Gene: 0:14

Hey, this is Sergine and joining me today is another dude named Ben. This one is named Goggles and Teeth named Ben. How are you?

TeethNGogles: 0:22

Good afternoon, Gene, or good evening, I guess.

Gene: 0:25

So Goggles and Teeth, that's what you're going by?

TeethNGogles: 0:28

Yeah, it's a skydiving nickname. hmm. started when I first started skydiving. The first guy that got me on video, he shouted to the room, all I could see are, these giant goggles and these giant teeth coming flying at him and it just kind of, it stuck.

Gene: 0:47

How long you been skating?

TeethNGogles: 0:48

20 years,

Gene: 0:49

Wow. And you're still alive. That's amazing.

TeethNGogles: 0:52

Still alive. Skydiving slows down once you have Wife and kid. So my first few years I was doing, a hundred plus a year.

Gene: 1:00

Wow.

TeethNGogles: 1:01

I got married and it took about 15 years to get a hundred more done.

Gene: 1:06

Yeah, it's funny because my ex wife kept trying to get me to do skydiving.

TeethNGogles: 1:10

Was it before she was the X or after she

Gene: 1:12

Oh, definitely before she was the

TeethNGogles: 1:13

Okay, because if it

Gene: 1:14

after that.

TeethNGogles: 1:15

if it was after I'd be concerned that she was packing for you

Gene: 1:19

I kind of suspect she was, so hundreds of skydives out there. So you must enjoy that feeling.

TeethNGogles: 1:25

Yeah, I did my 400th skydive this year.

Gene: 1:28

Wow.

TeethNGogles: 1:29

I did it on Just a week before my

Gene: 1:32

numbers, How high up do you get up there when you jump?

TeethNGogles: 1:35

AvErage it kind of depends on the plane Bigger planes you get to go a little higher. Probably the normal is 12 or 13 thousand feet

Gene: 1:45

Okay. from 12, 000 feet, how long is the trip down?

TeethNGogles: 1:51

You got about a minute ish of freefall

Gene: 1:54

Mm.

TeethNGogles: 1:55

And then you want to, kind of, deploy your main parachute and after your main parachute is deployed, depending on when, where, and when you pull, uh, you got about three or four minutes under canopy to get back to the ground.

Gene: 2:11

Okay. So about four or five minutes for the 12, 000 feet. Awesome. Then,

TeethNGogles: 2:17

It's fun. I

Gene: 2:18

and how high up do you pull the parachute?

TeethNGogles: 2:21

Different people pull at different levels. I'm, my, I don't jump my own gear anymore, so I rent gear and because that I'm a little more cautious, I usually pull right around 4, 000 feet. Right. When I was jumping my own gear, I'd usually jump around 3, 000, 3, 500.

Gene: 2:39

Okay.

TeethNGogles: 2:40

there've been a couple of times I pulled under two, but that's a little risky.

Gene: 2:44

And how long do you have to figure out if your main chute worked or not?

TeethNGogles: 2:48

sEconds.

Gene: 2:49

Mm. So if you pull and something's off kilter, you got to cut

TeethNGogles: 2:55

Yeah, you, you do have a reserve,

Gene: 2:56

the reserve one. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 2:57

right? So there's in skydiving, jumping, just, normal skydiving rigs. You'll have the it's called the three, three ring release system.

Gene: 3:07

Mm. Mm.

TeethNGogles: 3:08

So if you. You jump, you have fun, you deploy, and there's a bucket of shit above your head. And it's not going to open because either a line over or just it's tangled or whatever the problem is. You pull your cutaway handle and depending on if there's a, what's known as a reserve static line, that will automatically pull your reserve. But if you don't have an RSL you pull your reserve handle and Hope that opens nice and you land it and you say nice things to it all the way to the ground.

Gene: 3:42

Okay. All right. And.

TeethNGogles: 3:45

I've had one cutaway.

Gene: 3:47

Okay. So you've gotten to experience that. What height were you at?

TeethNGogles: 3:51

I mean, it was actually pretty good jump. I probably cut it away around 3000 feet.

Gene: 3:56

Mm.

TeethNGogles: 3:57

That was actually when I was still jumping my own gear.

Gene: 3:59

Mm.

TeethNGogles: 4:00

And my parachute just didn't really want to open. It was opening a little slower than I wanted. And I'm like, you know what? Screw it. I'm out. Hold my cutaway. Kind of did a flip. Pulled my reserve landed and, everyone tends to do a little bit of backseat quarterback when, you land, they're like, Oh, you could have landed that when it was fine. It would have opened, but I'm like, you know what? My neck, not yours. I chopped it.

Gene: 4:29

so we're going to go through all these questions right off the get go. So I don't forget them.

TeethNGogles: 4:33

All right, man.

Gene: 4:33

how, how much does that shoot costs? If you get to replace it,

TeethNGogles: 4:37

Well, if you replace it, um, thousands,

Gene: 4:43

if you cut it away and you can't find it,

TeethNGogles: 4:45

yeah, if you cut it away and you can't find it, you're looking at, a couple thousand dollars for just the parachute.

Gene: 4:50

a couple thousand. Okay. And that's some sort of a synthetic just like a nylon super thin material.

TeethNGogles: 4:56

Yeah, it's a variety of builds of nylon, but essentially the technology of skydiving is nylon, Velcro and rubber bands,

Gene: 5:06

Okay. How about the rest of the suit? soMebody spend if they want to get it all their own gear?

TeethNGogles: 5:11

it depends on how fancy, I mean, it's just like a car, you, you can buy a a used car, which is a lot cheaper, which is what I had for my first rig. And it was actually my only rig. I spent, and this is 20 years ago, um, I spent a little over a thousand bucks and traded a computer for the parachute I jumped for about, I did about 300 jumps on it. And then, so that's actually really cheap, but that thing was really used. It was well worn. It was referred to as the campus mattress, if you know what I

Gene: 5:46

So what's the new one go for

TeethNGogles: 5:48

New one, if you want like a complete package. New main parachute, new reserve parachute. New lines, the whole shebang, container, rig, et cetera. You're looking at probably around 10, 000.

Gene: 6:02

10 grand. Okay. Gotcha. That's a little higher than I would have expected. I would have figured closer to five, but yeah.

TeethNGogles: 6:10

I mean, you, you can get a complete package that's used for five, but you definitely want to make sure it's inspected and looked at, and, you want to buy it from, someone reputable not just, don't buy a rig off of eBay unless it came from a, another parachuter,

Gene: 6:25

What what do they usually charge for the plane fee to get you up there?

TeethNGogles: 6:29

Once you're licensed and it takes you a while to get licensed,

Gene: 6:33

Mhm.

TeethNGogles: 6:34

You're going to spend two, 3, 000 just to get licensed. But once you're licensed, if you have your own gear and you're licensed, you're looking at 30 bucks

Gene: 6:43

Oh, that's the cheap part. Okay.

TeethNGogles: 6:46

Yes. But it takes you a little bit to get there.

Gene: 6:48

Yeah. And I got to imagine it's not like you're not going to go every week.

TeethNGogles: 6:54

naH man people, skydivers, I used to refer to myself as a skydiver who, does whatever else. A skydiver who is really into it, like I used to be, you're there both days every weekend.

Gene: 7:08

Really?

TeethNGogles: 7:09

You, you flush every penny you have.

Gene: 7:12

So you just,

TeethNGogles: 7:13

it's a lifestyle.

Gene: 7:14

want that adrenaline rush, huh?

TeethNGogles: 7:16

is a lifestyle. I, when I, after I got married and stuff, um, and I was still jumping as much as I could before then. I went three weeks without jumping once. And I was like a junkie who was going through, withdrawal, but you know, now I only jump like a couple of times a year.

Gene: 7:35

It, it makes sense. I mean, if you're used to having that much adrenaline going through your system every week.

TeethNGogles: 7:41

Yeah. And it's, and I talk about skydiving pretty much constantly with everyone, as you can tell, even though I only jump, three, four times a year now, five times a year this year, I think, um, when I was doing it regularly. And by that, I mean, both Saturday, Sunday, sometimes Friday afternoon, sometimes a Monday afternoon,

Gene: 8:07

Mm

TeethNGogles: 8:08

when you lived at the drop zone, you really meet an amazing community of people

Gene: 8:14

hmm. Mm

TeethNGogles: 8:15

because you have these people from every walk of life. You have police officers, former military, uh, doctors, lawyers. At the time I first started jumping, I worked in television.

Gene: 8:29

hmm. Mm

TeethNGogles: 8:30

tHere was a guy I jumped with a lot. He was a garbage man. I mean, every walk of life. But after you go there, you hang out, you jump all day. Gets to dark, beer light comes on. Out comes the beer and whatever else and it's party night every Saturday. It's a good time. But you also get to know these people. They become part of your family.

Gene: 8:54

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 8:55

I mean, they're I knew, I not only knew the spouses, I knew their kids, I even knew their dogs,

Gene: 9:01

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 9:02

I spent Thanksgiving with a couple of them. I mean, that's, it just becomes a family, so it's a really good community.

Gene: 9:09

Yeah, it reminds me of gun range for me.

TeethNGogles: 9:14

Yeah, I think it's very similar to surfers,

Gene: 9:17

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 9:17

Just anything for that fix,

Gene: 9:20

Yeah,

TeethNGogles: 9:21

and it, it's, it's an amazing community, it's an amazing sport. Most dangerous part is you'll spend every last time doing it.

Gene: 9:31

It's true of I think a lot of hobbies

TeethNGogles: 9:33

Yeah. Yeah. And this one's

Gene: 9:34

did you ever try paragliding

TeethNGogles: 9:37

no, I've never done that one.

Gene: 9:38

whatever they call it?

TeethNGogles: 9:39

No, I haven't done that.

Gene: 9:41

Okay. I watched some videos of a dude. I don't know if he still makes it or not, but he, a few years back, he had a lot of videos of him like doing the, the paragliding in a bunch of different locations in the U. S.

TeethNGogles: 9:56

that'd be cool. That would be very cool.

Gene: 9:58

I can't remember how high he went, but he went up to where he needed an accident.

TeethNGogles: 10:03

Okay. All right.

Gene: 10:04

And that was like, and he's did it once. And he's yeah, there's really no reason to do it. And I'm never doing it again. I guess it's more fun when you're, a thousand feet up, not like 15, 000 feet up, 20,

TeethNGogles: 10:16

yeah. When you, when you start to need oxygen, you're usually in that 15, 000 feet area because it, it, it starts to get a little thin

Gene: 10:24

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 10:25

and I honestly could say I've only jumped once from that high

Gene: 10:29

Mm

TeethNGogles: 10:29

and because it was like a one time thing. I don't even know if I had a 200 jump yet. I get out of the plane. I jump, I'm doing my thing. Woo. And I'm like, wow, this is taking so much longer just because I had an extra 2000 feet to play

Gene: 10:42

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 10:43

Because your mind really does slow down after you after you've jumped, 30, 50 times.

Gene: 10:49

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 10:50

I even remember the jump where I refer to it as the jump where my brain stops screaming at me. bEcause jumping out of a plane is not it's not normal.

Gene: 11:02

Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah, not a perfectly good plan anyway.

TeethNGogles: 11:05

Right. And yeah, I remember the jump is right around jump number 30.

Gene: 11:09

Oh, okay.

TeethNGogles: 11:10

I was, I was jumping with a couple of friends of mine, the garbage man and his wife.

Gene: 11:14

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 11:15

And it was up in the Seattle area. And I remember I was jumping and it was kind of around sunset. And I remember feeling myself going through the different layers of air. And you could actually feel the, the temperature difference.

Gene: 11:28

Sure.

TeethNGogles: 11:29

And I actually noticed that instead of my brain going, Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. I'm falling out of an airplane. It was like, really the first time that I relaxed and enjoyed it. And, after you do that, you're hooked.

Gene: 11:44

Now unless you're trying to accelerate by getting super aerodynamic, you, you would typically hit terminal velocity before you pull a parachute. Right.

TeethNGogles: 11:55

Yeah. No terminal

Gene: 11:56

what is that velocity?

TeethNGogles: 11:57

thAt's, that's not a static number.

Gene: 12:00

Okay. Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 12:01

a lot of people will tell you, Oh, 120, can I go faster? Not true. 120 is like the average or a skydiver falling stable, belly to earth, kind of in that big box man formation, right around 120.

Gene: 12:17

Okay.

TeethNGogles: 12:18

I'm a guy who's got a bit of a beer gut. And when you have a beer gut, if you think of aerodynamics, that's basically a nose cone, and a nose cone spills off air.

Gene: 12:31

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 12:32

So because I have a nose cone, I can go faster.

Gene: 12:37

Right, right, right.

TeethNGogles: 12:38

So I've actually maintained control at around 165 miles per hour

Gene: 12:46

Okay. Mm-Hmm?

TeethNGogles: 12:47

On my belly, like straight down 165. Woohoo! But you know, my arms are tucked in, legs are tucked in, I'm trying to get as small as I can.

Gene: 12:55

Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 12:57

But that's belly to earth. If you're doing what's known as free flying, uh, you'll, you'll get in what's known as maybe a sit fly position, where it looks like you're sitting in a chair with your arms out,

Gene: 13:09

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 13:10

and you'll actually go much faster that way. The reason that is, is because in a sitting position, you're presenting less resistance to the wind, so you're falling faster. sOme people go head down, which basically they kind of turn themselves into a pencil. When you do that, you go even faster.

Gene: 13:28

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 13:29

So terminal velocity is more based on wind resistance and body position.

Gene: 13:37

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 13:38

So when, when I go fast, I tell people I go fast and then they go, ah, I can keep up with you, no problem. And I'm like, really? And so, I'll, I'll get out of a plane. I'm like, okay, you go as fast as you can and I'll, I'll see at the bottom. And they never catch me.

Gene: 13:54

hmm. Did you ever see Moonraker?

TeethNGogles: 13:59

I Don't know if I have,

Gene: 14:00

It's a James Bond movie. Came out in 79 or 78.

TeethNGogles: 14:05

I don't know if I've seen all the moon right. I've probably seen bits and pieces.

Gene: 14:08

so that movie starts off with a with James Bond having a fight inside of a small plane.

TeethNGogles: 14:19

Okay.

Gene: 14:20

Pilots are shot or maybe one pilot, I can't remember. And then one guy jumps out. With a parachute and Bond is left there with no parachute

TeethNGogles: 14:30

Mm. Okay.

Gene: 14:31

So he jumps out, dives very aerodynamically to catch the guy that jumped out before him, and then grabs him, shoots him, puts on the parachute, and then pulls it just in time.

TeethNGogles: 14:45

Ray,

Gene: 14:46

How many times have you done that?

TeethNGogles: 14:48

Myself, none.

Gene: 14:49

Oh, jeez,

TeethNGogles: 14:50

I've, I've s I've seen video of a guy that used to jump without a parachute, and then he'd put his parachute on quickly and free fall and then deploy it.

Gene: 14:59

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 15:00

I've seen video of that. thEre was a thing one of the guys from Red Bull, his name's Luke Akins, uh, he did a jump without a parachute into a net a few years ago.

Gene: 15:10

Oh, wow.

TeethNGogles: 15:11

was, that was it was a big publicity for Red Bull.

Gene: 15:13

Right, right,

TeethNGogles: 15:14

And I've actually jumped with Luke a couple of times. I'm sure he wouldn't recognize me if he, threw a brick at him, but

Gene: 15:21

So he just slowed down himself to as slow a terminal velocity as possible.

TeethNGogles: 15:27

yeah. Yeah. What you do is you,

Gene: 15:28

of the net to make sure that it's, decelerates you slowly enough to not kill you and not smack you against the ground.

