Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2: Jack Armstrong's Joe Getty arm.
Speaker 3: Strong and Gatty and he Armstrong and Getty Strong.
Speaker 4: Hey, I'm Strong and Getty. We're featuring our podcast One
Speaker 4: More Thing. Find it wherever you find all your podcasts.
Speaker 5: So I came across this in the Washington Post about
Speaker 5: Swedish death claiming kind of sort of. It's a variation
Speaker 5: on this theme that we've heard from like what's her face?
Speaker 3: The Marie Condo lady, remember her? That was all.
Speaker 5: About you know, hold everything in your hand and if
Speaker 5: you don't cherish it, get rid of it. Neatness, your
Speaker 5: home should be neat all the time. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: Then she had a kid and said, yeah, f this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the best part of that story is she
Speaker 4: was tight clutter and how and then then she had
Speaker 4: kids and decided, yeah, you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't keep up with this. It's impossible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all that stuff I said before, forget it anyway.
Speaker 5: So this story opens up is all stories must with
Speaker 5: this lady whose mom passed away, one bedroom apartment, mostly
Speaker 5: clean and tidy.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: So we thought it'd be manageable. When she passed, we
Speaker 5: were wrong. And then they get into the racks and
Speaker 5: racks of clothes, many unworn in years, kitchen cabinets stocked,
Speaker 5: stacked with pots and plastic storage containers, bulk orders of
Speaker 5: tissues and hot sauce. Each item on its own wasn't unreasonable,
Speaker 5: but the aggregate proved overwhelming. For several painful weeks, we
Speaker 5: gave things away, sometimes with labels still on them. During
Speaker 5: your garage sale, pill carted off thousands of dollars in goods.
Speaker 5: We piled the driveway high with stuff then posted to
Speaker 5: buy nothing groups. So I didn't even know that was
Speaker 5: a thing. Yeah, I understand like free stuff, but yeah,
Speaker 5: that's what it is. It's a social media it's the
Speaker 5: buy nothing. It's just basically this is for free, come
Speaker 5: pick it up whatever. Huh And okay, finally we paid
Speaker 5: a crew in multiple trucks to pick up the rest.
Speaker 5: And then then they go into this reality show that
Speaker 5: this chick does the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning,
Speaker 5: which is one of the worst titles I've ever heard
Speaker 5: for any piece of entertainment ever, but it was inspired
Speaker 5: by a best selling book by this eighty nine year
Speaker 5: old Swedish woman who talks about not getting caught up
Speaker 5: in material things. You are not your stuff, letting go
Speaker 5: of the stuff, not letting it accumulate, and how much
Speaker 5: how much that helps you, because clutter is linked to
Speaker 5: stress and anxiety and depression, all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3: I believe that.
Speaker 4: I hope I am not my stuff. Looking at my garage,
Speaker 4: I'm a mess. Examples I have just so much crap.
Speaker 3: Just just get a rap. Yeah, I'm a bit of
Speaker 3: a hoarder and it's weird.
Speaker 4: I don't think I am you actually you like horde stuff? No,
Speaker 4: a bit of a hoarder. I have clothes I don't wear.
Speaker 4: I'm probably almost certainly not going to wear, but I
Speaker 4: don't get rid of them. I feel this, I feel
Speaker 4: this pain getting rid of them.
Speaker 3: I don't. Yeah, I don't think I have that.
Speaker 4: I have a There's probably in that big closet full
Speaker 4: of clothes. Some I do want to keep. I'm not
Speaker 4: going to go through them all, so I just keep
Speaker 4: them all. Are those boxes in the garage, there's some
Speaker 4: stuff in there I don't want to throw out all.
Speaker 6: I'll do cleaning and I'll find myself almost feeling an
Speaker 6: emotional attachment to maybe the memory that that T shirt has,
Speaker 6: like a band T shirt or something from a show,
Speaker 6: or I'll get frustrated with myself with a certain item
Speaker 6: and going, Kate, you don't need to keep this. It is, yeah,
Speaker 6: totally irrelevant, but it was attached to something I did.
Speaker 4: This is probably universal. But the really tough ones are
Speaker 4: kids stuff. I mean, you can't keep every clothing item,
Speaker 4: every kit you kid ever had, or book or toy,
Speaker 4: but god dang it, throwing some of that.
Speaker 3: Stuff out seems like just wrong. How do I get
Speaker 3: rid of this book.
Speaker 4: That I read to my kids every night for years
Speaker 4: during the greatest moments.
Speaker 3: I can't keep them all. I don't need eighty books
Speaker 3: eight weeks.
Speaker 5: We kept a bunch, you know, assuming nieces and nephews
Speaker 5: and grandkids or whatever would be in the picture eventually,
Speaker 5: and have given some way to other parents because that
Speaker 5: feels good.
Speaker 3: The clothes.
Speaker 4: I see a T shirt and I think, oh, I
Speaker 4: remember when Sam would wear this.
Speaker 3: But I can't keep all the shirts.
