepted everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yet but that's the direction they're working in. It will be. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:We use our phone to access our bank account to make payments, to send people money to pay bills. Do you write a check?
Speaker 2:anymore for anywhere to pay a bill. Nope, well, it's always constantly research, right, right, just knowledge, go on anything on the internet. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We can do basically anything on a computer, on our phones, yep, whether it's researching a subject or like today. Before we started this podcast, I looked up social media and I wanted to know if podcasting was considered social media, and I can't find anybody that says it is. But they do say that YouTube is social media. They seem so similar.
Speaker 2:I can't quite figure that out, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know the difference. You could have a live podcast and people could participate.
Speaker 2:Generally, I would think social media is the interaction part, where you put something out there and people either comment back to you or they like it Right.
Speaker 1:That's possible with podcasting. It is Just like YouTube. It's not quite as immediate maybe, but Well, do you think it's any different than YouTube? No, no, I really don't.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting, so that's kind of perplexing, yeah, that might be one person's opinion.
Speaker 1:So I see the younger generation now and this is going to come off making me sound really old, which I am but I see the younger generation very concerned about their popularity in social media. They have now what they call influencers. Right, an influencer with someone with so many followers, so many, as you said in air quotes earlier friends or so many likes that they hold a power within the business world. Yeah, that if someone were to use them to advertise a product or use them to promote something, it would help their product. And so I think there's a lot of young people now who don't want to necessarily learn a trade or do something involved with you know what we traditionally think of as a job, and they just want to be An influencer. Yeah, media people, yeah, how do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:Well, it's just, it's wild to me. I don't really know how to feel and I don't feel good about it. But I'm not exactly sure how to feel. I feel like it's just wild. I don't quite understand it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I read an article several years ago it was probably 15 years ago or more and it was in the San Francisco Chronicle, and there was an article about a particular company in San Francisco. Basically, it was like a counseling service. They would go into companies and try to start communications between people. Because what was happening was, even if people were side by side in a cubicle, they would send messages, but they would not have a conversation. And they found out that these young people who were involved in these mostly tech companies, were not able to have a conversation. They didn't know how to do it. They didn't know how to wait for someone to finish talking before they made a comment, they didn't know what to say, they didn't know how to respond, and so this other company came in and taught people how to workshops on interpersonal communication. It blew me away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you think about my job where I'm teaching a kid how to interact with somebody, that was the basis of my job right To teach someone how to interact with another human. The last few years that I did that, it was increasingly difficult because they were for lack of that better term they were socially awkward with people, especially with people that were not in the same age bracket as what they were in.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's exactly right, and I think that now that attitude has even worn off to people like us that grew up in an era when we did talk all the time. If you needed to contact a company or had a problem with a service or a product, would you rather talk to somebody on the phone, text them, or would you rather send an email?
Speaker 2:If you would ask me a couple of years back, I would have said that I'd rather talk to them on the phone. And my husband is that still him he's still ready to make a call. For myself, I've changed over time now. Now I will try to look it up online or get answers in other ways rather than trying to talk to somebody. But that's probably just because I know that it's gonna be hard for me to really talk to somebody.
Speaker 1:You can't talk to people anymore.
Speaker 2:No, no, and that's why I don't really try anymore, because I'll get more frustrated than if I just look for a while myself.
Speaker 1:So it's a very complex problem that we have. I find, between COVID and social media, that as human beings we've become more isolated.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I don't think that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:It's not a good thing. Social media gives a false impression of how other people. Maybe to someone like, maybe a particularly a younger person might give a false impression of how other people are living their lives, because it can be so curated.
Speaker 1:Oh right.
Speaker 2:And then you begin to think. You would begin to think well, how come my life is not all butterflies and rainbows like that other person's is, when that's not really the truth?
Speaker 1:that's just that curated look at someone's Did you watch the informational interview that Buzzsprout put out? It was about a woman that tells that reads basically copyright free bedtime stories.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't see that.