TeethNGogles: 15:37

Yeah. And the, the videos out there, he, he did several practice jumps, um, before he did it and, he landed in a net, big publicity and woohoo, and it was interesting. A couple of years ago, he and another skydiver I know tried to do a plane swap.

Gene: 15:56

hmm.

TeethNGogles: 15:57

So they're both pilots

Gene: 15:59

Right.

TeethNGogles: 15:59

and they took off at the same time and they tried to basically jump from, jump out of one plane and get into the other while the other jumper does the same thing. Well, Luke made it, but the other jumper the plane just went a little squirrely on him.

Gene: 16:16

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 16:17

And so he didn't make it back into the plane, but they were both fine. They're both wearing parachutes.

Gene: 16:21

Okay.

TeethNGogles: 16:22

But Luke actually made it back into the plane. Yeah. Yeah. The one plane crashed, it did have an emergency parachute on it. And when they put that on a plane, it just, slows it down. So it'll minimize the damage. Yeah. There's all kinds of stuff out there.

Gene: 16:36

it's it's interesting. I mean, I get the, the interest from an adrenaline standpoint. I, I don't like waiting around. And so I think even if I had done this in my youth, I don't know that I would have gotten hooked simply because. You got five minutes of adrenaline and a lot of time between.

TeethNGogles: 16:58

Yeah. That's why, most skydivers, when they go to the drop zone, they go there and they do five to ten per weekend.

Gene: 17:05

Yeah. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 17:06

know, not just one or two.

Gene: 17:08

Yeah. No, I, I get it. And I, back in my early twenties, I used to go play paintball where I was out there every weekend

TeethNGogles: 17:15

Mm hmm.

Gene: 17:15

and same, same rationale I think is that you, you enjoy the adrenaline that you get from avoiding getting shot and shooting other people. And and even there where you're basically, once you're out, you might have to wait, 10 minutes. Until the game's over to restart. That was still the longest 10 minutes ever.

TeethNGogles: 17:36

Yeah, there's, there's always a lot of waiting around on the drop zone. Yeah, you're waiting for, your next time to go up, so to speak, even though the, larger drop zones have bigger planes. Bigger planes mean more people on a load, so, if you're at a small drop zone that's jumping a like a Cessna 182, which is a really small plane, you're only going to get four jumpers in it plus the pilot, but you're at a bigger drop zone. You're going to get, 15, 16 jumpers in the plane. Yeah. They make more money that way.

Gene: 18:05

I'm sure they enjoy that. Yeah. Now we're recording this and you're on Linux. So, that's, I guess it's interesting in the sense that most people don't. Don't do podcasts on Linux. However, you're a avid Linux user. And so for you, like doing anything on Linux is normal. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 18:27

There's definitely a lot of Linux gurus out there who know, thousands of things more than I do. I've had this it's an HP Envy laptop. I've had it since 2016. And yeah, I've been playing with Linux for a while prior to that. 2017, I decided, you know what, I'm putting Linux on it, I put Linux on it, no Windows, no, dual boot or nothing, and I've been happy with it ever since.

Gene: 18:53

Which which Linux destroy you running.

TeethNGogles: 18:56

Mint is my friend.

Gene: 18:57

Okay.

TeethNGogles: 18:58

Mint is probably the, in my opinion, um, the easiest for a Windows user to get into, because it has everything you need, and it doesn't have all the Ubuntu ugliness, um, comes with all the drivers you need. I mean, from from first install, your wireless works, your, your wireless internet works works on the laptop, touch pad works on the

Gene: 19:25

Wow. That is

TeethNGogles: 19:25

I mean, I mean, the fact that the touchscreen works, that's pretty amazing. Wireless usually with someone gets into Linux, they go Ubuntu or something like that, and they got to make sure they get the correct wireless drivers.

Gene: 19:40

Yep.

TeethNGogles: 19:41

But if you go in with Mint, it usually has all that stuff. So. I've played around a different distros, but Mint always seems to be what I go back to.

Gene: 19:52

Okay.

TeethNGogles: 19:53

I had my daughter using her laptop on Mint for a while until she broke it, physically broke it, the screen broke. It wasn't a Linux thing. It was a dog jumps on bed gravity thing.

Gene: 20:07

And there's a lot of Linux laptops that have duct tape on them.

TeethNGogles: 20:11

Yeah. This one was crack the screen. So it was not usable,

Gene: 20:16

Got it.

TeethNGogles: 20:17

but you know,

Gene: 20:17

host.

TeethNGogles: 20:18

I bought her a, we got her a, a cheap windows 10 laptop for Christmas one year, and she was complaining it was slow and I go, I can put Linux on it and she was able to use it didn't have all of her access to some of her games She liked but it worked just fine for her.

Gene: 20:35

And now you're, I already said at the beginning of the show that you're a dude named Ben. So I'm continuing my line of Interviewing pretty much only I. T. people with a few exceptions here and there for other people that I've run into that, were interesting for some other reason, but it certainly seems like of the people that I've met through no agenda one way or the other, either through events or through the no agenda social. That the percentage of dudes named Ben is extremely high. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 21:15

I think I think that's probably the Dvorak draw that's my theory because a lot of a lot of people have been listening for a long time I found them through twit, you know that this week in tech.

Gene: 21:28

And the, and I guarantee you that when this show comes out, there'll be people arguing how the year full of shit and that's not the case.

TeethNGogles: 21:34

Yeah, it's okay. They can argue. Okay.

Gene: 21:37

When I was in tech many years ago, Um, Twit and certainly John Dworak at that point, I would have never called technology people. I would have called them pop tech. This is tech shows for people that don't understand tech.

TeethNGogles: 21:55

Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely the CNET channel.

Gene: 21:58

Yeah, that whole channel was built on that. It was really like popular science on TV.

TeethNGogles: 22:03

Mm hmm. I enjoyed it. I loved it,

Gene: 22:05

Yeah. And I was way too much into actual, development to, to ever watch these people that would be on the pop tech stuff, but I did read John's column that he had in the back. He always had the back page of Mac user or Mac world, but one of those two. And I remember in the eighties, always reading that column first, because it was the most controversial. Okay. He's already said the mice are never going to last. Let's see what else John kills this week. It's who needs color by John Dworak. So there, there is a, always a really fun contrarian kind of a kind of a trolley article by John on the last page. And so that was my first experience in in becoming familiar with John. And, and seeing what, what somebody who purposefully knew how to be a troll could actually do, because his column was one of the most popular columns in the magazine, but it was always an anti column.

TeethNGogles: 23:19

right. It was, he was the the anti hero, so to

Gene: 23:23

it was a designated troll for the

TeethNGogles: 23:25

Right.

Gene: 23:26

And. And it was great. I, I really thoroughly enjoyed it. And of course, right about it was a little later, I think, that Adam got on MTV and I started watching him on there. Although I must admit, not horribly often, because Headbangers Ball was just not really my kind of music. sO I would see him when he was on doing other stuff or if I was just flipping channels and had bangers ball happened to be on, but generally that was not the that was not my jam. As the kids say

TeethNGogles: 23:59

back in the day when MTV actually played music.

Gene: 24:02

Yeah. It's amazing.

TeethNGogles: 24:04

Yeah. It was, that was good times and

Gene: 24:08

they rolled out this, this little show called real life, a real world, real world.

TeethNGogles: 24:14

got in the real world and they realized they can make a lot of money

Gene: 24:17

Yeah. And it was like, Oh my God, we don't even need writers. This shit writes itself because these kids are crazy.

TeethNGogles: 24:23

Yeah. I think they occasionally poke to the bear on the when they pick to their people. They always picked the the token slob, they always pick the token pretty girl. They pick your, not to sound horrible, but, they pick your, African American guy, your African American girl. You make sure there's plenty of drama between those two. You pick the jock

Gene: 24:47

It was always about creating

TeethNGogles: 24:48

the pot and yeah.

Gene: 24:50

And then one of the things that they jumped on fairly quickly, and then went, I think, a little overboard is, okay, who's the gay one this time around?

TeethNGogles: 24:57

Right. Exactly.

Gene: 24:58

It's oh, come on, dude. You, you've done it the last six shows, you can skip one, and that'll actually be more controversial.

TeethNGogles: 25:05

Yeah. Who, who are we pulling out of the closet this

Gene: 25:08

And it's Oh my God, come on, people. So yeah, they, they went all in on that show and with all the other reality crap that followed it and MTV was never the same afterwards.

TeethNGogles: 25:22

Yeah, they did a what real world and then road rules. And then real world road rules

Gene: 25:28

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 25:28

say that four times fast. And then yeah, it just, it went down until downhill after that. I think I stopped watching after the fourth season. I was just done,

Gene: 25:38

Of road rules

TeethNGogles: 25:39

of real world

Gene: 25:40

real world. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 25:40

Yeah.

Gene: 25:41

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 25:42

sometimes in the mid nineties, I was just like, you know what? I'm done.

Gene: 25:45

yeah, it was just not, not interesting after a while for sure.

TeethNGogles: 25:50

I'm actually, I feel like I was kind of late to the game in tech.

Gene: 25:53

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 25:54

My. Early career goals out of high school. I graduated in 1990. So if you do some math, you can figure out how old I am. I worked

Gene: 26:04

and four it sounds like.

TeethNGogles: 26:05

I'm 104. I'm 104 went to school with Kissinger. I'm sorry, too soon.

Gene: 26:13

At all.

TeethNGogles: 26:14

anyway, I, when I was in high school, I got started working in radio, the local, local radio station, and we're talking a town of 20, 000 people in, central Nebraska. And I'm, I'm at the only rock and roll radio station with, other high school kids. And then I got a job at the local TV station and again, very small town, very small market, but I did, broadcasting off and on for about 15 years. And then finally, I was just like, you know what I've done. And I quit pretty much in a huff during my dinner hour. I Actually completely torched that bridge and left some napalm behind. I, I quit and like my last quote unquote duty as production supervisor, I called the weekend director and said, you know what, you better come in because I'm leaving and I never went back

Gene: 27:08

Now had you stayed at that small town station the whole time or did you travel around at all?

TeethNGogles: 27:14

I moved around quite a bit. So I, I started in a little town called North Platte, Nebraska. They pride themselves on Buffalo Bill and the birthplace of rodeo.

Gene: 27:25

Yeah, no one's ever heard of it.

TeethNGogles: 27:26

And then, uh, went to Hastings, Nebraska, which is even smaller town college there for broadcasting.

Gene: 27:33

Nebraska

TeethNGogles: 27:34

Yeah, it was

Gene: 27:35

I'm just giving you shit.

TeethNGogles: 27:36

Yeah, no, right outside Walmart. There was a cornfield

Gene: 27:39

Huh.

TeethNGogles: 27:41

right there. But went to Hastings and then I moved out to Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, again, Google it. And then I lived in Lincoln for a few years and all this kind of pretty much bounced around either radio or television

Gene: 27:54

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 27:54

and ended up sticking with TV. And from there I moved to Memphis, then I moved to Seattle, then I moved to Florida and after Florida, after a couple years, I was just like, you know what, done with TV. Went back to school and got into IT. Not as much fun, but pays better.

Gene: 28:14

Not as much fun. Really?

TeethNGogles: 28:18

Well, TV's fun when you're younger.

Gene: 28:20

Okay, so you enjoyed your time in TV Just didn't pay very well.

TeethNGogles: 28:24

Didn't pay well, and once wife and kids gets involved, you don't want to work every holiday, every weekend, every disaster, every hurricane, every thunderstorm. It just, it gets old,

Gene: 28:39

hmm. Mm

TeethNGogles: 28:40

you know. It's fun when you're young because, one of my nights in high school, I was standing on the top of a hill looking for tornadoes in Nebraska. That's pretty good for a 17 year old.

Gene: 28:52

Yeah, that's that's a good times.

TeethNGogles: 28:53

Yeah, it was fun. thOse core memories so to

Gene: 28:56

It's yeah, I've I've been to a few tornadoes up close It's very impressive. The sound just really Just makes you realize that the energy involved in those things,

TeethNGogles: 29:08

Yeah, sounds like a freight trains coming

Gene: 29:09

it, it makes a freight train seem like a toy.

TeethNGogles: 29:12

Yeah

Gene: 29:13

It's, it's really tremendous. Very low pitch and a constant, constant, constant sound.

TeethNGogles: 29:21

freight train with wind.

Gene: 29:22

yeah, yeah, yeah. And I I've always done, I always, I've, I've also done a stupid shit in my youth standing on top of a hill to get some really nice lightning shots with a tripod.

TeethNGogles: 29:36

Yeah, that's probably a bad idea

Gene: 29:38

That's, yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

TeethNGogles: 29:42

Yeah, I've I've plenty of stories of and here's another reason why I should be dead

Gene: 29:46

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That's what happens when you get to be 104, is you start thinking back over your life and you're like, how am I alive?

TeethNGogles: 29:54

Yeah, that's when I just

Gene: 29:56

I, I clearly should be dead by now. That's, that's very true. so You got kind of pulled into No Agenda through the John DeWaer gateway and Twitch.

TeethNGogles: 30:08

Yeah, I was

Gene: 30:09

Twit.

TeethNGogles: 30:10

twit. When I lived in Seattle back in the early 2000s tech TV was a big thing. So I watched tech TV and good old Leo Laporte and the,

Gene: 30:19

hmm. Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 30:20

That gang of hooligans. And then when podcasting came out, I'd, I'd, by that time I'd moved to Florida. And, I was listening to twit, cause Hey, look, it's Leo again. And from twit, I found you know, no agenda. I started listening, probably I I'd say I regularly started listening. There were still in the seventies for episodes numbers

Gene: 30:41

Okay.

TeethNGogles: 30:42

pretty early

Gene: 30:43

Yeah. That's certainly way earlier than most people. I think at this point, probably half the people came through what's his face

TeethNGogles: 30:53

Rogan.

Gene: 30:54

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 30:55

definitely a lot of Roganites out there.

Gene: 30:56

Yeah, because you hear a lot of them talking. wHich is cool. I mean, that's a, that's a good thing. I was always happy to see Adam going on, on that show, even though it seemed to me like he was more nervous than he should have been because he's actually got, uh, a longer and more interesting career in broadcast than Joe Rogan,

TeethNGogles: 31:20

Right. Joe Rogan was an actor for a while.

Gene: 31:23

not a very good one. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 31:26

yeah,

Gene: 31:27

He he was a decent show host because he did that. That show where you ate gross food.

TeethNGogles: 31:33

yeah. He did. He did the man show for two seasons and then he went to the fear factor

Gene: 31:39

but it was a I think his standup comedy was better than what he did on the screen for the most part.

TeethNGogles: 31:46

probably.

Gene: 31:47

Yeah, that was just my impression. And obviously when he started doing the podcast, I really got into that because, uh, the thing that he was doing two things that he did slightly differently, in my opinion, one is he had guests instead of regulars and almost all the podcasts back then were just regulars. And then the other thing he did is long ass form interviews, where it'd be the same person that's a guest for two hours. And that was another thing that was crazy, because even the people that did interviews, they tend to like to have these little concise segments, just like TV would. No TV show in the world would have an interview that's longer than an hour. Most of them would be less than a half an hour.

TeethNGogles: 32:33

He followed the Larry King model.

Gene: 32:36

Yeah, but even Larry's interviews weren't that long.

TeethNGogles: 32:38

Because he was restricted by network TV. I mean he might sit with someone for two hours, but it was cut down to 52 minutes So they should get their commercials in there.

Gene: 32:49

Do you think he did though?

TeethNGogles: 32:51

Oh, I'm sure he did.

Gene: 32:52

Larry seems to me like the kind of guy that would waltz into the studio about four minutes before the start, do the show, and then take off immediately afterwards.

TeethNGogles: 33:01

I I think that's actually what he did do

Gene: 33:04

Oh, okay.

