Speaker 1: Are you enjoying this? Is anyone enjoying this at all?
Speaker 1: It's one more thing. I'm strong and getty. One more thing.
Speaker 1: I took my son and two of his best friends
Speaker 1: on a little getaway Friday for my son's birthday, And
Speaker 1: because they're teenagers to fifteen year olds and a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old, I have no idea if they had a
Speaker 1: good time or not. I don't really know.
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: Huh, you can't tell teenagers. You can't tell they just see,
Speaker 1: they got to act so aloof all the time, oh yeah, okay, now,
Speaker 1: a lot of laughing to themselves and everything like that.
Speaker 1: And I heard them in their hotel room and they
Speaker 1: seem to be having good time. But like in terms
Speaker 1: of just asking them questions, yeah, okay, cool, right whatever.
Speaker 1: Just I don't know. It's that cool guy age, the
Speaker 1: cool guy age. Oh my god, the amount of time
Speaker 1: it takes to an effort to walk, dress, talk, the
Speaker 1: way you got to be to be cool. Look, it
Speaker 1: looks like a lot of work.
Speaker 3: I'm usually pretty good at sussing out why, you know,
Speaker 3: kids and teenagers act in certain ways developmentally speaking the
Speaker 3: rest of it, but the whole I don't like anything.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not sure what that's all about. You want to seem
Speaker 3: in control. And do they associate and this is all
Speaker 3: I'm not saying this is insidious or anything, because it's
Speaker 3: practically universal. Yeah, but do they associate enthusiasm with childishness?
Speaker 1: I wonder that's a pretty good one right there. But
Speaker 1: I felt like the three of them together, I mean,
Speaker 1: we did some pretty cool stuff, and they saw some
Speaker 1: pretty cool stuff, and I felt like they each had
Speaker 1: to pretend to the other two that they weren't impressed
Speaker 1: for some reason, which left me thinking, why are we
Speaker 1: doing this? Is anybody enjoying this?
Speaker 3: Feeling superior to things and people? It's really important to
Speaker 3: teens too. That's why the you know, the social ladder
Speaker 3: thing can be so brutal, because anybody you can put
Speaker 3: below you elevates you, like on the class rank of coolness,
Speaker 3: which is just savage and it's terrible.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the perfect example to make my own point,
Speaker 1: I suppose. So we were at the Grove, which is
Speaker 1: a shopping area in Los Angeles for people who don't know,
Speaker 1: very cool, upscale, outdoor, beautiful day in LA. Tons of
Speaker 1: people there and everything like that, and I let them
Speaker 1: walk around and do stuff. They got some food the
Speaker 1: Farmer's market there, and they went around, shopped at some
Speaker 1: stores that they like and that sort of thing. I
Speaker 1: left them alone, and I thought, all I was walking around,
Speaker 1: I thought they have got to be noticing the female
Speaker 1: contingent here. I mean, because it was I mean between
Speaker 1: the ages of like fifteen and thirty, you know, hot
Speaker 1: and cold, running la tan well dressed attractive women, and
Speaker 1: I thought they got to be noticing with teenage boys. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I brought that up on the Uber ride to the airport.
Speaker 1: Some attractive woman there in place. Yeah, I didn't think
Speaker 1: so not. Okay, now I know you're having to put
Speaker 1: on a front, because that's ridiculous. I mean, you're in
Speaker 1: freaking loss upscale Los Angeles. Unless you're all three gay,
Speaker 1: you're really trying too hard.
Speaker 3: Well, and then at least say, I don't know about
Speaker 3: the chicks, but the dudes were pretty fresh or fly
Speaker 3: or whatever people say these days. Fly That one goes
Speaker 3: back like twenty five thirty years, doesn't it. You know,
Speaker 3: that reminds me I've got to find that hang. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna make a note to myself, even as we speak.
Speaker 3: NPR did a feature about dropping testosterone levels, and they
Speaker 3: had all the men at the NPR station test their testosterone.
Speaker 1: I haven't had an erection in a decade and a
Speaker 1: half and they were all like, way sub average. Oh
Speaker 1: really like every.