Speaker 1:It felt very curated to me. I mean her home her hair and everything was also perfect. And look how perfect I am, look how perfect my podcast is. I mean it must have been real. I mean she has lots and lots of people following her, but I just heard this.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say that on a podcast I heard Dana Carvey say it, but it was regarding what his therapist had said to him. So, where am I at? Like fourth hand.
Speaker 2:Fourth handed recount this but I still liked what I heard. And this person supposedly said life is a shit show and don't get hung up on the idea that people are living these dream lives that you see on the internet or on TV or on social media. Everything's all made up, just like TV and the movies. It is kind of, isn't it? To live life is to suffer through it, and that's really what everybody does and that we should embrace all of that.
Speaker 1:That's probably true. Buddha talks says that suffering is the first lesson that we need to learn as humans, because we all suffer for various reasons.
Speaker 2:It's the truth in one way or the other. But don't suffer at the hand of thinking somebody else's thing is better than yours, Cause in real life it's probably not. They're suffering as well.
Speaker 1:Casey. How do we get around this problem? What's the answer? How do we? Maybe there's not an answer, but how do we start fixing the problem?
Speaker 2:Well, human interaction in real life. But how do we do that? You have to make a conscious effort to do it Right To go out. It's a sad thing, cause we were just. We just had a conversation off air earlier today about a prominent reopened nightclub or gay bar I guess, here in Denver that tried to reopen kind of with a new angle and maybe try to the demographic they tried to kind of go for was maybe a younger, urban, hip crowd or whatever, and that is apparently it didn't work out for them.
Speaker 2:They say they're closing again and we were talking about that, saying they should have went for the demographic maybe of our age of people that we still do want to go out face to face with people and sit around the table and have a conversation with our phones down. Without our phones in our hand, we actually leave them. Believe it or not, when you and I go out with our friends and our significant people, our phones stay in our pocket, right, we actually talk to each other.
Speaker 1:Well, most of the time when I walk in into someplace where there's into work or at home, or into a friend's house my phone is facing face down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if you look at it right now, it's facing face down. In fact, you commented about that a few months ago, right? And you commented about the fact that I always have my phone facing down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was trying to. I didn't know if it was well, you know you could think a lot of things If you're, maybe you're just trying to not let your phone interrupt you. Maybe you're trying to hide something. Right, it could be construed. Yeah, maybe you have a pop socket on the back and it's easier to lay it face down just because of the geometrics of your phone case.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm so easily distracted. The reality of the answer, the correct answer, is I'm so easily distracted that I put it face down so I don't see something and go off topic or lose my focus, because I do that well enough without the phone, right? Not the young generation. They have it on them all the time and it's up and they, you know they oftentimes have to charge it during the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd be curious to see how they're managing that at school right now, after 2020, and the kids with their phones. They must be tough.
Speaker 1:Wow, I would think it would be actually so, if you were going to write a HALT2 book and what you just said. We just need to initiate more contact and interaction with people. What's the first step? I mean, break it down. That's sort of a generalized statement oh okay, so what's the first thing you do?
Speaker 2:Boy, it's so hard. I mean cause just thinking to myself like if I'm talking to someone younger, you're saying or just anyone.
Speaker 1:How do we initiate contact with strangers, or even people that we?
Speaker 2:know you have to have the gumption and the courage and be brave enough to go out there in the real world and get face to face with people. And that's going to be harder now because it's easy to not do that. It's easy to stay home and stare at your device or your computer or your screen.
Speaker 1:I would say that the first step would be if there's someone that you could potentially make contact with say, it's a Amazon delivery person that you run into as you're walking out your front door, or you're at the grocery store and it's a checker, or you're at the gas station and you go in to buy a snack or a soda or something like that I think the first step is to say hello and ask the person how they are. Chances are they will say I'm fine, thank you, how are you? And the expected response is to say I'm fine, thank you. If you interjected another piece of verbiage or whatever, do you have any weekend plans? It's a beautiful day, weekend's almost here. I can't wait for the rain. It looks like it's gonna rain. I can't wait for it, something like that Then you've opened up the opportunity for at least the exchange of a couple words into practice. A short communication.