Speaker 5: Well, there are so many memories that they trigger. I
Speaker 5: get that, but that's defensible to me. Some shirt that
Speaker 5: I'm just not gonna wear probably it's just weird. I
Speaker 5: think I've always thought it's probably because you know, I
Speaker 5: didn't grow up poor, but we were far from rich,
Speaker 5: and you know, I was wearing hand me downs and stuff,
Speaker 5: and the idea of a nice new shirt was like
Speaker 5: really really cool, And so it's hard for me to
Speaker 5: I don't know anyway.
Speaker 4: There's a and pain in knowing you paid fifty bucks
Speaker 4: for something and now it's worthless. That is also something
Speaker 4: going on in your brain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 4: I don't really that doesn't bother me as much. I
Speaker 4: don't think I bought this shirt and while I'm going
Speaker 4: to give it away. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: I realized.
Speaker 5: Then they go into each product we buy on average
Speaker 5: accounts for roughly six point three times it's weight in
Speaker 5: carbon emissions whatever. Yeah, I really don't give a shout off.
Speaker 4: I had to go there.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, okay, So onto Swedish death cleaning or durstyaming.
Speaker 5: I don't even know what that letter is, much less
Speaker 5: how to say it.
Speaker 3: It's it's it isn't about clearing out closet.
Speaker 5: It's about it's about rethinking your relationships with things rather
Speaker 5: than making do with less it's about getting more from
Speaker 5: the things that make you happy.
Speaker 4: I had a buddy who is so good at this
Speaker 4: with clothes, Like when we were in college. I had
Speaker 4: a closet full of clothes that I was never gonna
Speaker 4: wear again that had been toting around, and he was good, like,
Speaker 4: these are the two pairs of pants I'm going to
Speaker 4: wear this summer. These are the three cool shirts I like?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 3: He got rid of everybody else and he was Wow,
Speaker 3: I wish I could do that.
Speaker 5: So death cleaning happens to agree with scientists understanding of
Speaker 5: our relationship with things and why we're loathed to part
Speaker 5: with them. Decades of research have shown that we subconsciously
Speaker 5: see our possessions as physical extensions of ourselves. Losing them
Speaker 5: feels like an amputation because in our minds it is
Speaker 5: we're attached to our belongings because we identify them, says
Speaker 5: researcher in Dublin. This conveer into pathologies such as hoarding.
Speaker 5: Belonging has become sof fused with a sense of self
Speaker 5: that people lose the ability to differentiate between, say, the
Speaker 5: value of a saved wedding ring of saving a wedding
Speaker 5: ring or a candy wrapper.
Speaker 3: Wow, now that's pathological.
Speaker 5: Instead of our possessions offering quote a vital receptacle for
Speaker 5: our memories and identities, researchers say they become a fortress,
Speaker 5: physical barriers to ward off feelings of insecurity and loneliness.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yes, this is crazy.
Speaker 4: I don't doubt some of this. I think my problem
Speaker 4: is mostly laziness. It's well or not laziness. Some laziness.
Speaker 3: Well, you're crazy busy. Yeah, I'm too busy to go.
Speaker 4: Through a bunch of boxes in my garage to see
Speaker 4: what I want to throw out or not.
Speaker 3: That's what's slowing me down. Have you ever watched the
Speaker 3: show Hoarders?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, there's a clear line between what we're
Speaker 4: talking about and them.
Speaker 6: Right, But the way that they their emotions spikes so
Speaker 6: much when they do try to get rid of things,
Speaker 6: it's I mean, that's that's absolutely mental.
Speaker 4: My youngest kid has a little bit of that. He's
Speaker 4: definitely got more of that than that is good. He
Speaker 4: just ah, his attachment to some things is.
Speaker 3: A little scary. Wow.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm glad you're all enjoying this as I psychoanalyze
Speaker 5: myself because this is crazy. His research this is the
Speaker 5: guy we decided earlier shows that materialism, a tendency to
Speaker 5: seek out possessions for status or approval, is unequivocally associated
Speaker 5: with more loneliness and less happiness. But not all possessions
Speaker 5: are equal. Things required for their beauty, utility, or their
Speaker 5: association with positive experiences and social relationships don't show the
Speaker 5: same correlation. That's interesting my grandmother's garden if, for example,
Speaker 5: for example, every time I hold it, the smooth hickory
Speaker 5: handle polish over a half century resurrects blissful childhood hours
Speaker 5: spent in her Florida garden, et cetera, et cetera. It's
Speaker 5: a good thing to have a few reminders symbolic meaning,
Speaker 5: et cetera, et cetera. And I'm willing to bet many
Speaker 5: things in your home, as in mine, are neither useful, beautiful,
Speaker 5: nor sentimental. So moving on, how does death cleaning work?
Speaker 5: Things that take up space in our minds as well
Speaker 5: as our addicts and garages, bah bah. By clarifying what's
Speaker 5: important and what's not, you make room. Your loved ones
Speaker 5: can receive what you might like. Before you go. We're
Speaker 5: leaving them the burden of cleaning up once you're gone.