Speaker 3: Dude using finger quotes who worked there. It was like, uh, sorry,
Speaker 3: but in the parlance of today's youth, a real beta male,
Speaker 3: I mean, like a effeminate fella. And that does not
Speaker 3: shock It amuses me in a way, and it confirms
Speaker 3: what I've thought, Well, what you came first. I mean,
Speaker 3: is there something about working at NPR that drives down
Speaker 3: your just drives d levels that could happen or is
Speaker 3: that just a certain sort of person that.
Speaker 2: I think it's a type and there's a lot Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh I would agree, Yeah, I know some.
Speaker 2: I hope it's nothing that these guys have been taught
Speaker 2: like in school, like, oh, we don't engage in toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1: No, it's not that. I don't think that. It was
Speaker 1: just a I got to be unimpressed. It makes me
Speaker 1: cooler to be unimpressed. I think that's what it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you are a normal, healthy young
Speaker 3: man and you see an attractive woman with whom your
Speaker 3: very biology cries out for you to couple and produce young.
Speaker 3: They say, if you say she's really good looking, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna hit you with a bat. She's hot, pam ow
Speaker 3: ow ow, she's really cute, pam.
Speaker 1: Oh god stop. You can't help yourself.
Speaker 3: But I didn't think so. Although again, the teenage lads,
Speaker 3: I give so much latitude. Adolescence is so hard and complicated. Now,
Speaker 3: if you're twenty six and you're the guy says I
Speaker 3: don't think she's good looking, oh.
Speaker 1: My god, that's pathetic.
Speaker 3: Oh it's so pathetic. I dated okay, Oh, I get it,
Speaker 3: because you're such a stud and could have any woman
Speaker 3: on earth. The top two percent of women isn't quite
Speaker 3: hot enough for you. I get the message you're trying
Speaker 3: to send, and it's sad.
Speaker 2: I dated a guy like that in high school and
Speaker 2: it was insufferable. He could not he could not be
Speaker 2: am used by anything. And I just remember it going like,
Speaker 2: are you are you too cool for everything? I'm not
Speaker 2: understanding this and he actually, I don't know that he's
Speaker 2: grown out of it. To be honest with you, thirty six, Now, I've.
Speaker 3: Got to be vague about this to protect the innocent.
Speaker 3: But there was somebody I know very very well who
Speaker 3: was dating a young man who was very attractive, very smart,
Speaker 3: great future ahead of him. But not to overstate it,
Speaker 3: but he definitely had a mister spockish personality where he
Speaker 3: wasn't like super delighted by much. Sure, he was just
Speaker 3: emotionally very flat, very cool, very reserved, I mean, like
Speaker 3: very and this is you know, this is beyond your teenagers,
Speaker 3: and I just I think that's probably just the way
Speaker 3: he was made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotta believe in that case, since he was
Speaker 1: attractive and you said had a bright future. Most of
Speaker 1: the people have known past being a teenager, like you know,
Speaker 1: high school or high schooler is different, as you've said,
Speaker 1: it's just part of the thing for whatever reason. But like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're thirty years old and you're not impressed by
Speaker 1: anything or anyone. I've known a plenty of like real losers.
Speaker 1: I mean, your dating prospects are not good, your financial
Speaker 1: prospects are not good. So obviously that's a protection mechanism
Speaker 1: if you pretend you're not interested in anybody in this
Speaker 1: bar because you know, you feel like none of them
Speaker 1: are interested in you. That is a help to protect you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's.
Speaker 3: Been said of bigotry, and I think it's right that
Speaker 3: a lot of it springs from people who are desperate
Speaker 3: to feel superior to someone. Yeah yeah, I mean they
Speaker 3: don't have any rational basis on which to feel superior.