TeethNGogles: 33:05

similar to Adam and John,

Gene: 33:08

Yeah,

TeethNGogles: 33:08

They say they don't talk to each other during the week, you know So there's no, you know pre show so to speak other than five minutes on the pre stream

Gene: 33:18

Mm hmm. I

TeethNGogles: 33:21

In interviews, of Larry King, he would say, he doesn't talk to his guests. He doesn't read the book. He, might find out who the guest is. He'll do a little bit of research on him, but he won't talk to him until he sits down with him. So it's, it's the long format conversation like interview.

Gene: 33:39

love his interview with Jerry Seinfeld.

TeethNGogles: 33:44

I don't think I ever saw it.

Gene: 33:45

You never saw it? You should track it down on YouTube and watch it. Jerry was so insulted.

TeethNGogles: 33:51

Yeah,

Gene: 33:52

Oh my god. And like for real, not playing. Because Jerry had just finished doing Seinfeld and had 10 years of award winning shows. Where he, he left, he stopped the show. He ended it at its peak of popularity with the largest network, numbers that it's ever had. And and then he, he went on Larry's show and then Larry starts asking questions so did you expect it to just kind of wrap up at some point? It was a surprise to you when it was canceled. What was how'd you feel about that?

TeethNGogles: 34:34

It wasn't really canceled.

Gene: 34:35

And Jerry's looking at him like, are you a complete idiot? He's we weren't canceled. We, did it of our own accord. We were super popular. And he's yeah. So what do you know? You were thinking of starting going on another show, what you're going to take a little bit of time off and then get back and work again. And Jerry's walking out of there with a hundred and eighty million minimum.

TeethNGogles: 34:58

Right. He he wasn't watching his laundry money.

Gene: 35:01

no, and, and so every question that was asked had reconfirmed that Larry had no clue who Jerry was, had never seen the show, didn't bother reading the notes about Jerry coming in. And I think Jerry was very close to just getting up and walking off for the complete lack of professionalism that he was shown.

TeethNGogles: 35:28

Yeah I mean, but I think. I think Jerry maybe also should have done his homework. Now, granted, I haven't seen the interview, so

Gene: 35:36

yeah, you should, you should check it out. It's I think you'll enjoy watching it cause it's cringe.

TeethNGogles: 35:40

Oh, yeah, I'm sure it was uncomfortable if he wasn't expecting that.

Gene: 35:44

It was certainly very different from every other interview that, that his bookers had him on, which were all, congratulations.

TeethNGogles: 35:51

right, they were all pandering to him. They're all like, oh, you're so great. You're so wonderful.

Gene: 35:55

here's Larry. Who's never heard of him.

TeethNGogles: 35:57

Who are you again?

Gene: 35:58

Yeah. And I can't remember if he said anything nasty about CNN, but he might've it's I, I'm not really surprised that you would know anything about our show, given that you're like the 38th most watched network,

TeethNGogles: 36:11

right CNN's,

Gene: 36:12

something to that

TeethNGogles: 36:12

garbage anyway.

Gene: 36:14

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we did, it wasn't garbage in its early days back when Ted was really pushing it and competing against the the local broadcasts. I think it was quite good.

TeethNGogles: 36:25

I mean, in the 80s when CNN was, coming into its own, so to speak, prior to the original Gulf War there was nothing else out there, there wasn't any 24 hour news channel.

Gene: 36:39

Yeah. And it's, it's really, it grew out of TBS's newsroom and then I think it really blossomed in 91, uh,

TeethNGogles: 36:48

The, the first Gulf war is what basically,

Gene: 36:51

It made

TeethNGogles: 36:52

know, it made it what it was.

Gene: 36:54

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

TeethNGogles: 36:56

Now, when I was, when I was working in television, I was a newscast director. I was the guy behind the scenes calling the camera shots, Kellen, calling the video, calling the audio, running and punching and, I was punching the show. I was the guy behind the big, big shiny switcher, so it was a, when I was doing a newscast. It was. Very tense, very stressful. And the problem

Gene: 37:20

you got, let me guess, you got no respect and no money.

TeethNGogles: 37:23

Yeah, got them both right.

Gene: 37:25

Got them both. Yep. Mm

TeethNGogles: 37:27

When I, when I was working in Seattle, I was working at a small cable station, uh, called Northwest Cable News, which touted itself as CNN of the Northwest.

Gene: 37:39

hmm.

TeethNGogles: 37:40

And if anybody who listens to this ever watched Northwest Cable News, it was, it was pretty rough because basically all they did was rebroadcast all the the packages and news stories from all the sister stations.

Gene: 37:52

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 37:53

But it was it was a rough time when I was there, it was, 2000. So you had the, the first George W. Bush election, the hanging chads and all that fun stuff. We had an earthquake in Seattle shortly after that. And then good old nine 11, just a few months later. And that

Gene: 38:11

So these are all good things for the news business.

TeethNGogles: 38:14

It was painful. I would go to work and I would literally control how much water or anything I would drink. Because I know I would go into the control room and I wouldn't leave the control room for eight hours because it was just Constant constant

Gene: 38:32

Yeah. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 38:32

It was like that for months after 9 11.

Gene: 38:35

I believe it.

TeethNGogles: 38:36

there's about 500 reasons. I'm glad I'm out of television

Gene: 38:40

Yeah. That seems to be a consistent thing with. Almost everybody I've talked with that used to be in television.

TeethNGogles: 38:47

Yeah, it's it's to meet grinder.

Gene: 38:51

Yeah, it's I, I interviewed there and God, what's her name? I can't remember her last name, but she was she was a Fox talking head and she'd been on a number of local markets before that. And then she ended up getting picked up by RT about three years ago and had a nice, like high budget show in RT. And then of course, when the whole special military operations started within two weeks, RT America was shut down. so she lost her job and you know, I think it was kind of like they, they stole from her just as she was starting to get some real money coming in. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 39:38

the talking heads on local television definitely make more than the poor saps behind the scenes That's for sure.

Gene: 39:46

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 39:47

But you know, I I did that for while I was a director for about 13 years So, it, it fed me, it let me jump out of airplanes. I was happy.

Gene: 39:57

Sounds like it covered that, that hobby that killed you any day.

TeethNGogles: 40:03

It, it covered the spread where the credit cards wouldn't let me put it that way,

Gene: 40:06

Huh. Huh. Exactly.

TeethNGogles: 40:09

but now I'm a dude named Ben, who's been riding the help desk for about 10 years,

Gene: 40:14

Okay. And are you burned out on that yet?

TeethNGogles: 40:18

Getting close.

Gene: 40:19

Oh yeah.

TeethNGogles: 40:20

I told my boss a few weeks ago, I was like, you know what? I can only reset so many more passwords before I go insane.

Gene: 40:28

Don't, don't you have a script for that man? Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 40:31

Problem is you got to deal with the users and see there's. There's three kinds of users. There's skilled users who they know what they're doing, you can talk them through stuff,

Gene: 40:47

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 40:48

know, you can explain things to them, they'll figure it out on their own, and they're not a headache, then you have the middle of the road users who you have to explain a lot more, you always have to connect to their system, you have to walk them through all the basic things every 90 days when their password expires,

Gene: 41:06

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 41:07

and then you have the users who may be great at their job, But should not have a computer job

Gene: 41:16

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 41:17

and I, I like to tell the story of one of my first it jobs is working to help desk and I was trying to get remoted into this lady's computer. She was older, she was a real estate agent, and I'm sure she was a great real estate agent, but she should not have had a computer job. So I, 20 minutes to get into her computer, which normally is just like 5 minutes. Because she has to go to a website, click on a couple things, download it, boom, run it. You're there.

Gene: 41:47

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 41:48

So after about 20 minutes, I was like, okay, I'm almost into your computer. Your mouse is gonna start getting a little squirrely on you. Meaning the cursor on the screen is gonna start moving around because I take control.

Gene: 42:01

Mm-Hmm?

TeethNGogles: 42:01

I apparently picked my words very wrong and she says, okay, I'll make sure the mouse is in a good spot on the desk.

Gene: 42:10

Oh, nice. Yes.

TeethNGogles: 42:12

So she thought her mouse was actually going to start moving around on its own.

Gene: 42:17

Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 42:18

Now, I had about five help desk people behind me just howling,

Gene: 42:22

sure that must have been a fun one.

TeethNGogles: 42:24

trying to maintain my composure. I'm like, Oh my God. Yeah.

Gene: 42:29

do they, let me ask you this, do they teach you how to do the Indian accent or is that something you pick up on your own?

TeethNGogles: 42:35

I watched a lot of The Simpsons.

Gene: 42:37

Got it. So you got it off TV.

TeethNGogles: 42:39

Oh yes. I got it off The Simpsons. Watch TV. Thank you very much, sir. Come again.

Gene: 42:44

Very good. Because I know that's a requirement for being an IT help desk

TeethNGogles: 42:47

it. Go. Hello. My name is Mark. I would like to help you, please.

Gene: 42:51

Mark Anderson. Yeah, exactly.

TeethNGogles: 42:53

is Jeff. Sorry. That was horribly insensitive and

Gene: 42:58

How's that insensitive? That's reality, man. That's not even comedy.

TeethNGogles: 43:01

Yeah. I know.

Gene: 43:02

It's just, it is reality. It's always shocking when you get somebody The other day I was calling Amazon and this guy with a kind of a Midwestern accent, but like I could tell he was in his seventies, was picked up the line. And I'm thinking, boy, did I get lucky or did I get unlucky? Because on the one hand, I don't have to explain idioms to him. On the other hand, this is going to be a very long support call because I'm going to have to repeat everything two or three times. And I'm going to have to wait for him to process what I'm telling him and then type things in one finger at a time. And that's almost exactly what ended up happening. It was a super long support call, uh, and he technically was doing the correct things, but it was sort of like, I, I would think somebody a wee bit younger could have done that entire call in about a third of the time.

TeethNGogles: 44:02

Yeah. Possibly.

Gene: 44:03

So it's it's time to get rid of the old people is what I

TeethNGogles: 44:07

Yeah I, I, I find myself, I mean, I'm, I'm 52,

Gene: 44:12

Oh, you're way too old.

TeethNGogles: 44:13

I know I'm just, I've been help desk for 13 years and probably too long,

Gene: 44:23

Mm

TeethNGogles: 44:24

but I, I get to the point where there are some days I just go in and I start taking calls and I'm like, oh my God, I just talked to you yesterday about the same

Gene: 44:33

Mm hmm. Yeah,

TeethNGogles: 44:36

and I fixed you yesterday and I'm fixing you again today for the same thing. And then tomorrow, and then it's just there is a point where frustration sets in, so I kind of get in trouble with joking around with people, I've the backhanded compliment,

Gene: 44:55

yeah, yeah, no, it's you, it's a skill. Every support person I think needs to have

TeethNGogles: 45:01

combination sarcasm and cynicism.

Gene: 45:03

exactly back when I was in my tech days, I was definitely not somebody that support enjoyed because I'd be the guy that would get in there and say, okay, I know what the problem is. Just give me a, give me root access. That's all I need.

TeethNGogles: 45:19

You just want to

Gene: 45:20

we have to, we have to go and ask questions like, you really don't, cause we're going to end up exactly where I'm telling you we are. Just let's speed this along. Flip little switch. Give me road access. I know how to fix it. I've done this before, but I can't do it with my current access level.

TeethNGogles: 45:39

right? I, I totally understand that I get to the point where I'm just like, we have certain, Oh you got to submit a ticket first and then you got to explain the problem and then you got to get approval from your manager. And. All these little checklist things and I'm sitting there just tapping my foot saying I just want to fix this and get this person off my telephone

Gene: 45:58

exactly.

TeethNGogles: 45:58

and I'll go wild west sometimes and do just that. And sometimes I win. Sometimes I get yelled

Gene: 46:05

And it, and it's awesome when they, you and you get somebody that actually does that. I had that happen. Years ago, not anything recent, but maybe seven or eight years ago, I had, I just got fiber installed the house and you know, something was clearly off cause I wasn't getting the speeds I'm supposed to be getting called support. And they kind of went through a number of things and he's Oh, it's looking pretty good on there. And I was like, okay, so I know there's gotta be more interface on this device than what I'm seeing. Can I log in there and look at some logs, maybe that I can tell you what's going on. And the guy's yeah, you know what you're doing? I'm like, yep.

TeethNGogles: 46:46

Nice,

Gene: 46:46

okay, hang on one sec. Goes in and then resets the the admin password on there. It's okay, punch this in. So I do that and I'm like, holy shit, that's awesome. This is gonna make for a very quick call. It'll get your queue looking better. And and I, I'll tell you exactly what's going on. So I pointed to it. He figured out what it was. It was not coming up through the auto diagnostics as usual. And sure enough he did the fix

TeethNGogles: 47:16

Yeah, that's,

Gene: 47:17

I kept my access for six years. It was great.

TeethNGogles: 47:21

It's always nice when you get actually someone who's legitimately helpful on the other end of the phone, whether it's a user person or, you're calling in for support.

Gene: 47:31

Yes.

TeethNGogles: 47:32

If you actually get someone who's actually helpful,

Gene: 47:35

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 47:35

Now the other, the other problem with a helpful person is if you've done any type of help desk support, um, you'll have your helpful user who won't take their hand off the mouse

Gene: 47:48

hmm. Mm

TeethNGogles: 47:48

and, you're trying to do things and they keep checking their email and doing other things while you're trying to work on their computer. Nothing gets me closer to swearing out a user.

Gene: 47:57

Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 47:59

Give me the goddamn mouse.

Gene: 48:03

Yeah. No, that's that is funny. Now, have you watched any of these videos of the, the scam what do they call themselves? Scam killers or whatever? These guys that basically pretend to be old people. And then when the Indian scammers Target them and then tell them, Oh, we've just sent you 10, 000 by mistake to your bank account and you need to log into Microsoft and then reverse that transaction. Otherwise, I'm going to lose my job. Is that kind of bullshit? You ever watch that?

TeethNGogles: 48:38

I haven't watched those, but I have dealt with a few of those scammers. I worked at this one company, we did tech support for these interface devices and the help desk team always answered all the calls, every single call in the building, whether it's the sales call or for the manager, the boss, whatever we handled every single call. We were kind of like secretary slash help desk. So I, I I've helped. I've gotten two of those that I remember very well. One, we had this person who always called, she wanted the numbers off of our copier.

Gene: 49:11

hmm.

TeethNGogles: 49:12

And I thought, you know what, I'm going to mess with this lady.

Gene: 49:15

Mm hmm. Mm

TeethNGogles: 49:16

going to mess with the dude. First, it was a dude who called. He's yeah, I'm so and so from the copy lady. I need the numbers off your copier. And he got me on the wrong day. So I'm like, alright, hold on just a minute, let me put you on hold. So I put him on hold. I take him off hold like a minute later. I'm like, yeah, you still there? Okay, I'm in the copy room. It is You need ready for the numbers and I'm you know, just stringing him along,

Gene: 49:37

hmm. Mm

TeethNGogles: 49:37

sitting at my desk and I go. All right, the numbers are THX 1138

Gene: 49:43

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 49:44

Which

Gene: 49:45

Good old THX.

TeethNGogles: 49:46

right, if you're a Star Wars fan or George Lucas fan, you know that code But he's like THX 1138. I'm like, yep. That's what it says. It's right there He's is that a Lexmark? And I'm like, I don't know it's You know, and I, I played totally dumb with him and I just went on and on and I go, tell you what, let me, let me put you on hold a second. I got George here. He's going to help me. There was no George at the company.