Speaker 5: This might seem hard. Who wants to give their stuff
Speaker 5: away right now?
Speaker 3: Seasons? It's a good description of.
Speaker 5: What it is like to a massive bunch of stuff
Speaker 5: and not really appreciate it. Okay, so start with the
Speaker 5: easy stuff. Begin with large or duplicate items first, then
Speaker 5: finish with the small and sentimental clothes. They are an excellent
Speaker 5: place to start, since many of them have little practical
Speaker 5: or sentimental use. Photographs, personal papers, and letters are the
Speaker 5: hardest to clear out.
Speaker 4: I've got, like my sock drawer has got I don't
Speaker 4: know how many pairs of socks are in there, thirty
Speaker 4: pairs of socks I wear the same, ten pair on top,
Speaker 4: the bottom twenty pair I never wear, and I'm never
Speaker 4: going to wear because of the style or color or
Speaker 4: the worn out or whatever.
Speaker 3: Why don't I throw those out?
Speaker 5: I have enough socks, including the other day I was
Speaker 5: asking Jack about what length socks somebody was wearing, and
Speaker 5: you reacted as if I was some sort of suck
Speaker 5: connoisseur to have different lengths.
Speaker 3: You're a sock samall, ye, yeah, in a way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I've got the no shows, I've got the ankle,
Speaker 5: I've got the MidCap, et cetera. I have enough socks
Speaker 5: that if our washing machine broke down, never mind that
Speaker 5: if it were outlawed, I would not have to wear
Speaker 5: a dirty pair of socks for.
Speaker 3: Three and a half months. That's a lot of socks.
Speaker 4: Maybe more, that'd be a hundred pair of socks something
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a lot of socks. I thought. I haven't any.
Speaker 5: Multiple drawers with socks. I got white socks. I got
Speaker 5: no shows, like to play golf in to minimize my
Speaker 5: weird golf ten what your son charmingly refers to as
Speaker 5: Morgan feet.
Speaker 3: It's a good term. Then I have a drawer full.
Speaker 5: Of black and like uh black and dark blue athletic socks.
Speaker 3: Then I've got my dress socks.
Speaker 5: Then I've got my like wooly winter socks for when
Speaker 5: we had our mountain place being up in the snow
Speaker 5: a lot. We aren't anymore. Yeah, I have I have
Speaker 5: enough socks to wear for many months.
Speaker 6: Gosh, getting those to match up when doing the laundry
Speaker 6: must just be infuriating.
Speaker 5: All socks, Yeah, except you know, as Jack indicates, in
Speaker 5: the space of two weeks, I wear two weeks worth
Speaker 5: of socks.
Speaker 3: So it's not that many.
Speaker 5: And again, it's inexplicable to have as many socks as
Speaker 5: I have since we have a functioning la washer and dryer.
Speaker 3: Are you emotionally attached to them?
Speaker 4: No, No, it's like good because that would be weird.
Speaker 5: That would be very weird. No, there sucks. I'm not crazy,
Speaker 5: but there is a weird. It's a difficult impulse to explain.
Speaker 5: It's like an I might need this, or I might
Speaker 5: wish I had this, and I don't know where it
Speaker 5: comes from.
Speaker 3: Again, I did not grow up in North Korea.
Speaker 5: I did not fight my brother to the death for
Speaker 5: a grain of the rice or one sock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I honestly don't understand it.
Speaker 7: Hey, when you match up your socks, you do what
Speaker 7: I do, And if the colors are close enough, you know,
Speaker 7: if they're dark blue or black, you just put them together.
Speaker 3: No, I'm not, because I'm not a psychopath. That's fair.
Speaker 7: No, I mean usually I do the exact same color.
Speaker 7: But if they're you know they've been one's been washed
Speaker 7: more than the other, one looks a little lighter than.
Speaker 4: You would, one get washed more than the other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're talking nonsense.
Speaker 5: What you're doing is putting mismatch socks together and calling
Speaker 5: them a match.
Speaker 3: They're not.
Speaker 6: All right.
Speaker 3: It's like I won't call a.
Speaker 5: Man a woman. I will not call a navy blue
Speaker 5: sock a black sock because I'm not a liar. How
Speaker 5: many bodies dissolving?
Speaker 4: And how many barrels do you have in your garage
Speaker 4: because that's the work of the psychopath putting mismatched socks together.
Speaker 3: Boy.
Speaker 4: But so, whatever the weird name is of this thing
Speaker 4: you're talking about, the death cleaning or whatever, is it
Speaker 4: basically the idea that you got to be ruthless and
Speaker 4: just get rid of stuff you don't need.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, it's not ruthless exactly. They talk about. God, I
Speaker 3: would love to do that.
Speaker 4: It's so relaxing for me to even think about doing that,
Speaker 4: like getting rid of all the stuff in my closet.
Speaker 4: I never wear everything in the drawers, I don't use anymore,
Speaker 4: everything in the closets that we never use. Oh, it
Speaker 4: just oh, it fills me with relaxation, happy chemicals.