Speaker 2:You know what I wished that I had. Really thinking about it and thinking back just to myself in this situation, I wished that I had which I never had in my whole life a wingman Really A wingman, a wingwoman, a wingperson, whatever you wanna call that your friend that you go out with. Right, that's your safety net. Okay, we can go out to the bar together and have a drink, but if you wanna wander off in your direction, or I wanna wander off in mine and we'll meet again, or if you feel uncomfortable, scared, intimidated, unsure, find me, we'll come back together to our little safety net with each other again. I think that's a great thing, too, to have a travel buddy.
Speaker 1:It might be a great way to sort of shore up your insecurities, but it's not a great way to meet other people or to have conversations. I know one of the things that I see is, when someone comes in with a wingman, I will assume that it's a wife, a spouse a boyfriend, a girlfriend, something like that, and you're not supposed to talk to them.
Speaker 1:Or if they come in with more than one person, I call it their entourage and I think of it sort of like a defensive what would I say? Like playing football, it's sort of a defense to protect the one with the ball.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And so they're not approachable either. I think the best way to meet people is to be or to talk to people or to engage with people is to be by yourself and just smile and say hello.
Speaker 2:You think, and I have to disagree with you Really? Yeah, because I feel like I do much better. Even if I take a friend with me now and go somewhere, just because I know that I'm in the safety and security of that person and that they've got my back, then I'm more outgoing and open and have a tendency to talk to more people or pull them into our conversation or whatever so do you think that's happened or gotten worse since you've stopped teaching? Things definitely change.
Speaker 1:Or do you think you've always been a little bit that way?
Speaker 2:Well, what do you mean that like shy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like not Just the basic word.
Speaker 2:I've always been yeah, more, I've always been in how do they say it? An introverted extrovert, because in real life I'm introverted, but everybody thinks I'm the life of the party. Everybody thinks that that's who I am, but that's not really me.
Speaker 1:Well, because I started my own business and the only way I can make money is to sell something to someone. I was sort of forced into it. So I learned those skills, but I don't always feel comfortable. But I'll give an example. So about a month ago my best friend's son died suddenly and I was just heartbroken and devastated and sad and I felt lost. I felt bad for my friend because she was such a wonderful loving person and still is, and had put so much into her son that when he died suddenly I thought that she was just going to be wrecked. I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home from work. The cashier, who recognized me, said how are you doing today? And I said I'm not doing so. Well, I was just honest with her and she said well, I don't wanna ask. I said no, no, it's okay, I'm happy to tell you. I said my best friend's son just died. They just found him this morning in his apartment and she said oh my God, that's terrible. She said I think you need some flowers.
Speaker 2:Oh boy.
Speaker 1:And I said. I said I don't know that flowers are really gonna help this. She said I think they'll help. On your way out of the store, pick whatever bouquet of flowers you want. She gave it to you and I'll take care of it.
Speaker 2:yes, oh, my God.
Speaker 1:And it brought a tear to my eye. Yeah, me too, I mean when I walked out and picked up those flowers, I thought here is this lovely person who only knows me from shopping in this store and we haven't had long conversations or in-depth discussions on anything. It's just a hello and how are you Right? And I was honest with her and she reached out and did that for me.
Speaker 2:She could have easily just gone the other way and thought, ooh, he's scared me. Now he's an oversharer and I don't know how to deal with this Right.
Speaker 1:And maybe we're too sensitive to that. Maybe a little bit of sharing would help bring everybody together and realize that we're not all perfect and we don't all have happy influencer lives Right, that there are moments when we were hurting and we're sad and we feel lonely or stressed or sick or whatever. Life's a shit show, yeah, like.
Speaker 1:I said so I ran into her two days ago and there were some very long lines Every now and then. At Trader Joe's they're so service oriented that this rarely happens, but every now and then they'll be like six people and waiting for three checkers.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And then they have these little brass bells. They ring at the register and one bell means one thing and two bells means something else, and three bells means something else.
Speaker 2:We have an experience that.