Gene: 50:08

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 50:09

So I put on hold and I picked the phone up and I'm like, all right, George is looking at the copier. He's, he just lifted it up and oh, oh, he spilled toner all over the floor. It's a mess. I'm just making this up just off the, off of, off the top of my head. And he's like freaking out the guy on the phone, think he's going to get trouble, and so they called back a little bit later. And I go, yeah, Hey, I'm glad you guys called back because they got me again. Letty calls, call back, George is in trouble. He spilled toner everywhere. The boss is going to fire him. I need your boss's name and number because this is serious. And so they called me back again about an hour later. And this time it was some lady and she's I'm explaining it to her because they got me again. I'm like, yeah, George lifted the copier up. Toner spilled everywhere. We were trying to find the numbers. I, and I'm spill, I'm spilling the same tail. And she finally was smart enough. She's you know what? I think you're messing with me. And I go, you know what? You're right. Why don't you guys stop calling us?

Gene: 51:07

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 51:09

They never called again.

Gene: 51:10

Oh, that's good.

TeethNGogles: 51:11

And then I got another scammer. The the ones where they call and say, hello, my name is Mark. I'm calling for Microsoft. And you have a virus on your computer.

Gene: 51:23

Yes.

TeethNGogles: 51:24

I, I let this guy just, I let him play with me. He had me open up, command prompt and net stat. And he shows me all these foreign addresses. And I of course start making fun of him. I'm like, oh my God, all those foreign addresses. Are those all you? Cause he was clearly from the dark continent.

Gene: 51:41

Huh.

TeethNGogles: 51:42

And I, I had him on the phone for probably 20 minutes.

Gene: 51:45

That's great.

TeethNGogles: 51:46

And then finally he figured out that I was messing with him because they wanted home users. And I made the mistake of saying I was at a business and our I. T. guy was a guy named Bob who's really good at installing office

Gene: 51:59

Oh, yeah.

TeethNGogles: 52:00

in you know, after that he realized he was at a business. He just got off the phone and I'm like, but I did get his phone number and his extension

Gene: 52:08

Nice.

TeethNGogles: 52:09

and, and Google plus was still a thing the Google social media.

Gene: 52:14

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 52:15

And I actually put his name and phone number on a on Google plus.

Gene: 52:19

Nice.

TeethNGogles: 52:20

So I don't know if anybody called him, but I figured I got my revenge.

Gene: 52:25

Didn't sign him up into any nasty lists.

TeethNGogles: 52:28

No, no, I didn't get his email. That's his phone number.

Gene: 52:32

These days that's more risky because you get spammed to death with text messages. So I, I put a link in in here for you that you can click later to watch some of these anti scammers doing their thing. And these guys are freaking good. Like some of them like one of the dudes is learned Hindi.

TeethNGogles: 52:52

Really

Gene: 52:53

Yeah, so he started, I believe his whole story was that his grandma got scammed for 15, 000 and that pissed him off so much that some, nice old lady would get scammed like that, that he just started spending all the free time he had just trying to, bust these guys and yeah, basically make life difficult. And then he ended up setting up a YouTube channel and actually he's very very popular. So that's all he does now. It just makes a living off of doing that. buT they, they get scammers busted. They, they take over control of the the CCTV cameras inside of their offices. They, they talk to the local police and give them, provide the, the kind of Evidence that they need to actually arrest these guys that like it's hardcore. It's

TeethNGogles: 53:43

That's good. That's a,

Gene: 53:45

But it's all documented on YouTube, which makes it hilarious to watch.

TeethNGogles: 53:48

Right.

Gene: 53:50

It's you know the It's what the FBI should be doing, but isn't. It's instead you have these YouTubers basically doing it on their own.

TeethNGogles: 53:59

Yeah. FBI is too busy. Investigating January 6th, the people

Gene: 54:03

That's the important thing they need to do apparently.

TeethNGogles: 54:07

tAking a slow tour through the,

Gene: 54:09

yeah, slow walk through the Capitol being shown where to go by the security guards there.

TeethNGogles: 54:14

Yeah. I mean, there

Gene: 54:15

seems bad.

TeethNGogles: 54:16

I remember that day I was at work and we were all watching, whatever streaming of this. I was watching a, a YouTube live stream of it and just people were just walking through just do, do, do, Oh, this is really pretty. Oh, look at these paintings. Oh, isn't this fancy? And they were all still behind the felt ropes.

Gene: 54:35

Mm hmm. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 54:36

If you're in, if you're behind the felt ropes, is it really a riot?

Gene: 54:42

Exactly.

TeethNGogles: 54:42

Not to go off on politics.

Gene: 54:44

yeah we can have you not read my posts?

TeethNGogles: 54:47

Yeah, I

Gene: 54:48

I'm perfectly happy to go off on all kinds of politics here.

TeethNGogles: 54:51

Yeah, I, I get in trouble when I go down that road when I'm not talking to no agenda people.

Gene: 54:56

Oh, yeah as, as somebody that's been very much in the original knowledge on the person I, I feel perfectly fine being the bull in the China shop. It's

TeethNGogles: 55:08

Yeah, I, I definitely have,

Gene: 55:10

don't give a shit if people get their panties in the wood.

TeethNGogles: 55:12

yeah, I've definitely made some, made some enemies.

Gene: 55:16

Yeah. Which is a sign of intellect, frankly

TeethNGogles: 55:19

yeah, it also gets you ostracized out of family, but that's okay.

Gene: 55:23

dude you think I've talked to my dad in the last few years at all? Come on.

TeethNGogles: 55:27

I don't

Gene: 55:28

If you're not getting ostracized from family, you're not doing it right.

TeethNGogles: 55:31

Yeah, I've definitely poked a few bears in my house, that's for sure.

Gene: 55:35

exactly. so Let's see, we talked about the the stuff you're doing at work. What I don't know what, what keeps you what keeps you on no agenda social Clearly you're there mostly to read his messages.

TeethNGogles: 55:53

There's a lot of fun people to post on no agenda, social, and honestly, Adam would hate this, but I'm there for the memes because I'm, I'm sitting at work all day, every day. I'm on no agenda, social, just looking at stuff,

Gene: 56:07

hmm. Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 56:08

know, if, if I wasn't in it and I was worried about it actually peeping on what I was doing, I'd probably be fired.

Gene: 56:14

Exactly. With half the traffic coming through. From the big pipe on Macedon, having either underage Japanese girls or God knows what with no clothes on flickering through

TeethNGogles: 56:30

I stay out of

Gene: 56:31

would definitely not. Yeah, I would not be watching federated if I wasn't sitting at home. That's for sure.

TeethNGogles: 56:37

Yeah. If I, if I'm, if I'm at work, yeah, not in the Fediverse. Yeah, that's a, that's a dangerous place,

Gene: 56:45

Yeah. Yeah. It's get you into trouble. And it's exactly the kind of shit that back when I was in it that I spent doing, like I w I was an architect for security information center,

TeethNGogles: 56:59

right?

Gene: 57:00

installation. So it'd be all about. It's getting the right monitoring solutions in place and making sure that, with our IDSs and IPSs, we can see what everybody's doing, see what kind of traffic is moving through. It, it's the,

TeethNGogles: 57:17

definitely stay out of the federated if you're sitting at work, cause you never know what's going to pop up.

Gene: 57:22

I would probably just make, be on the phone for anything like that and not tie into the main corporate network because you never know

TeethNGogles: 57:29

Yeah. Yeah. Don't

Gene: 57:30

they're literally no controls. Somebody could just as easily post some. Illegal literally stuff that ends up on no agenda social.

TeethNGogles: 57:41

Yup. And then it's cashed on your computer and then you're fired the next day and you're explaining it to

Gene: 57:45

day if they're doing their job rights within two hours

TeethNGogles: 57:48

They got to get the HR involved. It takes a day.

Gene: 57:51

Depends on what it is. We had processes in place that, that I helped put together for Fortune 500 companies where there are certain things that you bypass HR on.

TeethNGogles: 58:01

Yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 58:03

Yeah, you, your, your,

TeethNGogles: 58:04

out of the building.

Gene: 58:04

your first call is to the the CIO. Your second call is to the FBI.

TeethNGogles: 58:12

Right. Yeah. Yeah. We had,

Gene: 58:13

and they better be within five minutes of each other because the FBI will ask you why you didn't call sooner.

TeethNGogles: 58:19

Right. My at my first it job it was a very small MSP managed service provider. We did a lot of work for the Realtors. This is again, the same place that had the, the old lady with the mouse. I Don't know what it is with these Realtors and I'm, I'm sure there are plenty of nice Realtors

Gene: 58:40

know who realtors are, right?

TeethNGogles: 58:42

Yeah.

Gene: 58:42

players and the cheerleaders from

TeethNGogles: 58:45

The Realtors down in Southwest Florida,

Gene: 58:47

Mm

TeethNGogles: 58:48

uh, they're a bunch of horny buggers

Gene: 58:50

hmm. What did I just say?

TeethNGogles: 58:52

Yeah, we had, we had computers coming in every few weeks from pretty much the same people that were loaded with viruses tons of malware. And then you go into the, documents and pictures folder and, Oh, surprise. And at a smaller company, it's like my boss had to basically make a decision. It's you know what? It's all ones and zeros to us. And I'm like, okay. Whatever you say,

Gene: 59:20

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 59:21

we had to do a lot of big deletes.

Gene: 59:25

Oh, I bet.

TeethNGogles: 59:26

I mean, that was back in the days of, you were doing good if you had a 60 gig hard drive in a laptop

Gene: 59:31

hmm.

TeethNGogles: 59:31

and 50 gigabytes of it was porn. Like, all right, good job, build it up.

Gene: 59:38

Yeah. Yeah, it's people, I think, are much better now, even though they're still not great, at understanding that if stuff's at work, then somebody could see it.

TeethNGogles: 59:52

Right. I think there's a more of an understanding of the, IT can see what you're doing,

Gene: 59:57

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 59:59

Maybe 20 years ago, it was like, whoo, free web, free everything. I speed when I'm at work,

Gene: 1:00:04

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:00:05

I'm on that, T1 line when I'm, sitting at sitting at my desk instead of AOL.

Gene: 1:00:11

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's a lot of back in the 90s and early 2000s, there was definitely a lot of freewheeling attitudes.

TeethNGogles: 1:00:21

Yeah, it was definitely more Wild West and, I'm, I like the Wild West, I kind of like, deregulation and just, If what I'm doing is not killing anybody or hurting anybody, leave me alone.

Gene: 1:00:33

And I think this is where the dark web is good, because it, it's something that is just slightly too complex for the average person. I mean, it's really not, but it, it seems that way.

TeethNGogles: 1:00:48

Yeah, I have, VPNs are easy,

Gene: 1:00:49

Yeah. And if it's a weird looking address that doesn't look like your normal HTTP, uh, most people aren't going to go and try and figure out how to get there.

TeethNGogles: 1:01:00

right? Right. Most people have accepted that they don't recognize it. Hopefully they won't click on it. Hopefully.

Gene: 1:01:10

Yeah, exactly.

TeethNGogles: 1:01:11

But when I'm sitting at home, yeah, I'll hide behind a VPN sometimes and, do things that maybe, I wouldn't want grandma to know I'm doing, but I'm not killing anybody either. VPNs are easy and they're relatively cheap. I have one that's roughly five bucks a month. And I pay for it yearly and it's good for two computers

Gene: 1:01:32

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:01:33

and it runs on Linux. So bonus for that.

Gene: 1:01:36

Yeah. I generally just run all my traffic through Russia. It makes it a lot safer.

TeethNGogles: 1:01:40

tHat works for you. A lot of people think I'm in the Netherlands.

Gene: 1:01:44

Oh, okay. Nice. Nice.

TeethNGogles: 1:01:47

even, even, even though I'm hiding in my basement in Ohio

Gene: 1:01:50

and then, now you'll maybe even have a little more freedom being in the Netherlands.

TeethNGogles: 1:01:55

yeah, maybe,

Gene: 1:01:56

Yeah. With Geert Wilders winning, I think his government's going to be vastly different now than the previous one.

TeethNGogles: 1:02:04

I don't know. I don't trust any government. I'm too cynical.

Gene: 1:02:07

that's fair. I mean, certainly the best government is no government, but. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:02:13

I, I consider myself an old school libertarian, um, meaning Ron Paul or before where basically You know, less government is better. I understand there has to be some government, but I don't need you in my life for every single thing I'm doing. And I don't believe we should be starting wars in every little country that has more resources than we do. I have told my kids who are junior high and high school age that, I, I share my opinions a lot with them because I'm hoping they'll pull their heads out of, their respective asses. And, I said, Hey, why? Are we causing all these wars? Why do we have bases in 182 countries? Do we need that? And, my oldest, she's, my yeah, they make money off of it.

Gene: 1:03:07

Yeah, hell

TeethNGogles: 1:03:08

We, we all know about the military industrial com, complex. my, high schoolers sake, she's taking American government this year. And believe me, I'm paying very close attention to what she's learning,

Gene: 1:03:20

hmm. Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:03:21

I want to make sure she learns it right. And when she started, this past semester, they start, in December of, Revolutionary War and Founding Fathers and Bill of Rights and Constitution. And she comes and talks to me and I'm like, I can just rattle stuff off to her without even having to look it up. And she's like, how do you know this? And I'm like because they actually taught this in school when I was a kid.

Gene: 1:03:46

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:03:48

And, so she'll ask me my opinion on things and I'll share it with her. I'll say, I don't. The founding fathers didn't want this. They didn't want this. They didn't want this. They didn't want, they didn't even want corporations,

Gene: 1:04:02

Yep.

TeethNGogles: 1:04:03

Corporations were illegal when this country was founded and now corporations run the country. I

Gene: 1:04:10

Oh, big time.

TeethNGogles: 1:04:11

mean, we don't even have to go down the road of what, Pfizer got away with for the past four years,

Gene: 1:04:16

Oh, they all get away with everything. That, that's the thing is what we have is politicians whose primary allegiance, not surprisingly, is to where they get their money. And they don't get their money from a salary. I mean, it's a tiny percentage of their money. Where they get their money is from the fundraising that happens, and those are predominantly corporate. They're, they all get a little bit of small individual contributions, but none of them, on both sides frankly Get the majority of their money from people. Most of them get their money from

TeethNGogles: 1:04:57

but it's all special

Gene: 1:04:58

direct corporate or or what do you call them? The the, the sort of the group money that's put together.

TeethNGogles: 1:05:05

got the lobbyists that are doing the day to day and then you got the special. The packs

Gene: 1:05:11

Packs. That's the word I was looking for. Yeah, exactly.

TeethNGogles: 1:05:14

and those are mostly formed for the reelection campaign and you get, crazy uncle Joe in there who's been, in quote unquote public service for, 50 years, at least since I was in diapers

Gene: 1:05:28

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:05:29

and, he, he's been elected over and over and over and over and over again for, Senate, Senate, Senate, ended up, vice president for a while. Yeah. And then took a couple of years off and now somehow he's president. And I, I loved my grandfather when he was 80, whatever years old, loved him to pieces, but I wouldn't trust him to run the government. mY, my grandfather did really good about, doing his own insulin shots, stuff like that. Good guy. Wouldn't trust him to run the government.

Gene: 1:06:01

No, there's

TeethNGogles: 1:06:02

to even pretend to run the government. Because we, we all know crazy Uncle Joe doesn't actually run the place.

Gene: 1:06:07

yeah, exactly.

TeethNGogles: 1:06:08

it's his minions that are running around.

Gene: 1:06:10

It's somebody, the real question is, is it Obama or is it somebody else? But clearly it's not Joe.

TeethNGogles: 1:06:16

I think, I think the Obama buddies and even the Clintons, and this even goes back to the Bushes because, the Bushes helped get Bill Clinton in there,

Gene: 1:06:25

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:06:26

I mean, it's, it's all one big, cabal, if you want to go there,

Gene: 1:06:29

Yeah, exactly.