Speaker 5: Yet I would agree, I would agree, but I do
Speaker 5: do it, and it's an excuse to go buy new stuff.
Speaker 5: And they suggest it's not being ruthless. It's being thoughtful
Speaker 5: Before bringing something into my home. I now think about
Speaker 5: it's fate. This person writes, how will I feel living
Speaker 5: with it?
Speaker 3: Well? Someone else ever want it? Is it worth it?
Speaker 5: By recognizing the stories I tell about my stuff, it
Speaker 5: has made it easier to let go of old things
Speaker 5: or avoid buying new ones without losing a bit of myself.
Speaker 5: I so need a shrink. Or wait a minute, No,
Speaker 5: you go to a shrink. All they do is give
Speaker 5: you drugs. So I so need drugs.
Speaker 2: Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 5: I'm strung in Giddy show featuring our podcast one More
Speaker 5: Thing Downloaded.
Speaker 3: Subscribe to it wherever you like to get podcasts.
Speaker 4: So as a big hippie festival in middle of nowhere, Nevada.
Speaker 5: I don't know that it's a hippie festival. It's a
Speaker 5: festival of living outside the riggers and bounds of everyday society,
Speaker 5: a chance to cut loose a little bit and relax
Speaker 5: in the desert with like minded fellows in Galos.
Speaker 3: None of us have been, so you haven't been, Katie,
Speaker 3: I have not.
Speaker 6: I wanted to go, but I've never made it, Michael,
Speaker 6: If I remember correctly, you'd never been to San Diego
Speaker 6: until fairly recently, so I don't think you've.
Speaker 3: Been running man out of the question. I've been to
Speaker 3: the beach, but that's about it. I must stand up seeing.
Speaker 5: I don't even like most camping because as a man
Speaker 5: who enjoys a cocktail before bed and buy a cocktail, well,
Speaker 5: I always have to get up and p in the
Speaker 5: middle of the night, and I'm afraid of being eating
Speaker 5: a bear.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I didn't know where you're going with that. I was
Speaker 4: gonna say, you enjoy cocktails, you don't like camping. Camping
Speaker 4: is always super heavy on the drinking. You start like
Speaker 4: really early and go all that. That's like the whole
Speaker 4: camping thing.
Speaker 5: Well, right, most of my camping I needed to embrace
Speaker 5: the jug, but the p jug. But most of my
Speaker 5: camping experience was with my wife and kids, and that
Speaker 5: just didn't seem to be a good idea.
Speaker 3: Peeing and a jug.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I remain uneaten by bears. So I guess
Speaker 5: it worked out all right.
Speaker 6: Husband, Peede and a jug left it in my car
Speaker 6: found it this weekend.
Speaker 3: That was a lot of fun. Oh you guys now TMI,
Speaker 3: really TM, Well, this.
Speaker 4: Is a perfect place to tell this story. I got
Speaker 4: two good stories around this. So one, I'm driving from Charlotte,
Speaker 4: North Carolina, to Nashville to catch a concert and I
Speaker 4: don't and I'm running kind of late, and I need
Speaker 4: to pee and there's U and I don't want to
Speaker 4: pull over, and so I have a Gatorade bottle and
Speaker 4: I thought, you know what, I'm gonna pee in the
Speaker 4: gatorade bottle while I'm driving. And what I learned is
Speaker 4: the volume of urine that comes out of you is
Speaker 4: a lot more than you think it is, because the
Speaker 4: gatorade bottle filled up like that. And then it was
Speaker 4: just he going everywhere. It was horrible, charming story. It's
Speaker 4: a shame it's over. So then the other story is
Speaker 4: this my poor son with his anxiety problems. He went
Speaker 4: through a boy a year or two period where he
Speaker 4: had to pee like every thirty seconds, Poor Lill.
Speaker 3: It was horrible.
Speaker 5: I'm so glad that's not the case anymore, because I
Speaker 5: remember how difficult that was.
Speaker 3: Horrible.
Speaker 4: We had pads all around the house. He was a
Speaker 4: pretty little kid. Pads all over the house could just
Speaker 4: for nervousness. He'd just have to pee, and so it's
Speaker 4: just anyway. So he I'd carry a bottle water bottles
Speaker 4: just like you drink out of in the car, and
Speaker 4: he'd pee in the water bottle all the time because
Speaker 4: I can't pull over every time. He needs a pea
Speaker 4: literally like every minute sometimes, so you can't go anywhere.
Speaker 4: So I had a you know, I'm I'm driving to
Speaker 4: work one morning, and I grabbed my water bottle and
Speaker 4: take a swig, and.
Speaker 3: No, I thought that first story was terrible, and I
Speaker 3: took a big old gulp of old salty Oh, good morning. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was rough.
Speaker 4: When as soon as it took me like a half
Speaker 4: a second to realize, you know, you get hit with
Speaker 4: this isn't water, Then oh, I know what it is,
Speaker 4: and then just the revulsion at what it was.