Speaker 1:So they rang one bell and I would say within 30 seconds there were six lanes open, wow. And so everybody that was waiting in line, you know, started to spread out and this woman who bought me flowers was all the way at the end and she saw me and she waved at me and motioned for me to come down to her and she rang me out and she said how are you doing? I said I'm doing pretty well, a little tired, but I'm doing well. And I said but I wanted to thank you and tell you how much it meant to me when I told you about my friend's son and you offered flowers to me, I said it made my day, it changed my world. Thank you so much for that. She said you're welcome. And I mean that was truly a kind gesture. I don't know if she paid for it or if they're allowed to do that as employees, or whether she just thought nobody would know if I took flowers, that I hadn't paid for them, but it was still the thought of her caring enough about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing really, and I find that a lot in my life.
Speaker 1:I do overshare, it's true, and it gets me into trouble sometimes, and sometimes I'm very embarrassed by it. But a little bit of sharing, of not just saying when someone says, how are you doing today and you're having the worst day of your life, and say, oh, I'm just fine. How are you Sharing a little bit's? Okay, I think so too, even if it's just I'm having a tough day today, but you know, I bet tomorrow's better.
Speaker 2:It's the only way to then begin to establish those real connections with people that we're saying, that we wanna do. You have to share a little bit.
Speaker 1:You're not gonna find that online.
Speaker 2:No, no, because the online is. I feel great every day, all the time in my life is perfect and that's not real.
Speaker 1:And I find what's even funny about these hookup apps and apps that young people are. Well, everybody's using them. The gay community uses, the straight community uses to meet other people. Oftentimes they're so sexually oriented that you don't even get to know the person. Right. You know, it's just one person after another just for an immediate satisfaction of being attractive enough that someone wants to have sex with you. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not really. I'm too old. I'm not really sure how it works. I guess what happened to the good old days that we went to the bar?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually had a conversation and groped each other up.
Speaker 2:In our day. Oh boy, I really sound old saying that. In our day Back in the old days Back in our day. Didn't you ever get deep with somebody about? What you like and don't like and we kinda covered some of that. Sometimes, if you were gonna go home with somebody, you made sure that you were gonna be compatible in those sort of ways, because you covered that in a discussion eyeball to eyeball. I mean, that was an intense discussion really actually. What about the pheromones?
Speaker 1:I still say we're attracted to somebody by their smell.
Speaker 2:I totally do, I totally say that. Even though you may not smell them consciously, there's something subconscious, your brain's registering that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What is the takeaway from this discussion about social apps? I mean, I'm kinda fed up with them. I don't use Facebook. Twitter was the thing that brought all the podcasters together, and now that that's gone, I feel isolated. That way, it's harder to make contact with an email or a text message. You wouldn't text a stranger.
Speaker 2:I would say a change is coming and be ready for it, and hopefully it'll move in a direction where we're actually talking to each other eyeball to eyeball again.
Speaker 1:It's kinda bad right now. There's nowhere to really go. Threads was a bust. Twitter is still being politically fed.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I opened mine this morning.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's terrible.
Speaker 2:And it was. I don't know how it happened to me. I don't know what I looked at for it to be fed in this direction, but it was all stuff in the leaning way that I did not wanna lean.
Speaker 1:I don't like the political stuff at all anyway, and so I don't look at any of it. And today I opened it up and it was all political stuff.
Speaker 2:Maybe something happened then today, because I did too.
Speaker 1:There's been some change in some algorithms. I couldn't even find the people that I like the gardeners in England and I agree I didn't wanna see all that. It's just amazing. And then on the other side is the whole Facebook Instagram threads side, which is so over-regulated that you can't say a naughty word or do something to violate their what do they call it? Their social standards. Right.
Speaker 2:Oh, now we're sounding old, we're sounding two times old. Now we're saying, oh, I miss the old days of the good old fashioned Twitter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think that sounds old. I think it sounds like we like real life and real interactions that aren't manipulated. I got on Facebook last week and I either couldn't sleep or for some reason, I had some time to burn. It was probably why I was awake in the middle of the night. I just started going through my feed and seeing my friends and everybody that had something nice to say I just liked this person was in Europe. This person just had a baby. This person was just got married.
Speaker 2:Did you say Facebook?