TeethNGogles: 1:06:31

Because the Bushes helped the Clintons get into power and, then they get their buddies into power and then when Bill was done they get, Bush Jr. in there and he does his eight years. And then they get Obama in there and he's just, buddy with the, it's, it's an oligarchy. And it's been that way since I started paying attention in the mid nineties,

Gene: 1:06:51

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 1:06:52

And it's been happening since, the 1890s.

Gene: 1:06:55

it, it has I think it's actually worse than an oligarchy because the. At least oligarchs got there by having some business sense and also, a lack of morals. These guys that we have as politicians don't even have the business sense part, they purely have lack of morals.

TeethNGogles: 1:07:13

They got, they got money from someone having business.

Gene: 1:07:17

Yeah, yeah, they're, they're get, yeah, they're getting money from,

TeethNGogles: 1:07:21

Go back to Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, everybody loved him. What does his dad do?

Gene: 1:07:28

yeah. Yeah, he was in with the mob, yeah,

TeethNGogles: 1:07:30

He was him at the bar.

Gene: 1:07:31

absolutely,

TeethNGogles: 1:07:32

And Kennedy, pretty sure he wouldn't have got to where he was if there wasn't some mob back.

Gene: 1:07:38

I don't know that everybody necessarily loved him, they just didn't like the alternative

TeethNGogles: 1:07:45

the alternative was Nixon.

Gene: 1:07:46

exactly.

TeethNGogles: 1:07:48

And, that was the days of, very early television.

Gene: 1:07:50

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 1:07:51

And Kennedy knew how to do it, and Nixon he looks something like I do.

Gene: 1:07:55

Yeah. He, he

TeethNGogles: 1:07:56

got a great face for radio.

Gene: 1:07:57

did not present well for the television. That's to be sure.

TeethNGogles: 1:08:01

It's just, it's just been,

Gene: 1:08:04

but that, that's, that's a recurring topic for a number of my podcasts is, is America does not elect a president based on who's the best man for the job. What's the qualifications? America elects a president based on a popularity contest.

TeethNGogles: 1:08:23

Right, it's,

Gene: 1:08:24

It's, it's the the same thing that happened in high school.

TeethNGogles: 1:08:27

Exactly. It's, it's the the homecoming queen and the, homecoming king and the the high school quarterback, the most popular guy and, back before that go back to, the middle ages, who became the king? He was the guy who defeated the enemy,

Gene: 1:08:43

Yeah. The, the king usually had the particular talent of organizing others

TeethNGogles: 1:08:50

right. He organized the army. Yeah,

Gene: 1:08:52

confederation. The local politicians for lack of a better word, the local landowners, uh, really were just the the strongest, the biggest brutes in the

TeethNGogles: 1:09:02

yeah, they were, the Knights would become landowners when they would basically retire from knighthood. And that's how you got, to indentured servitude. You had the people crawling around in the mud that worked for their, their Lord and everything got kicked up to them. And then the Lords had to kick up to, up and up and up until it all gets to the King. Right. It's, yeah, it's the surf system, back to the middle ages.

Gene: 1:09:31

And we're not that far away from that right

TeethNGogles: 1:09:33

We're not, we're really not. We may all have, fancy electronics, but we're still all

Gene: 1:09:38

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Most people can't just stop working and guess what? That means when you can't stop working means you're a surf.

TeethNGogles: 1:09:47

exactly. I mean, we, we all,

Gene: 1:09:49

you whether you work or not.

TeethNGogles: 1:09:51

we all say it on no agenda, iTM slave, we're all right there, I'm, I mean, I'm, I know I'm not alone. I'm probably three paychecks away from, not eating,

Gene: 1:10:02

Yeah. And and like for a majority of America, three is good. The. The average, I think is one

TeethNGogles: 1:10:10

well,

Gene: 1:10:10

with plenty of people in order for it to be one. That means there's plenty of people with zero

TeethNGogles: 1:10:15

right,

Gene: 1:10:16

because that one is the average. So

TeethNGogles: 1:10:19

right. I mean,

Gene: 1:10:20

it's pretty bad, man. It's,

TeethNGogles: 1:10:22

now, I mean, in the past, I don't want to just bang on, crazy Uncle Joe, but the past two and a half years, everything has doubled in price.

Gene: 1:10:32

literally.

TeethNGogles: 1:10:33

I, I think, for just a, a tier two it guy, I make decent money, um, for what I do, it's certainly a lot better than I did when I worked in television, and, my wife makes, decent money actually a little bit better than I do, but, fast forward two and a half years and it's like prices of everything have doubled, nothing's ever going down because prices never go down and now I'm like, you know what, I need to change jobs again. Because this ain't enough,

Gene: 1:11:03

Well, then

TeethNGogles: 1:11:04

my wife works full time. I work full time and it's just not enough.

Gene: 1:11:09

we are absolutely above Jimmy Carter levels of inflation. If we use the same formula. And the 1980 formula for calculating cost of living.

TeethNGogles: 1:11:20

Yeah, the problem is cost of living has gone up, the livable wage hasn't matched it. If if the cost of living and wages went up together, it'd be it'd be okay. It's nowhere near that.

Gene: 1:11:38

yeah, and the real wages declined. And this is, this was the, the, the great trap. Now this is another argument that I have against getting women the right to vote. Is that it eventually led to a direct path to moving from a one. Earner to a dual earner home.

TeethNGogles: 1:12:02

hmm.

Gene: 1:12:02

And for the early adopters and my parents were early adopters of that. it Was great because you're literally adding on like another 50 percent on top of what all your compatriots are making, because your wife's never going to make the same amount of money as you, but you're, you're going to be making more than everybody else. But it's a very, very slippery slide because that only is true. Until the 50th percentile, when roughly half of the population are dual income earners, um, then the wages overall have adjusted to that dual earner median. And so you actually for the second half of that equation for the later years. You're actually, your real wage as presented percentage of cost of living is actually decreasing unless your spouse works.

TeethNGogles: 1:13:06

right. And here's here's the other thing.

Gene: 1:13:09

it is absolutely a trap.

TeethNGogles: 1:13:11

so when I was in my 20s and 30s, single guy, just me and my cat, I could live a pretty cheap life. I could live in a crappy one bedroom apartment with my, vehicle that may or may not be, new may or may not be paid off. I lived a pretty simple life where I could put everything in the back of my pickup and in a U Haul and I could move across the country. And I did that multiple times. But then you get into. Wife and children and children are very expensive and very expensive and very expensive. I mean, diapers alone for your first three years are, that's like a second mortgage. But then you actually do get a house. And then what do you do with the house? You start filling the house. You buy furniture, you buy TVs, you buy, furnishings for that extra bedroom just in case someone stops by.

Gene: 1:14:00

hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:14:00

And your expenditures essentially eventually match. What you make and you get, your, two story house in Cleveland, Ohio, and you have to work every day to, feed the beast. I know I, I'm making a lot more than I was 20 years ago when I was working in television, but believe me, I'm also spending a lot more because I've got, mortgage, two cars, two kids, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Gene: 1:14:34

A,

TeethNGogles: 1:14:35

So your lifestyle eventually meets what you're making. Very, very few people actually are making more

Gene: 1:14:43

very easy to, for it to meet what you're making because what you're making is less than what you used to make. And that's, that's the thing is if you look at inflation, like from the mid eighties to today, uh, in the, the 30 years, 30, 40, whatever years it is from the mid eighties

TeethNGogles: 1:14:59

pushing 40.

Gene: 1:15:00

40, yeah, almost 40 years. You'll, you look at a handful of things. You don't have to look at every single item that was part of the, the consumer price index, although you can, but. You look at sort of

TeethNGogles: 1:15:13

Look at a car. Look at a house

Gene: 1:15:14

yeah, price of a house, price of a house, a brand new construction, 1981. I remember these because that's when my parents bought a house. And, uh, 100, 000 got you a very nice house. And the most expensive houses I remember seeing back then were about 160, 000. And those today That 100, 000 house depends where you are, of course, but here in Austin today, that 100, 000 house from 1980

TeethNGogles: 1:15:45

It's probably worth a million.

Gene: 1:15:46

it's a little over a million and the the 2, 800 square foot house that would have been 116, 1980 that's about 2 million right now

TeethNGogles: 1:15:56

Yeah, it's I mean in different parts of the country. It's different Oh,

Gene: 1:16:00

at

TeethNGogles: 1:16:00

I was in Florida, I was in Florida when the

Gene: 1:16:03

Mm

TeethNGogles: 1:16:03

you know 2008 when the mortgage crisis happened and you want to talk about a crazy time to be in Florida you had, these people that, had all these five year, flexible mortgages and then that fifth, fifth year hit, here comes the big hate payment and everybody walked away and you had housing communities of, acres and acres and acres of houses that were halfway under construction that were just sitting barren. I actually lived in Lee County and in 2008, 2009, Lee County led the country in foreclosures.

Gene: 1:16:46

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:16:47

So that's right where I was, it was a very weird time.

Gene: 1:16:53

And again, I think the foreclosures came because when the economy dipped, there were so many people that were one paycheck away from bankruptcy

TeethNGogles: 1:17:04

Right.

Gene: 1:17:05

had lost their jobs that they literally could not make house payments.

TeethNGogles: 1:17:09

Right. The funny thing is, is in Lee County in 2007, 2008, there were still a lot of construction jobs because for one building all those houses, a lot of those construction workers came in because of the hurricanes. In 2004, 2005. So they came in for the hurricanes to do those repairs and stuck around for all this housing and they all got these cheap five-year, flexible mortgages. And then when that fifth year happened, and no hurricanes and no more construction, the county turned into a ghost town real quick. The only ones who stayed in Lee County were the snowbirds and they were only there six months out of the year. uNless you were

Gene: 1:17:54

Yeah, the events like that will get you some cheap real estate if you have the money for it, for

TeethNGogles: 1:17:59

It did That's how we got our first house. But even then it wasn't super cheap, but for Florida, it was

Gene: 1:18:07

Yeah, and then I don't think that regardless of who the next president is, that there's going to be a huge change in the in inflation. I think we're going to continue seeing high inflation probably for the next four, maybe longer years. Simply because a lot of the factors that are feeding into it isn't just poor decisions from the Biden administration, but it's, it's the poor decisions they made early on that will have an impact continuing for the next 20 years.

TeethNGogles: 1:18:38

well, 2008 is still affecting us, that's only 15 years ago, and basically what happened in 2008 is they pumped up the economy. They churned in a bunch of money, which they printed, you may remember the days of quantitative easing where there's printing money, printing money, printing money. Now we are officially at the pinnacle of the result of that, so between. BIden saying this is all Russia's fault because of Ukraine, which we all know is a

Gene: 1:19:08

Everything's Russia's

TeethNGogles: 1:19:09

Yeah, or it's a Russia's fault. But Jesus the past four years have just been, one thing after another.

Gene: 1:19:18

I think I'm saying this only kind of half kidding, but if you look at what's happened in Russia, maybe the best thing that could happen to the U. S. is if we get some countries that decide to. Do sanctions against us

TeethNGogles: 1:19:33

Yeah they're gonna do economic impact on us eventually.

Gene: 1:19:36

because Russia's economy is doing better than ever with internal spending and a lot of industries that have left Russia are now back.

TeethNGogles: 1:19:46

we're coming back because of the sanctions we put on Russia.

Gene: 1:19:49

That's my point is I think somebody needs to sanction us so that we do that.

TeethNGogles: 1:19:53

Yeah,

Gene: 1:19:54

If China sanctions the U. S. first of all, I don't think the U. S. could survive without China for more than about three months.

TeethNGogles: 1:20:00

I don't think, I don't think that's, China would be able to survive without us either because we need all their cheap blast crap at Walmart.

Gene: 1:20:08

We do, but I think China would survive a lot better than we would. thE thing that, that you gotta remember is China is a command economy. They can shut things down, hell, they can kill people to reduce their population count if they

TeethNGogles: 1:20:21

and then get away with it.

Gene: 1:20:22

And get away with it, exactly, exactly. We can't quite get to that point. We can, they'd like to, they'd like to for sure,

TeethNGogles: 1:20:29

they tried with COVID

Gene: 1:20:31

uh huh, huh. But we can't, we can't quite get to that point. So it's going to be tougher on us if the trade stops and it's obviously both countries benefit greatly from this trade imbalance that we have. China needs somebody that'll just buy literally everything. And the US needs somebody that'll supply the 95 percent of the products that we just don't make.

TeethNGogles: 1:20:54

Know, they make it cheaper.

Gene: 1:20:56

it's not even cheaper. We just, we don't, we just don't make it. You can't get anywhere else. We sell, somebody did an experiment recently. I watched on YouTube. Where they they put a car into a, one of those crusher things,

TeethNGogles: 1:21:10

Mm

Gene: 1:21:10

you know, that's a little junker and they put a couple of apple tags inside one of the trunk, one in the middle of the car and see if one of them survives. Right. And they both survived. And so they, they were monitoring through the apple tags as the car went from Wisconsin to Michigan. And then it, it clearly got on a boat and, and then because the signal just disappeared and then they thought okay, battery's dead, whatever. It's not going to come back in. Yeah. It popped up in Shenzhen like two and a half months later where their car that they crushed and sold for, for steel

TeethNGogles: 1:21:51

Yeah.

Gene: 1:21:52

that ends up going to China. They buy our scrap

TeethNGogles: 1:21:56

They'll

Gene: 1:21:56

then they sell us. Yeah. And even steel, like if you want to buy steel in the U S. Most of it is coming from China, even though we used to manufacture a shit ton of steel. Like we have huge steel mines in Northern Minnesota. Iron

TeethNGogles: 1:22:10

Pittsburgh. I

Gene: 1:22:11

Pittsburgh. Yep. Yep. Before that.

TeethNGogles: 1:22:13

the Pennsylvania

Gene: 1:22:15

Like there, there's a lot of potential still. I mean, there's a lot that was already pulled out of the ground, but there's still a lot of potential, but because it used to be cheaper doing it through China, once you get rid of that industry. You can't just flip the switch back at willy nilly.

TeethNGogles: 1:22:30

Yeah, the if the United States ever had to go back to being Sovereign

Gene: 1:22:36

Mm

TeethNGogles: 1:22:36

and not just you know being a sovereign country, but I'm talking had to take care of itself Couldn't get imports couldn't get you know things from other countries like China We the United States could get there, but it would be very painful for

Gene: 1:22:52

We would be one of the best positions of any country in the world, but it would be tremendously painful because we just,

TeethNGogles: 1:22:58

It would be very hard. I mean, look, look what happened in World War II.

Gene: 1:23:02

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:23:03

So, the 20s and 30s, United States was still dealing with the depression. And, depending on how shiny your tinfoil hat is FDR may have kind of helped us get into the war.

Gene: 1:23:16

Yeah. Like a hundred percent.

TeethNGogles: 1:23:18

Okay, yeah, you and I are no agenda people, so, I, I, I filter it for some people because

Gene: 1:23:26

People that don't know about the history maybe?

TeethNGogles: 1:23:28

A lot of people don't know history. I actually listened to one of your recent podcasts today and, You're talking about someone with Josh, I believe going into history. So I was enjoying that. caUse I, I'm also a history buff. I like, early American history and unknown history, unreported history and history that's purposefully been forgotten or

Gene: 1:23:48

Yeah. Mm-Hmm?

TeethNGogles: 1:23:49

So I love having these talks with my daughter too. She, she enjoys them. She's 16 after World War II or World War II started, we got into the war. We cranked up this amazing military industrial complex

Gene: 1:24:05

Yep.

TeethNGogles: 1:24:07

and, we went from a country basically in poverty, or where a lot of our population was in poverty to the new deal, which kind of created some jobs.