Speaker 3: We're all feeling it right now.
Speaker 4: Got it took me a long time to stop spitting
Speaker 4: and rinsing out my mouth after that.
Speaker 1: The Armstrong and Getty Show, Jack, your show, podcasts, and
Speaker 1: our hot lakes.
Speaker 5: This is the Armstrong and Getty Show, featuring our podcast
Speaker 5: one more thing, get it wherever you like to get podcasts.
Speaker 3: By the way, Katie, I really like your t shirt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no it yeah no. So we got to
Speaker 4: talking on the radio show about the the editing of
Speaker 4: photos just in general, because cause so many people do
Speaker 4: it and it's so effortless. Now I don't have the
Speaker 4: Google phone, but I was just reading so the Wall
Speaker 4: Street Journal had an article, when is it okay to
Speaker 4: alter the family photo?
Speaker 3: Who doesn't alter big family photos?
Speaker 4: And if you didn't before the but I mean, like
Speaker 4: back in the old days when you'd go get a
Speaker 4: professional photo done and everything like that, they were altering
Speaker 4: them for you.
Speaker 3: They were all brightening them up or list them or whatever.
Speaker 6: And s every every group photo I take, I make
Speaker 6: sure everybody looks top notched because I don't want to
Speaker 6: hear it afterwards.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, why did.
Speaker 6: You post that one? I look bad in that one?
Speaker 6: Oh no, I went through. I made my best effort
Speaker 6: to make all.
Speaker 4: Of you look good.
Speaker 6: So doing what For instance, sometimes someone's eyes will be closed,
Speaker 6: you can open them. Somebody's not smiling when they usually would,
Speaker 6: you can give them a smile.
Speaker 3: What app or phone are you using to do that?
Speaker 3: Face tune? Face tune? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So the Google picks thing. You've probably seen the ads.
Speaker 4: It looks fantastic. But they've got a thing called best take,
Speaker 4: where you do a blast of photos and then you
Speaker 4: can pick each individual face. This is the best one
Speaker 4: from this one. This is the best one in you know,
Speaker 4: in a group photo. That's which sounds like was more
Speaker 4: or less what they did there at Kensington.
Speaker 3: Palace with the royal family.
Speaker 4: I'm surprised they don't have more sophisticated software than they
Speaker 4: did well. According to their statement, Prince Will, I don't
Speaker 4: even hardly know these people's names, Prince Vine. Prince Will
Speaker 4: took the picture last week and Kate edited. Then she
Speaker 4: edited it. I guess like a lot of wives probably
Speaker 4: do if their husband takes a bad photo.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 6: This whole thing is because there was a big conspiracy
Speaker 6: theory that she was dead after this abdominal surgery she
Speaker 6: had because she hadn't been seen in the public, and
Speaker 6: now they're trying to find any reason they can to
Speaker 6: keep that conspiracy alive.
Speaker 5: I e.
Speaker 6: They edited this photo and she's not really around or something.
Speaker 3: That's what I've been reading.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, that's that's That doesn't explain all of the coverage,
Speaker 5: but certainly some of it. Now I'm willing to concede
Speaker 5: that I may be an outlier in this stuff, you know,
Speaker 5: to Katie's point, I don't hang out with people who'd
Speaker 5: give a single crap. I mean, unless they're like I
Speaker 5: take a picture and in the background they're with their
Speaker 5: lover and their wife doesn't know about it.
Speaker 3: They might be worried about that. But you certainly, yeah,
Speaker 3: they'd ask me to.
Speaker 5: But I've just I'm now, if we're talking about bringing
Speaker 5: out a little contrast or something like that, a filter
Speaker 5: because it was a little bright there or something, I mean,
Speaker 5: that's just that's how you make decent looking photographs. But
Speaker 5: like slimming people and you know, give them a better
Speaker 5: smile or white in their teeth and stuff like that,
Speaker 5: I just I it makes me uncomfortable. I feel like
Speaker 5: it's divorcing reality from perception in a way that's unhealthy.
Speaker 3: Do you ever do you ever slim people? Katie? No, No,
Speaker 3: that's not that's not cool.
Speaker 6: But I see your point, Joe, as you're drawing the
Speaker 6: line basically at contrast and lighting, well, Joe's.
Speaker 4: Drawing very bright lines between good people and bad people.
Speaker 4: So we got to figure out which end of the
Speaker 4: line we're all on. This must be what it's like
Speaker 4: to be in a hearing in Congress. So we need
Speaker 4: to find out which side of Joe's good people bad
Speaker 4: people line were on.
Speaker 3: So you're okay with contrast and bright? We have a format? Okay, great?
Speaker 4: But yes, are you okay with the You got a
Speaker 4: bunch of photos and you put the smile on everybody's
Speaker 4: best smile in the photo.
Speaker 3: Are you okay with that or not?
Speaker 5: It seems ridiculous to me, Although if each of those
Speaker 5: individual images existed, just not at the same time, I
Speaker 5: will allow it.