Speaker 1:Facebook. We're going back, aren't we? We're gonna go back to Facebook, and so I just started liking things and after about five minutes it said your account has been frozen for one hour because you have not complied with our social standards. Really, on Facebook, on Facebook, and the only thing I did was like positive posts from my friends. None of them had naughty pictures, none of them had four letter words or naughty expressions.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on, unless someone had hacked into one of my Facebook accounts, because I have several, you know. There's the enormous account and there's the one for the store and there's the one for Murman Beach and all these different things. Maybe somebody hacked into something and posted something.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:I thought what? Because I hadn't been on there in a while and I just started liking a bunch of my friends stuff. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:Because I always thought that was the rule with that algorithm on Facebook was if I like my friends my real legit friends, things and posts or whatever, then I would begin to be able to see more of that Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I think one of the things that I've noticed with credit cards and ones that don't run at work is that if someone changes their buying habits, if someone either spends more or less or more often or something, they will put a hold on it and they call it a fraud alert. And then once you call your credit card and say, yes, it was me and yes, I just got back from England, or yes, I've just bought $6,000 and new leather goods or whatever that they'll say it's okay. And I wonder if that's what happened with Facebook.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say that might be what Facebook did, was they said this account is liking too many things in a row.
Speaker 1:This account hasn't been active for six months or a year or two years or whatever. Now, all of a sudden, they're liking all these things. It feels like the algorithm said. It feels like this has been hacked.
Speaker 2:It's not a real person doing this Right, so we're gonna make it wait, yep, wow.
Speaker 1:So I guess the takeaway is there isn't really a takeaway. We just have to go day by day and make our lives as good as possible, reach out to as many friends as possible, but don't be afraid of being an overshare. I mean, you don't want to tell somebody every single detail of something horrible that's going on in your life. I think, personally, it's okay, when someone that you've seen before not maybe a total stranger, but somebody you've seen before asked you how you are, for you to say I'm having a bad day today, or I hope tomorrow will be better, and just leave it at that.
Speaker 2:Right. There's a big difference between you and I. I think that's our biggest difference Between me and many people. Actually, I'm guarded. I'm a 1970s gay guy who learned to be guarded and protect myself and my property and my job by being guarded and not sharing things Right, and even though we're the same age, somehow you're different there. What is?
Speaker 1:that it might be because I've been in retail my whole life.
Speaker 2:Is that what it is?
Speaker 1:And I make connections with people In order to sell what I sell, I have to develop trust, and part of that is being open about certain things in your life. And there's times when I've overshared and it's hurt me it's gone the wrong way.
Speaker 2:Well, I can tell you when I did hair and stood behind the chair. So you do share. But probably even in that real circumstance I did maybe curate my sharing a little bit probably. Yeah, yeah, well, I think I did. It was an acting job, probably. I did a persona. Right, I did that too. Yeah, I did who they needed to be while they sat in the chair and I did that.
Speaker 1:I think I've gotten a little quirky the older I've gotten because of everything that's going on in my life, but I still have always been a little bit of that. I've been a little bit, maybe too honest.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, us old people, we become unfiltered. So sometimes we're inappropriate.
Speaker 1:I'm much less filtered than I was. That is for sure Me too. So that's what we need. We need a new social media like Twitter that's called unfiltered.
Speaker 2:That's good, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, you get the programmers together. I feel like we've shared too much about this topic. How about you?
Speaker 2:I'm going to stop talking now because I don't want to overshare, okay, so, harley, you know what I was thinking about.
Speaker 1:No, Casey, what were you thinking about?
Speaker 2:Well, I've been thinking about trying to start a new segment. Oh really, what kind of segment? Not the same segment as an orange slice or a?
Speaker 1:grapefruit segment. Oh, remember those drossed dark chocolate. Sorry, tangent, delicious. Remember those drossed dark chocolate, oranges wrapped in foil. You smack them on the table and all the chocolate segments Kind of open up. Love that.
Speaker 2:I think it was to buy those, and they're delicious. I used to get them every year for Christmas. It's about that time of year. I was just going to say it's probably about that time of year for those.