Gene: 1:24:19

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:24:19

And then here comes World War II where we're shipping, 20 year old men, between the ages of 18 and 35, off to war. And if you're not able to go off to war you're going to work in a factory to make, warplanes and ships and bombs and tanks. And, we've all seen the posters of Rosie the Riveter. So this entire country went to bat for four years and became this monster thing after World War II. And, we've tried to continue that, but unfortunately it's gone too far and gotten too corrupted.

Gene: 1:24:58

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:24:58

Because the United States enjoyed great prosperity in the fifties.

Gene: 1:25:02

Yeah. That was the award dividend.

TeethNGogles: 1:25:04

right, that was, everyone came home from the war, everyone

Gene: 1:25:08

Not everyone, unfortunately

TeethNGogles: 1:25:09

the ones that came back.

Gene: 1:25:11

Yeah. It's, it's, if you look at it through a unbiased lens, what you actually see is that. In the 1920s, the United States started flirting with the idea of becoming a banking based state. And we, we saw what happens when you have, um, I, I mean, I would say libertarianism, but a lot of people would start pointing out, that's not pure libertarianism, it's corrupt. Fair enough. But when you have no controls and unbridled capitalism, we saw what might happen in that scenario. And of course, that was also what ended up causing the Federal Reserve to be created as well. But the way we got out of it was socialism. And I don't, it's a dirty word and we don't like to use it, but what FDR did pre World War II were socialist projects. They were hiring people.

TeethNGogles: 1:26:09

all love the interstates.

Gene: 1:26:10

Yeah, it was

TeethNGogles: 1:26:11

socialist project.

Gene: 1:26:13

absolutely 100 percent

TeethNGogles: 1:26:14

socialist project.

Gene: 1:26:16

It was taking money that didn't exist in the government and then hiring people to do something that is tangible, which can then result in that money becoming real and paying those people. So it was a bunch of left hand, right hand maneuvering. And then World War II, regardless of whether you believe that we strategically got into World War II by inviting Japan to bomb us, or whether you don't believe that, it doesn't matter, the point is, that was also very much driven by conscription, which is involuntary government

TeethNGogles: 1:26:50

right, that was the draft, yeah.

Gene: 1:26:51

Yeah, we had almost 12 million people conscripted for World War II over the course of the war.

TeethNGogles: 1:26:57

And most of them went willingly anyway, because, you

Gene: 1:26:58

No, actually a minority went willingly. There, there were, There were 6 million volunteers and 12 million draftees.

TeethNGogles: 1:27:05

Hmm. Okay.

Gene: 1:27:07

And I know the image is always the John Wayne, everybody runs to the, to the, army office as soon as, as soon as they can in the world war II to go help out the French. Reality was nobody wants to die.

TeethNGogles: 1:27:19

Sure. That's absolutely true.

Gene: 1:27:20

so you're going to wait until your tickets called and you're not going to volunteer beforehand. And there were also plenty of people that got deferments in world war II as well. A lot more of them got it in Vietnam. I mean, the people that were wealthy enough to get them, but there was still plenty that managed to be alive, but not served during world war II either. So.

TeethNGogles: 1:27:42

And they built that, the war machine that gave us the prosperity of the fifties and then late in the fifties, we got into Korea. So there's another war. tHat one wasn't quite as profitable. That

Gene: 1:27:58

Yeah, it's, it's all a propagation of the system that was built up during World War II because we,

TeethNGogles: 1:28:05

They were trying to continue the machine.

Gene: 1:28:07

but again, it was all very socialistic, if not socialist, because you had you, you had the total of, um, 18 million people that were getting, Paid directly by the government for being in military service. Then you had all of the military contractors that were hiring both Rosie and men that were outside of the age bounds that were also being paid by the government. So the end product of a lot of American industry was really the federal government.

TeethNGogles: 1:28:41

Absolutely. Yeah.

Gene: 1:28:42

And, and so it was a lot of you know, shifting of hands back and forth and making money pop up out of nowhere. And a lot of the banking industry not only recovered from, from the the crash. But actually became giants, they, because they were the intermediaries in this new system with the Federal Reserve, effectively, it's not the Fed that creates money. It's banks that create money. The Fed just oversees that profits and gets to adjust how things are going with the rate of that creation is, but having rules in place, which effectively allow a single dollar to be loaned out nine times. It allows the banks to create money out of thin air,

TeethNGogles: 1:29:30

Right.

Gene: 1:29:30

because whenever you make that loan, you're creating an asset, which you can then use to make a loan. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 1:29:38

Discussing politics with my kids. I'll say, yeah, I'm a, I'm an old school libertarian, and the, the big thing that, is always stamped on libertarians is, oh, you guys just love the open market, and I, and I understand the open market only works if everyone in it is ethical and that's the problem

Gene: 1:30:00

And, and the biggest unethical group is usually the government because they don't care about the rules. They, they want to get in there with their own rules.

TeethNGogles: 1:30:08

right. I mean, insider trading is legal in Congress. Oh,

Gene: 1:30:12

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing, isn't it?

TeethNGogles: 1:30:13

you ask anyone, Gen Z or millennial. And they won't know any of this stuff, they won't know that insider trading, they won't even know what it is, let alone that Congress can get away with it and nobody else can.

Gene: 1:30:28

And there, there are literally funds out there, groups that just follow the investment. Of politicians and do substantially better than the average for the year.

TeethNGogles: 1:30:37

I'm sure.

Gene: 1:30:38

single year.

TeethNGogles: 1:30:39

Yeah. You, you find out what Pelosi is investing in.

Gene: 1:30:41

Yeah. They, they have no actual reason of why they just follow what the moves are.

TeethNGogles: 1:30:47

Right. Right. Cause they know what's going on. They know where the next war bond is going to be.

Gene: 1:30:52

Exactly. They know where to invest and when, and that's why you have politicians like the Obamas that were broke coming into the presidency net net value net worth of under 250, 000. With a lot of outstanding bills and then becoming multi, multi millionaires within two years.

TeethNGogles: 1:31:13

Yeah. And they have the giant ranch in Hawaii that

Gene: 1:31:16

Yeah. Ranch in Hawaii. You got a huge property on Martha's vineyard. Like literally for what, for being a president and making a 280, 000 a year salary for four years, eight years.

TeethNGogles: 1:31:27

No, that's every year of the rest of his life.

Gene: 1:31:30

Yeah, yeah, but fine, but it's still it's that's not enough to own the property they own.

TeethNGogles: 1:31:36

Right. Oh, absolutely. It's the. Speaking engagements and the sure I'll go come speak to your club

Gene: 1:31:43

Mm hmm

TeethNGogles: 1:31:44

it only cost you 500, 000 for me to just walk in the door for

Gene: 1:31:47

an hour Yeah, but

TeethNGogles: 1:31:50

know, it's the whole system's broken and I hate to say it because I've, I've got kids that are, just about to be, you

Gene: 1:31:57

That

TeethNGogles: 1:31:58

in it,

Gene: 1:31:59

It sucks. But this is not a good time for them

TeethNGogles: 1:32:03

yeah they're

Gene: 1:32:03

two ways about it

TeethNGogles: 1:32:04

They're

Gene: 1:32:05

because either either we're gonna end up with a draft before too long here Or we're gonna end up in Whatever the new version of a civil war is. And I always kind of jokingly referred to it as I'm I keep waiting for the French style revolution to start when the galaxy guillotine manufacturing starts to become a popular business that people are getting into. Then, we finally hit the mark

TeethNGogles: 1:32:30

yeah. Hobbyists are building guillotines in their

Gene: 1:32:32

mm hmm because

TeethNGogles: 1:32:35

I, I joke Viva La Revolution, but as many guns and as much ammo as the American people have that supposedly, more ammunition and more guns than in the military.

Gene: 1:32:47

Oh, no, we have more than the rest of the world combined including all the military forces of the world The civilians in the u. s. Have more.

TeethNGogles: 1:32:55

We don't have tanks. We don't have airplanes. We don't have missiles,

Gene: 1:32:58

Oh, absolutely. Yeah

TeethNGogles: 1:32:59

So, you may have, 50 of our closest buddies. All armed to the hilt, about ready to take the courthouse, but you don't have a national guard with, tanks and planes and boats parked offshore,

Gene: 1:33:13

but you know what the National Guard has and the army has

TeethNGogles: 1:33:17

tHey got citizen soldiers.

Gene: 1:33:19

they've got they've got wives and children

TeethNGogles: 1:33:21

not the 20 year olds.

Gene: 1:33:23

Okay. The 20 year olds, I'm not worried about they're, they're the ones that are going to be sitting around waiting for an order. It's the 28 year olds that are going to be giving the orders.

TeethNGogles: 1:33:33

Right. But see, the thing is, there's two types of soldier and I'm not military. So I don't want to pretend

Gene: 1:33:40

Here you go. Now you're going to get all kinds of comments on

TeethNGogles: 1:33:43

I'm not, I'm not going to pretend I'm military. That's why I'm throwing this disclaimer out. You got the people with the conscience. And then you got the, the hardcore, I'm just following orders, sir. And we all know how that worked in Germany. Right. We all know how that worked out in Germany in the 40s.

Gene: 1:34:01

Exactly. Yeah. And,

TeethNGogles: 1:34:03

up in Nuremberg.

Gene: 1:34:05

Realistically, very few of them did. So it actually worked out quite well for most German soldiers.

TeethNGogles: 1:34:10

Of them ended up in Margentina.

Gene: 1:34:11

soMe ended up there. Most of them were just trying to make sure they won't become Russian prisoners. Is that, that's worse than anything that the West could have done.

TeethNGogles: 1:34:20

Right. It's a little cold there.

Gene: 1:34:21

but the, yeah, cause if you were a Russian prisoner at the end of World War II, you were never coming home.

TeethNGogles: 1:34:28

Right. You'll be up in the gulags

Gene: 1:34:30

There's, there's no, as far as your family's concerned, you died and you'd be a very productive member of Russian society.

TeethNGogles: 1:34:38

and breaking rocks for the

Gene: 1:34:39

Mm hmm. Exactly. Mining uranium, baby. your life expectancy is about a year and a half.

TeethNGogles: 1:34:45

Yeah, you'd be glowing in the dark for that year and a half.

Gene: 1:34:48

But that's what, and I have no problem with that. I think that is exactly what you do after the conclusion of a military engagement with somebody that tried to, tried to invade your country.

TeethNGogles: 1:35:01

Right. And we're, we're past the the era of wars where you would go to war. And then if you won the war, you would win all the land,

Gene: 1:35:11

Yeah, are we though? I don't know if we are. I kind of think we're right there.

TeethNGogles: 1:35:14

Look at it like the middle ages, you go to war with the country, you win the war, you get your country plus all the land of the next country, that's, that's the old school

Gene: 1:35:27

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 1:35:28

after world war two. Yeah. You bomb the shit out of a country, then you have to pay to rebuild it.

Gene: 1:35:34

I think that's only true in America. Nobody else does that. There's no point. It's we have, because this is what people need to understand, is

TeethNGogles: 1:35:43

And we make money when we

Gene: 1:35:44

exactly. We are not, we're not engaging. We, we haven't had a war since World War ii, first of all, officially. But the reason that we haven't officially had a war since World War II is because what we're doing isn't war what we're doing. is creating a supply need for the military industrial complex. And the way you do that is by engaging in military actions all over the world. None of them are wars, but what we're doing is we're creating that demand. We're creating demand for the companies that are still in the U S that haven't moved to China. whIch is the military contractors. So we're just ensuring that they don't go out of business.

TeethNGogles: 1:36:29

you got Halliburton, you got Raytheon, you got, Boeing. You've got, everyone that makes, everything big and shiny that blows up.

Gene: 1:36:37

exactly. So, if you're, if you're actually let's say that Mexico got a socialist government this year, and that they basically said, you know what, all these years, Americans have been fucking us over. And so here's what we're going to do. We're going to give amnesty to all the drug cartels.

TeethNGogles: 1:37:01

Yeah.

Gene: 1:37:01

We're just going to say, you know what, we're not going to go after them. They have a legitimate business in Mexico, and we're not going to help this, this country that's been fucking us over United States and the Northern border. At all, and the cartels see that as a wonderful go get them.

TeethNGogles: 1:37:20

light. Yeah.

Gene: 1:37:20

Yeah. And so they start coming into the U S that would result in a war for the United States and the outcome of that war. I can predict it would be the utter and full conquest of Mexico and the division thereof into territories, which may become States a hundred years later.

TeethNGogles: 1:37:40

Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

Gene: 1:37:41

It would not be a we're going to come in and help the Mexican people. Fuck that it would not happen because it would be a time for for America to actually feel some pain.

TeethNGogles: 1:37:52

Yeah. And they.

Gene: 1:37:54

Everything else we've done has been a world away.

TeethNGogles: 1:37:56

Yeah, I've, I've said this to a coworker today, and I'm sure you've heard this actually today, it was a couple of days ago, we've all heard the adage of, good times create soft men, soft men create, hard times, hard times create hard men, it's a big cycle and we need to get, unfortunately, I think we're headed to the point where hard times are going to create hard men and then we're, we're going to have to go to war, we're going to have to, put our big boy pants on and,

Gene: 1:38:27

Mhm.

TeethNGogles: 1:38:28

Start, working for a living again, we're going to have to start, I hate, I hate to sound like that old guy, but, we're going to have to sound, we're going to you know, I'm not, I'm only 50, 52, I'm a Gen X solid Gen

Gene: 1:38:42

but, mentally, you're 104.

TeethNGogles: 1:38:45

mentally, I'm still a skydiver. We don't want to go back to that, skydiver drinks way too much beer. But this, this country, I think is if it's not at the crossroads. It's definitely getting close to it because we can't continue on the path that's on

Gene: 1:39:03

Now, we've been living off of a legacy of,

TeethNGogles: 1:39:09

of our grandparents

Gene: 1:39:10

a first world, enjoyment. And again, I think in a lot of ways, this was the The post world war two banking can save America plan, which is to say we have a unique opportunity being the only industrialized country in the world that didn't get damaged during world war two Hawaii doesn't count. And so consequently, we can. Write the rules and the rules will say the, the almighty dollar shall be the currency of the world and you have to get it from us. And when that

TeethNGogles: 1:39:52

coming to an end.

Gene: 1:39:53

yeah. And when that happened, um, it was a, it was a absolutely brilliant scheme. I, I, I think we're at the very end of it here, but it

TeethNGogles: 1:40:03

it worked. It worked great for 70 years

Gene: 1:40:05

70 fucking years, man. That's impressive. Right. They managed to basically. We as a country lived for greater than what we should have based on our output for 70 years.

TeethNGogles: 1:40:20

what didn't they say the the average age of an empire is about 200 years

Gene: 1:40:24

I, I've heard so many variants of that. I don't know if there's any

TeethNGogles: 1:40:28

Rome was really powerful Rome the Roman Empire had 200 years of glory before it fell apart no, of at the high point,

Gene: 1:40:39

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 1:40:40

Then the Roman empire kind of fell apart, went into, the Holy Roman empire, which, got us into the dark ages. And, that was kind of a mess

Gene: 1:40:49

yeAh, there, there, but, but the original of Roman Republic started a thousand years before that.

TeethNGogles: 1:40:56

Right. Right. Yeah. It started then, but I'm just saying like the glory days,

Gene: 1:41:01

Yeah, the, at the height of conquest. I mean, if you're referring to the period of time where Rome extended. From Ireland to Jerusalem, then that probably was a couple of hundred years.

TeethNGogles: 1:41:13

damn near Prussia.

Gene: 1:41:15

Yeah,

TeethNGogles: 1:41:16

Yeah. That was, that was a couple hundred years. That was like the high

Gene: 1:41:18

they, they own the majority of everything that

TeethNGogles: 1:41:21

They owned everything.

Gene: 1:41:22

They owned.

TeethNGogles: 1:41:23

Yeah, they owned everything and except for, Russia and China and the East,

Gene: 1:41:29

Yeah, but I mean, there was nothing but forest in Russia. It's not much to own.