Speaker 4: Like a fly lands on somebody's face and you make
Speaker 4: a weird face trying to get the fly off, and
Speaker 4: you're just gonna leave it like that, right guy?
Speaker 3: Or here's here's a question.
Speaker 5: What have you gained by and what have you lost
Speaker 5: by not including that image?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: You are serving the idea of always looking unrealistically beautiful
Speaker 5: or or great, as opposed to capturing a moment where
Speaker 5: something really funny happened.
Speaker 4: Well, speaking for myself, it's it's hard for me to
Speaker 4: wrap my head around this because I don't have the motivation,
Speaker 4: because I don't have any social media that I post
Speaker 4: pictures on so nobody ever sees them. Me and other
Speaker 4: people in my family. Sometimes me and the kids go
Speaker 4: through my phone. But so I'm not posting these for
Speaker 4: any stuff. So maybe I would be more motivated to
Speaker 4: if I posted these where anybody would see them.
Speaker 3: But like I know someone.
Speaker 4: Who who who clearly uses the thinning thing whenever they
Speaker 4: post pictures, because I see them on a regular basis,
Speaker 4: and I know that that's not what they look like.
Speaker 4: And one that I wonder about, I just.
Speaker 5: Think that's fundamentally unhealthy. To thine own self be true
Speaker 5: is like my my guiding principle for every thing in
Speaker 5: life because and it's not I'm not coming off as
Speaker 5: high handed. I think I may be better than some
Speaker 5: people at least a recognizing my weaknesses and realizing you
Speaker 5: are really tempted to do that.
Speaker 3: That's one of the.
Speaker 5: Things you really need to be careful about. And one
Speaker 5: of them is you know, self delusion or you know,
Speaker 5: how how would I put this? And I'm more than
Speaker 5: willing to concede that I'm I may be an outlier
Speaker 5: and a little bit weird about this, and you live.
Speaker 3: Your own life. I honestly don't care. I don't care enough.
Speaker 5: About the way you live your life to judge you
Speaker 5: unless you're hurting other people. So don't take anything I
Speaker 5: say as some sort of like Jack trying to frame
Speaker 5: it as your exactly.
Speaker 3: That's probably you know what, Honestly, that's probably a better
Speaker 3: way to frame this discussion. It's more entertaining. This is
Speaker 3: called Joe's the jerk. I just what are you doing?
Speaker 5: Why are you doing that so people think you're better
Speaker 5: looking than you are?
Speaker 4: Why for dating apps if you're single and you're dating.
Speaker 4: If I was doing that, and I've never done online
Speaker 4: dating and I'm never going to, but if I was,
Speaker 4: gott it be, I don't think I could stop myself
Speaker 4: from just slightly slimming your face. I mean, finely different questions.
Speaker 3: It is a complete posting pictures of guys who weren't
Speaker 3: even me.
Speaker 4: That is a completely different question though, although at a
Speaker 4: point though you're really misleading people. I mean, because I
Speaker 4: heard people talk about showing up to meet somebody and
Speaker 4: it's like you're the same person from that photo. Come on, yeah,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't want that. That would be hurtful. I wouldn't
Speaker 4: want I wouldn't want that myself. I don't want to
Speaker 4: meet somebody that I lured them in by making myself
Speaker 4: look different. They're like, whoa dude, how much time did
Speaker 4: you spend editing that photo? But man, you can I
Speaker 4: messed around with face tune a while just to see
Speaker 4: what it was like. Then I don't even have it
Speaker 4: anymore because I'm I'm not gonna spend that much time.
Speaker 4: But man, just it takes so little effort to like
Speaker 4: slim your face just so, and you think, Wow, I
Speaker 4: look so much better with just that much effort.
Speaker 3: All right, here's the standard.
Speaker 5: And Katie cannot come in on this because she's super pretty,
Speaker 5: like the best non retouched photo of you, because we
Speaker 5: all have them.
Speaker 3: Wow, I look good in that pick. You know, that's
Speaker 3: as high as you can go.
Speaker 5: That's as handsome or pretty or whatever that is.
Speaker 4: WI If all you're doing is bringing the photo up
Speaker 4: to your best real photo, yes, that's not bad as
Speaker 4: a standard.
Speaker 5: If you are exceeding the possibilities of a real photo
Speaker 5: of yourself, then you're doing things in your mind that
Speaker 5: are not healthy.
Speaker 4: If you change it to something you've never actually looked
Speaker 4: that good, that that is a different category, unless again,
Speaker 4: you're trying to get.
Speaker 3: Laid, then anything goes bebby. Here's a funny one.
Speaker 4: I was disappointed that my Costco card expired because I
Speaker 4: had a great picture on my Costco card. It's like
Speaker 4: one of my better pictures of me ever for something.
Speaker 5: I had a driver's license once, I looked like an
Speaker 5: action star.
Speaker 6: Yes, my first driver's license was money.
Speaker 3: It all came together.