Speaker 3: They go with you know, skin color or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm picturing a particular person I know, and
Speaker 1: I've known several people like that, not impressed with anybody's
Speaker 1: car or house or anything like that because they are
Speaker 1: never going to have anything worth a crap. So it
Speaker 1: just makes it easier. I guess all the way pretty
Speaker 1: sad and transparent, so it doesn't bother me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel bad for somebody who has to do that
Speaker 1: to get through the day, but yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's psychological self protection. I ran into somebody like
Speaker 3: that recently too, and it hurt my heart because you know,
Speaker 3: they're not a bad person, but it was definitely a
Speaker 3: rationalizing thing. It's similar to, you know, the only way
Speaker 3: you can be successful is because you're a cheating, you know,
Speaker 3: white person or whatever. And it's rare that you see
Speaker 3: somebody who's reached their full potential pitching that sort of nonsense.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, and one more thing on this, and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna have to accept this at a certain level.
Speaker 1: I fight it in my own home. I've talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot, like the stirring at your phone. I
Speaker 1: don't want you doing it in the car with me.
Speaker 1: I don't understood the dinner table, but this was my
Speaker 1: son and his friends. This was kind of their weekend
Speaker 1: for his birthday. So I'm not going to tell them
Speaker 1: how to interact with each other. But it's amazing how
Speaker 1: much time they spent looking at their phones when the
Speaker 1: three of them are together. That's just I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just it's the way the world's going to be. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, and I can't change it. But I just thought, wow,
Speaker 1: it's like.
Speaker 2: The main form of entertainment, even when you're in good company.
Speaker 1: Right and like, and we're riding around in these ubers
Speaker 1: through Los Angeles and there's all kinds of freaking cool
Speaker 1: things everywhere you go, or unique things you've never seen before,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, I pointed out a couple
Speaker 1: of a couple of people and they glance up for
Speaker 1: their phone for a second, go back to their phone.
Speaker 1: I finally gave up on that and just not interested
Speaker 1: in observing anything in the world other than and they're
Speaker 1: playing games on their front then looking at the game
Speaker 1: on their phone. All right, I guess yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: seen the Hollywood sign before. Oh that's another thing. That's
Speaker 1: another thing I picked up at, and that makes perfectly
Speaker 1: good sense. The younger set has no interest in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: That thing is dead as soon as like forty five
Speaker 1: year olds grow old enough to be dead. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the cutoff is, but the younger generation, there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as that. I grew up with, like
Speaker 1: Hollywood movie stars being a thing. It's not with the
Speaker 1: younger generation. They don't even know what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Staying at a hotel right next to or right down
Speaker 3: street from Warner Brothers studios, I'm thinking, oh, man, that's
Speaker 3: where right, No, none of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that doesn't mean anything to the younger crowd, which man,
Speaker 1: I don't know if Hollywood's aware of that. They probably are,
Speaker 1: but I wonder what that is.
Speaker 2: Maybe all the streaming services, Maybe it's lost in the
Speaker 2: I think it's just so diffuse.
Speaker 3: I guess in video gaming, and yeah, that's that's part
Speaker 3: of it. Plus there's more transparency in the world these days.
Speaker 3: So you just you don't think of movie actors as
Speaker 3: these distant, superior race of humans, beings that you will
Speaker 3: never know, you'll never touch, you'll never hear from. They
Speaker 3: just exist on the silver screen or it carefully orchestrated
Speaker 3: publicity events. Now, if some famous actor and his old
Speaker 3: lady are bitching at each other in the streets, you
Speaker 3: see the video on TMZ. Alrighty go out without makeup,
Speaker 3: or scene going into a public bathroom in a park
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 1: You think Clary.
Speaker 3: Goes is been affleck pooping. I'll be damn. You didn't
Speaker 3: get that with Bogey and Picall.
Speaker 1: No, you did not get their humbry bogar pooping. Yes, Michael, Now,
Speaker 1: I just say.
Speaker 2: Younger people, they can film themselves, so it's nothing special.
Speaker 1: To be on TV. It's like, well, geez, I do
Speaker 1: that all the time. That's not a bad point. Actually, oh,
Speaker 1: excellent point. I say, well, you win. That is the
Speaker 1: podcast observation of the day. Congratulations, Michael. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: that's it.