TeethNGogles: 1:41:34

Yeah, you got,

Gene: 1:41:35

Population density was probably the lowest of anywhere at that point, until you got to China. Once you got to Mongolia and China, then it was higher.

TeethNGogles: 1:41:45

but you know, empires can't last forever,

Gene: 1:41:48

Yeah, yeah, but this will be one of the shortest though. It's the most other empires I think lasted longer than 250 years.

TeethNGogles: 1:41:56

probably, probably, I mean, our, our glory

Gene: 1:41:58

And it's arguable to say whether America was even an empire pre World War II. A lot of people would say no. So it's really an empire that's

TeethNGogles: 1:42:04

say before. No. If you go back in history, In the 1800s, after the Spanish American war, we were, we pretty much were the policemen for the Western hemisphere.

Gene: 1:42:18

Yeah, cause we

TeethNGogles: 1:42:18

we had most of the

Gene: 1:42:19

the Monroe Doctrine.

TeethNGogles: 1:42:21

right? We had the entire Western hemisphere. It's this is us. We got it. We're in charge back to Teddy Roosevelt. And then that was the case probably up to the twenties, thirties, and even up until, the beginning of World War II and then World War II. the shit happened and Like you said, after World War II, we're the only ones that, remain standing.

Gene: 1:42:43

Yeah. It was the only industrialized country that was not damaged.

TeethNGogles: 1:42:47

Right.

Gene: 1:42:48

So yeah, it's I, I think that it's, it would definitely be a stretch to call America an empire pre World War II.

TeethNGogles: 1:42:58

Yeah, I agree. I

Gene: 1:42:59

Because even during the Monroe Doctrine, when we technically asserted our rights over all of the Americas, we were only challenged like four times. It's not like we were constantly having to repel. Other countries,

TeethNGogles: 1:43:13

Yeah we didn't really have anyone that met our match, so to speak. I mean, we'd, we'd cut our teeth in the Revolutionary War. We're a, we're a country that's founded on war. We started Revolutionary War, then we had the War of 1812, where basically the British and Canada decided they wanted us

Gene: 1:43:30

I mean, to be fair, every country that exists was founded on war, but we're not unique in this regard.

TeethNGogles: 1:43:36

true, but we're maybe one of the newer ones.

Gene: 1:43:40

Yeah, like the, the Britain and UK really were founded on the Viking conquests. It was just a bunch of little villages before that until the Vikings started hammering the hell out of them and

TeethNGogles: 1:43:53

some amazing

Gene: 1:43:54

said, hey, we should organize or something.

TeethNGogles: 1:43:56

There's a couple of really good series on Netflix. Granted, they're all docu dramas, but, based on true events, but

Gene: 1:44:03

Yeah, I, I, I got rid of pedo flicks a while ago and

TeethNGogles: 1:44:06

yeah I, I never watched whatever that show was called. Cuties,

Gene: 1:44:10

Yeah. I just don't like supporting people like that

TeethNGogles: 1:44:12

right. Understood.

Gene: 1:44:13

whichever

TeethNGogles: 1:44:15

I got kids, so they want to watch TV.

Gene: 1:44:17

yOu're the parent,

TeethNGogles: 1:44:18

Yeah, that's true.

Gene: 1:44:20

It's, I, I don't have kids. So you could say it's easy for you to say, yeah, but I remember my dad telling me no, an awful lot.

TeethNGogles: 1:44:29

Right. Oh, yeah, absolutely. We're of a, we're of a different generation.

Gene: 1:44:33

yeah, and there there's a watching some of these YouTube videos and they're all just like I'm the old man shaking my head saying world's gone to hell in a

TeethNGogles: 1:44:44

who I am. Yeah,

Gene: 1:44:45

because literally these kids just grew up being told that they're perfect and awesome and anything they want they get. And daddy and mommy will make it better. And they have no concept of risk and reward.

TeethNGogles: 1:45:00

no, none. I, I try to teach it and I I meet a lot of resistance. Let me put it that way. Not a

Gene: 1:45:07

If women didn't have the right to vote, things would be better. That's all I'm saying. yEah, it's, it's a it's not a problem unique to the U S but it certainly seems like we're peeking in it. In the U S so I'm going to give you a couple of books to read. I'm going to give you homework.

TeethNGogles: 1:45:24

Oh, I got homework.

Gene: 1:45:26

Huh. That's what you didn't, didn't think they'd be homework in a podcast. Did you? Huh. All right. So the, the first book is called pendulum and it's by Roy Williams. One of the two authors. I can't remember the other guy's name. ROy wrote this book about 15, 18 years ago, something like that. And basically, it chronicled history for the last couple thousand years and looking at cycles within history. And the specific cycle that is in this book is a cycle between height of populism and the height of individualism.

TeethNGogles: 1:46:05

interesting.

Gene: 1:46:05

it's an, it's a roughly 80 year cycle, uh, for Roundtrip.

TeethNGogles: 1:46:12

You can talk to Dvorak about cycles. He was going to write a

Gene: 1:46:14

Dvorak has an autographed copy of this book. And he still hasn't written his own, so he can keep yapping away. This book was written way before he started talking about it.

TeethNGogles: 1:46:22

Right. I just, I just pulled it up on Amazon.

Gene: 1:46:25

yeah, yeah. And Roy's actually a business partner of mine. so I've got a personal connection to him, but even if I didn't I really think this is a very good book. Because what it foretold, like I first read it maybe 10 years ago or something, but it essentially says 2023 is the very peak of the, the, the we, um, or the collectivism. And so it's. And then the peak of the me of the individualism was 1983 and you can remember 1983 and that, movies like wall street came out, uh, it was, yeah, but you still remember it.

TeethNGogles: 1:47:11

Sure. Girl, Hannah was amazing.

Gene: 1:47:13

and the eighties were really the best decade that that's ever been a decade. As far as I'm concerned.

TeethNGogles: 1:47:18

80s were great. I'm a big fan of the 90s.

Gene: 1:47:22

I'm a much bigger fan of the eighties because eighties introduced all the important things that we have from, from the internet to computers. To digital music, all these things happened in the eighties MTV that used to play actual music came in the eighties. And so I'm, I've always been a big fan. I think there were other decades that are interesting in history, but I've not lived through those. I did live through the eighties and, and really, uh, that's sort of my version of the heaven that I want to go to is a heaven of a perpetual eighties. And so,

TeethNGogles: 1:48:00

Good

Gene: 1:48:01

that was the peak. Yeah. Great movies. That was kind of the peak of the individualism. And since 83 to present, we've been sliding in the direction of collectivism in the West. So, specifically in the West, but in general, obviously we're all in the United States. So that's kind of what the book is looking at. But that pendulum is starting its swing back from, from its apex in the opposite direction right now. And I think that if you start looking at events that are happening right now, including some of the political wins that we're seeing in Europe and in South America, um, these are, and. Even before that of Trump's victory a few years back. I think these are all indicators of the majority of people just being sick and tired of collectivism and wanting to start heading back towards individualism.

TeethNGogles: 1:49:03

Yeah, I think, I think it's still going to take a little longer than the next four years, let's say,

Gene: 1:49:10

Well, no, it's 40. It's a,

TeethNGogles: 1:49:11

No, but I'm talking like the next four years. I'm talking the next four years. Everybody's a lot of people, Oh, let's elect Trump and he'll fix all our problems. No, no, no. We've got so many problems that are gonna be with us for, I'm sorry, that's my furnace refilling with water. I can hear that in the background.

Gene: 1:49:32

I can't hear it. Don't worry about it.

TeethNGogles: 1:49:34

Okay. But it's going to take a lot

Gene: 1:49:38

Mm-Hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:49:38

and it'll take a lot of change and a lot of uncomfortable change to get this country, our country, back on the road it needs to be on

Gene: 1:49:50

40 years.

TeethNGogles: 1:49:51

because I mean, Jesus, I look at my kids and I'm like, for a while there, my daughters were more concerned about, where they stand on the rainbow than, because I have two teenage girls. And it seems like starting around 2019, 2020, the big thing for middle school was are you trans? Are you bi? Are you poly? Are you, I mean, and it's you know, middle school, I was more worried about, being able to do a sweet bike jump for my BMX, over a car or something, and not eat shit. My kids are worried about, something completely different. And it was like, they almost, they had to find their spot on the rainbow and then they had to find their spot on the spectrum because, it was said years ago on no agenda, he who is most oppressed wins.

Gene: 1:50:48

Yeah. The oppression

TeethNGogles: 1:50:49

So,

Gene: 1:50:49

This is why we're seeing the whole, free Palestine from the rivers of the sea thing because they're winning the oppression Olympics right now.

TeethNGogles: 1:50:57

right. Absolutely. And then, and how long is that going to last? Cause we know how long the media cycle is. It's about five weeks and then something else will happen and then something else will happen

Gene: 1:51:07

But again, you're, I keep saying 40 years and you're like, yes, but not for yet. No, it's not for dude. No. Things have changed direction, but you know what that means? That means five years from now, five years from now, it'll feel about the same as 2018. Yeah. Yeah. And 2018 was pretty damn rainbowy.

TeethNGogles: 1:51:29

It was pretty sweet compared to 2020.

Gene: 1:51:31

Yeah, everything's well, yeah, but that's my point is it's a pendulum. It doesn't loop around instantly to the other extreme. It slows

TeethNGogles: 1:51:40

will take a very long time to get us back on

Gene: 1:51:42

swinging back in the other direction. So the midpoint and, and, we likely won't see the eighties again. Because we got to see him when we were young. So that sort of individualism will be dead by the time it happens again, your kids will probably see it, but if the U S doesn't start world war three and nuke, but what we're going to, what we hopefully will still see. Is what the next 30 to 40 years looks like in heading towards that other side of the eighties. And that means roughly 20 years from now in 2044, 2043, 44, then that's going to feel more like 2000,

TeethNGogles: 1:52:24

Yeah. And we can hope for that. We can hope to see that.

Gene: 1:52:27

Yeah there, that's why I'm saying check out the book because they, they showed this pattern repeating for literally 2000 years.

TeethNGogles: 1:52:34

Yeah, that makes sense.

Gene: 1:52:36

So

TeethNGogles: 1:52:36

added it to my Amazon wishlist

Gene: 1:52:38

Which means it's not based on events, it's based on humans lack of memory. Because we keep cycling over, and over, and over. And it ties in nicely with the whole strong men create good times thing.

TeethNGogles: 1:52:53

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, I mean,

Gene: 1:52:55

And then the other book, which also you kind of brought up the topic. Is called going home by a American and this is a fiction book that follows an it dude named Ben, uh, who drove up a couple of hundred miles to a client site and on the way there, right before reaching his destination, his car dies and and he's in Florida and Sally takes place in Florida and. He's a bit of a prepper type, so he's got stuff in his car. So his thing is let's see if I can flag somebody down to help me. And then he quickly sees there are no cars driving by, but there's a lot of people walking. And he realizes that everybody's cars just died.

TeethNGogles: 1:53:46

Hmm. Interesting.

Gene: 1:53:47

Which is very likely the result of an EMP going

TeethNGogles: 1:53:51

Right. That's what I was just going to say. EMP

Gene: 1:53:52

is not a big secret. He talks about it in the first chapter of the book. That's the most likely cause. And so now he is 165, 170 miles away from his home. He's got a backpack, he's got his computer laptop bag, he's got a number of things he's brought with him. And now he just needs to get home.

TeethNGogles: 1:54:12

if there was an EMP, his computer's probably dead anyway.

Gene: 1:54:15

Yes. And we'll, we'll, you find out all the fun stuff like that. And and it's a very well written I should say the first book is, it's his first book ever. So it's a little clunky in terms of reading it. The topic's very good. But he literally just now finished the 12th book in that series.

TeethNGogles: 1:54:34

Oh, wow. Okay.

Gene: 1:54:34

So it's a very long series of same characters, same kind of plot line continuing from where it starts in the original book and a book that a lot of people are now. We've gotten a lot of people on the social reading it, and I think some people are a little further ahead. Some people are a little further behind. I'm on book nine right now. Ben, who I do just good old boys has finished the whole series. He's, he's a very fast reader and it's a fun book because it's from the perspective of a guy who is a dude named Ben, libertarian mindset, likes his guns, likes to be prepared. In a lot of different ways, and not like a comedic prepper, but like what a lot of us actually have at home. And one of the things that's both annoying and kind of fun in the book is that the author really enjoys using brand names. So you can literally look up the products that, that his character is using on Amazon.

TeethNGogles: 1:55:38

That's

Gene: 1:55:38

It's oh, that's the stove that he's got in his house. That's, that's the model of, yeah, exactly. That's literally that's the model of his backpack. It's 220, man. The guy bought an expensive backpack, so it's

TeethNGogles: 1:55:51

almost like he's got a native, native ad built into the

Gene: 1:55:53

I don't, I mean, he doesn't make any money off of it though. That's the thing, but it is kind of neat to be able to see that. But for some of us, it's even worse than that because son of a bitch, that's the exact same one I have. So it's okay, okay, so they fucking create a fictional character that happens to have the same shit that I do.

TeethNGogles: 1:56:12

based on Sergine. Yeah.

Gene: 1:56:14

I already, I, I'm already in lawsuits with the the South Park guys for stealing Cartman off of me. I don't, I don't need other characters that are clearly based on me.

TeethNGogles: 1:56:25

Some people think I'm the embodiment of Homer Simpson.

Gene: 1:56:27

Oh yeah? Okay. See, there you go. So you got somebody too as well.

TeethNGogles: 1:56:31

Yeah. Though people who actually see me in person, they think I look like Tim Curry. And my question is always, is that before or after the stroke? Because he didn't look good after the stroke.

Gene: 1:56:43

from what?

TeethNGogles: 1:56:45

Tim Curry, actor big in the 80s and 90s. He was in Home Alone. He played like the Home Alone 2. He was the hotel manager. He's from Rocky Horror Picture

Gene: 1:56:56

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the, that's the career I'm thinking. I'm like that guy wasn't bad looking. What are you talking about? Especially at Rocket Horror

TeethNGogles: 1:57:03

but if you look, look at a picture of him now, look at a picture of

Gene: 1:57:05

Oh, he's still alive? I thought he was dead.

TeethNGogles: 1:57:07

now he had a stroke like about 10 years ago. Yeah, he didn't do well.

Gene: 1:57:12

Yeah, no. Strokes don't, I mean, I'm shocked he's alive that

TeethNGogles: 1:57:16

Yeah, I think he's still alive.

Gene: 1:57:18

Wow. He won't be for long because it seems like most people I talk about on podcasts seem to die.

TeethNGogles: 1:57:23

yeah that's part of being 80 years old. Oh,

Gene: 1:57:25

Yeah. Exactly.

TeethNGogles: 1:57:27

you say I'm 84? 8404? I don't remember.

Gene: 1:57:29

Is he? I don't know. But yeah, I, I thought he was he was in a bunch of funny movies.

TeethNGogles: 1:57:34

Yeah, he's not a bunch. oh.

Gene: 1:57:37

What was that clue? He was in that

TeethNGogles: 1:57:38

Yes, he was in that.

Gene: 1:57:40

multiple endings.

TeethNGogles: 1:57:41

he played Pennywise in the 80s version of

Gene: 1:57:45

Mm-Hmm. Yes. Now was he in, in the, what was that movie about? Time Traveling Midgets?

TeethNGogles: 1:57:54

Think he was

Gene: 1:57:55

it wasn't in that one. Okay. What was that movie called?

TeethNGogles: 1:57:58

Oh, Time

Gene: 1:57:59

Time Bandits.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:01

Love that movie. Funny movie.

Gene: 1:58:03

yeah, yeah. That was a wacky movie.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:07

There we go. Pulling him up on IMDB.