Speaker 5: I had a really good beard at that point, I
Speaker 5: looked at like a guy out of the movies. Who
Speaker 5: would you know? Is he turned out to be, you know,
Speaker 5: some sort of master criminal?
Speaker 3: Oh so good?
Speaker 4: You know you end up you know how if you
Speaker 4: end up in the news, the media grabs like your
Speaker 4: driver's license photo and that becomes the photo going everywhere.
Speaker 4: I've thought about that before if something happened, and now
Speaker 4: the current driver's license photo I have is just awful.
Speaker 4: I wish I could get a change. That would be
Speaker 4: the picture of what I look like for any story
Speaker 4: you want. You want it to be your Costco card photo?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, if you have to.
Speaker 4: If something happens where I end up with the news,
Speaker 4: good or bad, use my Costco card.
Speaker 3: You let your Crossco card expire? Yeah somehow?
Speaker 5: Okay, So why don't we go through a checklist of
Speaker 5: different Go ahead, Michael, did you have more criticism?
Speaker 3: I say, you know, do you let your kids starve too?
Speaker 3: That was ji? Yeah, a boy, That's what I was
Speaker 3: looking for us, That's what I was open.
Speaker 6: For, Michael.
Speaker 5: All right, So throw out scenarios and I'll rule whether
Speaker 5: they're okay. For instance, family picture, your kid has acne
Speaker 5: problems and is super sensitive about it.
Speaker 3: M they're super sensitive about it.
Speaker 4: That's different the family picture like the one that's gonna.
Speaker 5: Go on the wall in the hallway, maybe a Christmas card.
Speaker 6: See, I'd be okay with it, because that acne isn't forever.
Speaker 6: You're gonna grow up, and if they want that picture
Speaker 6: up the way, you know, then.
Speaker 3: It is strictly speaking, a disease.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I realize that makes it sound more serious than it,
Speaker 5: but it can be very serious for people and the
Speaker 5: way they feel about themselves.
Speaker 4: Certainly for my own personal use the pictures my phone.
Speaker 4: I've never altered my kids to make them look better ever,
Speaker 4: not one.
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, I want to know what looks like right? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Me on the other hand, Hi, what do you want
Speaker 3: to do with me? Ever?
Speaker 5: Using slimming software? Now, other than like for dating functions.
Speaker 4: I never have for real, I don't think I ever
Speaker 4: would except for dating situations. But so you know, all
Speaker 4: of this is there are lots of gray areas you're
Speaker 4: I guess some men do this too, but women do
Speaker 4: it more. I think you're wearing some sort of slimming garment.
Speaker 4: How's that different if you're wearing a slimming garment under
Speaker 4: your dress at the wedding. Isn't that How's that different
Speaker 4: than if you use the photoshop to slim yourself a
Speaker 4: little bit?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 5: Well, because it's it's possible in the real world.
Speaker 4: So that's your standard again, is if you could get
Speaker 4: yourself to look like that in the real world.
Speaker 5: You know, it's funny between the radio show and recording this,
Speaker 5: I went and got some more ice water from the
Speaker 5: kitchen and just everybody's getting ready and all right, let's
Speaker 5: go do the podcast.
Speaker 3: I've been thinking hard about all.
Speaker 5: The things we've talked about today, and I've got to
Speaker 5: form it all into a unified philosophy. And it's going
Speaker 5: to be something like I'm a realistarian or something like that,
Speaker 5: because the only thing that's going to keep me from
Speaker 5: becoming like an angry nihilist, because I think the artificial world,
Speaker 5: the virtual world, is incredibly unhealthy and is drawing humanity
Speaker 5: and individual people into just terrible psychological places and addictions
Speaker 5: and self hatred and suicide and depression and anxiety. I
Speaker 5: think it is so effing unhealthy. We have not scratched
Speaker 5: the surface of it. But the only way I can
Speaker 5: live in that world is if I have an alternative
Speaker 5: that I'm focused on, and it's going to be something
Speaker 5: about anything that departs from what is real more than
Speaker 5: just a little bit I'm just going to reject.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wonder wonderful that'll happen for anybody on the
Speaker 4: younger end, though, like Katie, you're younger, so wouldn't smartphones
Speaker 4: come out You're a kid, probably when.
Speaker 3: I was in high school graduating.
Speaker 4: If you're if you're a young person, especially women, But
Speaker 4: if you if you've never lived in a world where
Speaker 4: you couldn't easily manipulate your photos and make yourself a better,
Speaker 4: look better, how would you ever Not To answer your question,
Speaker 4: which I think is a really interesting one, whether young
Speaker 4: people will you know, go along with what I'm talking
Speaker 4: about or ever get a chance to the answer is clearly, yes,
Speaker 4: one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 5: The question is how many I read something interesting the
Speaker 5: other day, twenty somethings who've jettison TikTok and other social media,
Speaker 5: and how happy they are. Now, that's not like seventy
Speaker 5: million in the United States, but it's thousands. And just
Speaker 5: like you know, whether you want to cite Christianity or
Speaker 5: healthy eating or regular exercise or whatever, just because most
Speaker 5: people aren't is not a good reason to stop advocating
Speaker 5: advocating for what's good and what's healthy. If I'm the
Speaker 5: losing side again, that's fine. I can live with that.