Speaker 1:So you're not talking about that kind of segment.
Speaker 2:No, let's start a new segment. You want to. I think the name of it is going to be called Two Old Cranky Men.
Speaker 1:Really, that doesn't really work.
Speaker 2:No wait, let's workshop that.
Speaker 1:Let's workshop that a little. Two cranky old men.
Speaker 2:Two Where's the beef? We'll call it. Where's the?
Speaker 1:Beef. How about that? Only, it'll mean something totally different than a Wendy's burger.
Speaker 2:How about? Are you annoyed? I'm annoyed.
Speaker 1:Oh, it were getting closer. This sounds like an old man thing. How about get out of my yard? Yeah? You little hooligans. What did you call it first? Cranky, old men Cranky old men, okay, I like that. That's good.
Speaker 2:Oh, how about this?
Speaker 1:What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that?
Speaker 2:So you're cruising down the highway on an interstate. It's not the Hershey Highway. Probably it's just the highway of I-25.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm cruising down the highway.
Speaker 2:And people are coming on the entrance ramp.
Speaker 1:Are they merging? Is it called the merge lane? Okay, merge.
Speaker 2:It is called the merge lane. The assumption by people is that they can just jump on the highway and you're supposed to slow down and let them in. And what's up with that?
Speaker 1:What's up with?
Speaker 2:that, what's up with?
Speaker 1:that what's happening.
Speaker 2:Well, people come onto the highway and they expect that you're supposed to like just get out of their way so they can get on the highway because hi, I'm the most important, so please get out of my way so I can get on the highway, because I've got somewhere to go. Well, I say what's up with that? And I say can we go back to the real rules of the road? I agree, if you're in the merge lane, merge like you're supposed to Wait. What's up with that?
Speaker 3:What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that?
Speaker 1:As I commute to work now, and it used to take me between 20 to 30 minutes, now it's taking me between 30 and 40 minutes and sometimes longer. So here is this busy, busy street. It's a two lane one way and they're digging up one lane and then somebody who's delivering for Amazon or delivering fast food stops in the right lane.
Speaker 2:What's up with that?
Speaker 1:What's up with that? Nobody can move. And then you go two more blocks and it's blocked again. And then you go six more blocks and it's blocked again. What's up with these delivery drivers? We've got Uber, we've got Lyft, we've got Amazon Delivery, we've got food delivery, we've got DoorDash. We've got all of these people that are now theoretically professional drivers and they think that they have the right to stop anywhere where there's no parking, put on their flashers and run up to an apartment building and deliver something why there ought to be a rule.
Speaker 2:what's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with?
Speaker 3:that. Oh yeah, stop. Yeah, I see what's up with that.
Speaker 1:Well, casey, I think it's time, casey, casey.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm still here.
Speaker 1:It's you, it's me. Yeah, you're here. It might be time for a little soundtrack of our life segment. What do you think?
Speaker 2:That sounds amazing.
Speaker 1:Do you have a song for today?
Speaker 2:I do. Do you want me to go first? No, I go first. Ha ha ha.
Speaker 1:Thanks for asking but I'll go first. Okay, go, would you like to go first? You know what?
Speaker 2:I'd love for you to go first.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll go first. Well, my song is from 1986. I'm gonna try to see if you can guess it. Okay, it came from a movie, and the star of this movie was really hot after his first sort of hit, where he danced in his underwear.
Speaker 2:Oh, in the movie did he like kinda slide onto the scene in his underwear with his white socks on? Yes, we're speaking of Tom Cruise, right, but this is not that movie. No, this is 1986. 86, okay, now give me a little more hint. Okay, it is from a movie, the song.
Speaker 1:Who did you say Tom Cruise? Oh, tom Cruise. Yes, like Barthelona, barthelona Tom Cruise. I thought Tom Cruise and Barthelona. This song is from 1986. It's also from a movie that Tom Cruise starred in. Okay, it's not risky business, it's something different. Okay.