Gene: 1:58:11

Okay. Anyway so there you go. There's two books for you to read.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:15

Okay. I got one for you.

Gene: 1:58:17

Okay, go ahead.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:18

will go to your tech

Gene: 1:58:22

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:22

love of tech. So, have you heard of the book by Daniel Suarez called Damon?

Gene: 1:58:29

Yeah, I read it.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:30

You read it? Okay.

Gene: 1:58:31

I've read the whole series. Yep.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:32

That one and then Freedom. Yeah, those are pretty good. The near future, AI takes over and starts killing people. Yeah, I didn't know if you'd check that one out. That one's actually really good. I, I tried to get my daughter on that one. She didn't read it.

Gene: 1:58:47

No, I think it's Like you gotta cyberpunk stuff to really enjoy that stuff.

TeethNGogles: 1:58:53

Yeah, maybe, maybe, but it was, it was definitely it was true enough to possibility that it, it actually got interesting because back when that was going on or when that book was released,

Gene: 1:59:04

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 1:59:05

Everyone's releasing, virtual reality goggles and that. Remember the Google, remember the Google glasses?

Gene: 1:59:10

Oh, yeah.

TeethNGogles: 1:59:10

That, that would do the augmented reality. They kind of got away from that, but, that was like right at the same time that that book came out.

Gene: 1:59:19

Yeah Yeah, I'm looking at his list. I think I read all his books so demon freedom kill decision influx

TeethNGogles: 1:59:29

Right.

Gene: 1:59:30

Delta V read

TeethNGogles: 1:59:31

I haven't read that

Gene: 1:59:32

a year ago and then Critical Mass was the last one I read.

TeethNGogles: 1:59:36

I think I, I read, well, the first two, then I read Kill Decision and then I, I kind of got stuck in Influx. I just, that one didn't grab me quite as hard.

Gene: 1:59:47

Yeah. I, I had people recommending Daemon to me for a long time until I first picked it up. But when I picked it up, I pretty much just got the rest of them right away. Because I was like, okay, I'm in this mood now. Let's just keep going.

TeethNGogles: 2:00:00

Yeah. Of course, in the eighties I was reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Gene: 2:00:03

Oh, yeah. No, no better book written.

TeethNGogles: 2:00:06

Yeah. I've, I've read that whole series like five times.

Gene: 2:00:09

Yeah, yeah, it's it was I was extremely sad to see Douglas Adams die

TeethNGogles: 2:00:16

Yeah. I, I think I shed a couple of tears and

Gene: 2:00:19

because he you know between Obviously that series that everybody knows and Dirk gently's holistic detective agency series Like he just had a way of writing like nobody else.

TeethNGogles: 2:00:31

Yeah. Did you ever play the game Starship Titanic

Gene: 2:00:36

No.

TeethNGogles: 2:00:37

that was based on a story that he wrote with Terry Jones.

Gene: 2:00:42

Oh, really? Okay.

TeethNGogles: 2:00:43

and I read the book when the video game came out. This is, late 90s, early 2000s when you know all the CD ROMs are out. And it was called Starship Titanic. It had the same style of humor.

Gene: 2:00:56

okay.

TeethNGogles: 2:00:57

It was like a walkthrough video game, kind of like, you remember Myst? Yes, like Myst. It was, it was a lot like Myst. You, you went to a room, you solved the puzzle, you get the key, you go to the next room, you solve the puzzle, you get the key, and

Gene: 2:01:11

Yeah. Miss was

TeethNGogles: 2:01:12

and on and on. It was, it was pretty graphic intense for those days.

Gene: 2:01:18

He was the first guy in Britain to get a Mac.

TeethNGogles: 2:01:23

Oh, yeah,

Gene: 2:01:24

He was a huge fan. Yeah. He had it he, he had one purchased and shipped to him on the release day in the U. S.

TeethNGogles: 2:01:34

nice.

Gene: 2:01:35

So he got to be the first guy in Britain to have one. yEah, he's, he was a cool dude. I got an autograph signed, I actually got a towel signed by him.

TeethNGogles: 2:01:43

Oh, that'd be awesome.

Gene: 2:01:45

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 2:01:46

That'd be like glass case, rub it with a diaper

Gene: 2:01:49

It's so would be if my mom hadn't washed it.

TeethNGogles: 2:01:52

Oh

Gene: 2:01:54

Yeah, so I have the story, but I don't have the

TeethNGogles: 2:01:58

out your Star Wars action figures.

Gene: 2:02:00

Yeah Those I at least played with so I didn't feel bad that she like sold them in a garage sale for two bucks for a Whole dove fader it

TeethNGogles: 2:02:07

Here's a box for you know,

Gene: 2:02:10

yeah, they were not original but but the frickin towel autographed by Douglas Adams he said it was the first one he'd ever signed

TeethNGogles: 2:02:17

wow, that would be amazing

Gene: 2:02:19

And I, yeah, I mean, if there was ever a moment where I could have killed my mom,

TeethNGogles: 2:02:24

Well, don't do that

Gene: 2:02:25

God rest her soul, she's dead, but cause I killed her. No, I'm just kidding.

TeethNGogles: 2:02:30

Watch that towel.

Gene: 2:02:31

Huh. This is what happens when you wash the towel.

TeethNGogles: 2:02:36

Don't watch that towel.

Gene: 2:02:37

Yeah. Yep. But very sad that no more books came from him.

TeethNGogles: 2:02:43

Yeah they had the one that his kids wrote based upon some short stories, I think. It's called The Salmon of Doubt.

Gene: 2:02:53

I

TeethNGogles: 2:02:53

I read it, but it wasn't that good.

Gene: 2:02:54

yeah, exactly. That's exactly right.

TeethNGogles: 2:02:57

It just didn't have,

Gene: 2:02:59

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 2:03:00

just didn't have the thing.

Gene: 2:03:02

That's usually how it goes. If the, if somebody tries to take the Notes and assemble them into a finished work that's not by the same person. This is why I, I hope George R. R. Martin fucking finishes his book before he dies. Cause there's a good chance that he won't.

TeethNGogles: 2:03:19

yeah, I've been re watching Game of Thrones, actually. It's

Gene: 2:03:21

ya? Okay. I don't think I'll ever rewatch it. I really enjoyed watching it the first time. But so much of Game of Thrones, and by the way, we really should wrap up. But so much of Game of Thrones is about just the surprise for me. Like that, that initial oh my god, that character just got killed.

TeethNGogles: 2:03:39

Yeah. I'm actually watching the red wedding episode.

Gene: 2:03:42

yeah, yeah. That's a

TeethNGogles: 2:03:43

No, I, I know what happens. I'm not going to spoil it. In case there's two people in the universe

Gene: 2:03:48

I know that they still haven't seen it, but that's, that's classic and if I had to rewatch it, I would just skip the last two seasons and just

TeethNGogles: 2:03:56

Yeah. They, unfortunately Seinfeld,

Gene: 2:04:00

they,

TeethNGogles: 2:04:00

I loved that series, but that those last two episodes were just abysmal and

Gene: 2:04:07

didn't know how to end it and

TeethNGogles: 2:04:08

they tried to, what they did was they tried to throw a big fat bow around the whole thing. And they brought back in all the characters. From, 10 years of this show,

Gene: 2:04:20

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 2:04:21

to throw a big fat bow around the whole thing, and it just didn't work.

Gene: 2:04:26

Yeah. I, I don't think they should have done it that way.

TeethNGogles: 2:04:29

Yeah, it

Gene: 2:04:30

you watch the the Larry David final episode of the Seinfeld?

TeethNGogles: 2:04:35

No, I didn't.

Gene: 2:04:36

So you, the Larry David show, right? The Curb Your Enthusiasm.

TeethNGogles: 2:04:39

Yeah, Kirby Re

Gene: 2:04:40

So I think about five or six years ago, one of the seasons, maybe season eight or something, the, the whole theme for that season of Curb Your Enthusiasm was. LArry somehow tell somebody that he's bringing back Seinfeld and then the whole rest of the season is him trying to figure out how to actually get those guys to do it, which he does. He manages to convince all of them by, lying to, to actually do the show. And then for the final two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, they actually pulled out all the set pieces from that original show and they have all the the main characters, Elaine and George and anyway. And and then they went through and updated what would it look like, 15 years later, the fridge probably looks a little different, different stove, but. The, the, the generally, yeah, exactly. Get a stainless fridge or something, but generally speaking, everything's the same. There's still a bicycle that Jerry allegedly

TeethNGogles: 2:05:45

hangs on the wall.

Gene: 2:05:46

Yeah. The, he never takes down and they wrote a script for it and it was, it was a pretty, pretty good alternate final episode, I thought.

TeethNGogles: 2:05:56

I

Gene: 2:05:56

So if you get a chance to watch that, if you have a HBO or something, um, that then, yeah, you should be able to watch that on demand. Just get back to that season. And there's obviously all kinds of other little stories intertwined for, for Larry David's show in there as well. But the central plot for that season is all about getting, getting the guys back together, getting the band back together again.

TeethNGogles: 2:06:21

Works out anyway.

Gene: 2:06:23

no, no, but it's, it's again, the way he kind of sells it is, is it's a way to. Give the true fans something that they've really have been asking for without really, and it's on a different channel and it's R rated. And so it's, it's also very different from Seinfeld as

TeethNGogles: 2:06:45

Right. I'm sure a lot of people wonder what happened after they got out of prison.

Gene: 2:06:50

Right. Exactly. So, or was that whole thing just a dream sequence?

TeethNGogles: 2:06:55

Oh God,

Gene: 2:06:56

Oh, you never know. You never know. Now you're going to have to watch and see.

TeethNGogles: 2:07:01

Oh, all right.

Gene: 2:07:03

I, I was watching something recently where. They did a dream sequence and in the dream sequence, one of the main characters talks about how an overused trope is dream sequences, because it basically means lazy writing.

TeethNGogles: 2:07:18

Yeah, they

Gene: 2:07:18

I love, I love seeing shit that's self aware like that.

TeethNGogles: 2:07:22

I forgot what that was. I think I saw that. I

Gene: 2:07:24

Did you? I, it was something recent and I can't think of what it was, but it was in the last month or so for sure. All right, man. This was a good fun time.

TeethNGogles: 2:07:33

Yeah. Good talking to you, Gene.

Gene: 2:07:34

to know you a little better. Another dude named Ben. From old dudes named Ben. Yeah,

TeethNGogles: 2:07:41

that has done other things than just computer stuff.

Gene: 2:07:46

you're like a dude named Ben. That's that that worked on the real life version of that TV show that Apple has what's it called the

TeethNGogles: 2:07:58

Oh, the morning show or what

Gene: 2:07:59

show.

TeethNGogles: 2:08:00

Yeah. I was the behind I'm behind the scenes.

Gene: 2:08:02

Yeah, you're like, but they still have some of those people behind the scenes that are constantly bitching about not making enough money

TeethNGogles: 2:08:08

yeah, I haven't actually watched it.

Gene: 2:08:10

Right

TeethNGogles: 2:08:11

Yeah, it's just,

Gene: 2:08:13

traumatic too much trauma.

TeethNGogles: 2:08:15

Honestly, okay This is weird. I know you want to wrap up. So I left television in 2007

Gene: 2:08:22

hmm

TeethNGogles: 2:08:23

walked away in a huff burnt a bridge I still have about once every couple months. I have a nightmare where I'm directing a newscast And the whole world is going wrong. The switch is not working. My scripts aren't there. People aren't where they're supposed to be. 2007, I still have nightmares. So there might be some weird level of PTSD.

Gene: 2:08:53

It sounds like it, but that's, that's why I kind of brought it up. Cause one of the main characters in the show basically has nightmares about his job.

TeethNGogles: 2:09:00

Yeah, I mean, I was

Gene: 2:09:02

realistic.

TeethNGogles: 2:09:03

I started in TV in the late eighties, saw, the Berlin wall come down. I saw, I actually was working the Saturday or Sunday morning that Nelson

Gene: 2:09:14

network were you guys affiliates of?

TeethNGogles: 2:09:16

I, I've worked at a bunch of different ones. I've always been at the small market TV station. I've worked at two NBC stations. One ABC, two Fox. And then the cable news channel.

Gene: 2:09:35

Okay.

TeethNGogles: 2:09:36

So I've, I haven't hit CBS. I've applied at a couple, but I never got a job there.

Gene: 2:09:41

Mm

TeethNGogles: 2:09:42

Yeah. I, when I worked in TV, I saw a lot and, 9 11 and earthquakes and elections, and I'll tell you what high school football in the Midwest, that'll scar you

Gene: 2:09:55

Mm

TeethNGogles: 2:09:55

Friday nights, high school football, trying to get all those scores on the screen.

Gene: 2:10:00

That was Nebraska Big Ten?

TeethNGogles: 2:10:02

Nebraska is big 10.

Gene: 2:10:03

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 2:10:04

I'm still diehard loyal.

Gene: 2:10:06

Mm hmm.

TeethNGogles: 2:10:08

Despite the past 20 years, I'm still diehard loyal. I'm even part of a watch party group.

Gene: 2:10:13

Oh, my God. I

TeethNGogles: 2:10:14

Oh yeah,

Gene: 2:10:14

of those. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 2:10:15

yeah, I'm one of those guys. You'll see my Jeep driving around Cleveland. It's got a big Nebraska N on the back of it.

Gene: 2:10:22

I'm a gopher's alum.

TeethNGogles: 2:10:24

I'm sorry to hear that.

Gene: 2:10:26

I got all the winters I will ever need for the rest

TeethNGogles: 2:10:29

Yeah, I'm, I'm sure you did. That's why you're ending up in Texas,

Gene: 2:10:32

And I always say, if I ever move, it's only in one direction, that's further south.

TeethNGogles: 2:10:36

further south. You might end up in Mexico.

Gene: 2:10:38

I enjoy Mexico.

TeethNGogles: 2:10:40

I don't speak the language or drink the water.

Gene: 2:10:43

That's. Not really as big a problem as people think it is it takes about a month to

TeethNGogles: 2:10:49

probably get used to it.

Gene: 2:10:51

exactly

TeethNGogles: 2:10:52

I've lived in, I've lived in a

Gene: 2:10:53

need the right

TeethNGogles: 2:10:54

where that water's rough.

Gene: 2:10:56

Yeah

TeethNGogles: 2:10:56

Southwest Florida, I, the well water pretty bad, pretty bad.

Gene: 2:11:02

Yeah, and that's the thing is I think a lot of places if it's a small town and they've got Their own water that's not coming from a stream It's you know, same shit.

TeethNGogles: 2:11:14

Yeah, pretty rough. When I lived in Fort Myers, the the public utilities would water, the lawns, like the hospitals and all the public, squares and whatever. But they used reclaimed water. So all the water had a nice tint of sewer smell.

Gene: 2:11:32

boy. Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 2:11:33

So, at night, 9, 10 o'clock at night, all the, everyone's watering. It's reclaimed water, and you're just driving down the road, and you can just smell it. It was

Gene: 2:11:42

Yeah. Yeah. That's not good. And on that note, let's go ahead and wrap up. And you are a node in the social under what's your name again? Remind people

TeethNGogles: 2:11:53

Goggles and teeth.

Gene: 2:11:55

with the letter N between them.

TeethNGogles: 2:11:56

Yes. Goggles, and

Gene: 2:11:59

Yeah.

TeethNGogles: 2:12:00

it's my skydiving nomocular, how do you say it? And yes, that's it. One more beer. And just, it's one of those things that

Gene: 2:12:13

thanks. Thanks for joining me. And hopefully you

TeethNGogles: 2:12:16

Thank you, sir.

Gene: 2:12:17

the next surgeon speaks as well. And we'll have a different guest in that one for you to enjoy.