Speaker 4: I was just singing for young people altering their photos,
Speaker 4: One they will have always had that in their lives.
Speaker 4: And two you kind of always are on a dating
Speaker 4: app when you're It seems to me from observing social
Speaker 4: media for young people, your life is a dating app.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting point. Yeah, So the point.
Speaker 4: You're going to be adjusting your phone, I mean, how
Speaker 4: you couldn't have stopped me and like if I hit
Speaker 4: we're in high school now from altering my photos to
Speaker 4: make myself look better?
Speaker 3: Are you kidding? Not a chance?
Speaker 4: You couldn't stop me with a gun from altering my
Speaker 4: photos to make myself look better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a good point.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, what if you had an uncle that had well,
Speaker 7: he was a pirate and he had a peg leg,
Speaker 7: would you no or put a different type of leg
Speaker 7: on there, like me herrot on his shoulder.
Speaker 3: Well, of course it's an odd scenario. Michael.
Speaker 5: What's your pirate uncle's name? It's hard for me to
Speaker 5: go forward without a name.
Speaker 7: Art Oh god, oh boy, I'm really sorry about that.
Speaker 4: Wow, I hurt brushing this out of the podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm really sorry about that. Shiver me timbers. He gave
Speaker 3: me scurvy with that one. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: The Armstrong and Getty Show, Jack More Joe podcasts and
Speaker 1: our hot links.
Speaker 4: Hey, it's the Armstrong and Getty Show featuring our podcast
Speaker 4: one more Thing.
Speaker 3: We do a new one every day. Find it wherever
Speaker 3: you find your podcasts. Can I say this, Well, of
Speaker 3: course I can say this.
Speaker 5: A friend who I work with, His wife is an obstetrician.
Speaker 5: The stories she has heard amaze and the tattoos she
Speaker 5: has seen, oh what, including one woman.
Speaker 3: I think I can tell his story. I'm sure you can.
Speaker 5: Should I though, oh Man's not want to get him
Speaker 5: in trust so we're talking about tattoos on the U.
Speaker 3: Who oh my god, or in the you who will
Speaker 3: region The sympathy pain I'm feeling right now is.
Speaker 4: Sign even without the pain, just as a lifestyle choice, right,
Speaker 4: and sometimes it's just in the suburbs, but not in
Speaker 4: the city center.
Speaker 5: But uh, can I say this? You know what, I
Speaker 5: can't say it. I'm gonna make this up completely. This
Speaker 5: is Joe Getty lying and creating fiction that is in
Speaker 5: no way based on any truth ever spoken by anybody.
Speaker 5: One gal who is well on in years had a
Speaker 5: boxing glove to either side and the caption hit it
Speaker 5: like a champ.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's like a champ.
Speaker 4: So then you have to think as a dude or
Speaker 4: a woman. I guess if she's a lesbian. But your
Speaker 4: first you know, you become intimate after months of dating
Speaker 4: and courting and then of course marriage, you decide.
Speaker 3: To decide you love each other very much.
Speaker 4: You decide to become intimate, and this is the first
Speaker 4: time you become aware of your the love of your life.
Speaker 3: Having it to doo, that's hit it like a champ.
Speaker 3: Unless that tattoo is like a week old. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: have questions. It's just reeks of class, you know. Yeah?
Speaker 3: What do am I?
Speaker 1: Hm?
Speaker 4: How disturbed am I at that point? Am I thinking?
Speaker 3: Maybe not? Or you're not who I thought you were?
Speaker 7: Or and yes, Michael, do you bring a boxing bell
Speaker 7: to bedums?
Speaker 3: Get ready? Yeah? You do that whole thing round?
Speaker 5: What was that a statement of kind of general principle
Speaker 5: or was that like a specific message to.
Speaker 3: A lover of her past? I would have questions?
Speaker 5: So, baby, I can't help, but notice you've I'm going
Speaker 5: out a whole set it to two.
Speaker 3: That's my goal, regardless of your signage anyway, Right, you
Speaker 3: didn't I don't tell me to do that, right, right exactly.
Speaker 3: It's extraneous motivation.
Speaker 6: This is reminding me that's my general practice. Right, This
Speaker 6: is reminding me of one of the funniest things. So
Speaker 6: my mother got a tattoo for her fiftieth birthday and
Speaker 6: it is a dolphin that is jumping over a shamrock.
Speaker 3: And her big line was like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, in fifteen years, it'll be an eel stuck in
Speaker 6: a pine tree.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: The comedy stylings of Katie's mom, she's fantastic.
Speaker 4: So does this where were we? So does this made
Speaker 4: up doctor. Yes, find a way to. I just check
Speaker 4: my messages real quick, and then you kind of lean
Speaker 4: your phone this wing
Speaker 2: Jack Armstrong and Joe Gatty The Armstrong and Gatty Joe