Speaker 2:Can you think of the movie? It was pretty big, big hit. Was there a military theme? Why, yes, there was. Well, I'm getting there, aren't I not? And maybe, like a fighter jet, you might have it. What was the name of that movie? Hold on Top Gun, top Gun, that's it. Okay, so a song from Top Gun, right? Can you give me another hint?
Speaker 1:Sure, it was performed by a new wave band, an American new wave band. Oh, that had a European name.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say but they called themselves Berlin, but they had nothing to do with Berlin.
Speaker 1:Germany. That's it, you got it. Okay, go for it. So what's the song?
Speaker 2:I can't breathe anymore.
Speaker 1:That's right. Okay, the name of the song is Take my Breath Away. Okay, I was living in Denver. I had moved here in 1982. So this takes me back to 1986, when I had just started a new relationship with my ex. It actually did last for 14 years, when we were in, I think, our first or second year. It was a very good time. Life was just starting out, denver was new and we went to go see this movie and we loved it and we fell in love with Tom Cruise and that whole military theme and the love affair between whoever his leading lady was Right. When I hear that song now, I think immediately of the movie. I can see the scenes, I can see the sunsetting, the fighter jets and it's just so visual for me. It's just. It's hard to not see something when I hear that.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what they mastered with that movie. What was that? An action like an action, adventure and romance at the same time. Oh, you're right, that's what they did.
Speaker 1:They did and they mastered it With Top Gun Yep, they totally mastered it, yep.
Speaker 2:So Casey, what is your song for today? So my song for today, I think, because recently we lost Tina Turner and we haven't really kind of covered that yet or talked about it or grieved that process and I really liked Tina Turner a lot and I saw her live here in Denver.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're kidding when?
Speaker 2:I saw her at Fiddler's Green actually.
Speaker 1:Out in that hilly grass. I think I was sitting in the grass. Oh so you're under or shoved up, your butt crack, uh-huh, that was the worst.
Speaker 2:I really liked it. Actually, I liked the open air concept of Fiddler's Green and it was sponsored by Legs. I think LEGGS remember in the egg Pantyhose Uh-huh was the promoter for that particular tour. I believe it was after the Mad Max movie. Was it Thunderdome? She was in Thunderdome, I think, so it was the Legs tour actually yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:I think it was called the Legs tour. But I'm going to go to an earlier Tina Turner song, just because I like the intensity of this song. It's kind of a love song, but it's a little bit frantic actually.
Speaker 1:Sort of like her life was with Ike.
Speaker 2:And it's back to that time of Ike and Tina Turner. So I'm going to choose River Deep, mountain, high Great song, the Tina Turner edition.
Speaker 1:Now, when you saw Tina in concert, she had already left Ike and was out on her own Totally, so she was an independent woman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was an amazing concert.
Speaker 1:But this song is probably at the height of their career together, do you think?
Speaker 2:When they did this and she did yeah, I believe so, I believe so.
Speaker 1:It sort of encompasses everything, doesn't it? A big orchestra and rock and roll and slow and fast.
Speaker 2:It's that crossover time from big band, backup band into rock music with guitars and drums, so you're probably going to hear some horns kind of the 50s horn sound, but also with a rock guitar in there.
Speaker 1:Oh, great, I can't wait to put it on and listen to it. Yep, let's do it. Great, great song. Well, we certainly forced our way through this one, didn't we? Just pushed through, just pushed through, between all the noises and the creaking chair and the barking dog and the interruptions and the wind and everything else and my squirming over here in my chair, for whatever, reason your squeaky leather chair.
Speaker 1:But before we go, visit our website EnormousPodcastcom. Leave us a message, call us something, Let us know what you think Until the next episode. It's been fun, it's been real, it's been realer than real.
Speaker 2:But it hasn't been real fun.
Speaker 1:Goodbye. What a, what a, If I can piece this ending together it is going to be really something. Okay, cue the closing music Turn out.
Speaker 2:Until next time, remember to be kind and, like us, keep it enormous, enormous, just enormous. This show is part of the Pride 48 network.
Speaker 1:Find all the best shows under the rainbow at pride48.com. Are you finished? Not yet.
Speaker 2:And scene Now I'm finished. Now I'm finished.
