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EP 5: What The Retro?
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“What the Pod?” with Tricey Trice introduces you to a new Podcast every week. Turn in to see what show you need to add to your lineup ✌🏾
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https://twitter.com/blendedgen
www.theblendedgen.com
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100% of Merch sales support the production of the show, thanks in advance.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'What The Pod'
00:00:04
Speaker
You are listening to your auntie's favorite DJ, DJ Treaty Tree.
00:00:31
Speaker
you
00:00:37
Speaker
What is going on? It's DJ Trixie Trix again and welcome back to What
Welcome and Merchandise Promotion
00:00:42
Speaker
The Pod. You are now listening to episode five. Thanks. Welcome back. For those of you who are new, What The Pod is a podcast that basically introduces you to new podcasts every single week. So make sure you stay tuned. And for all of you who are watching on video shamelessly plug plugging for What The Pod merch right now, which can be found in the link in the description.
Guests Karen and Kelly Join
00:01:02
Speaker
Today I've got with me Karen and Kelly from the blended gin. How are you doing today? How are you? I'm good. Thanks for joining me and dealing with my barrage of backstage issues that I was having here with lighting and paper towels in the background and everything.
00:01:20
Speaker
Well, I'm Karen from the blended gin. And let me just say, we do 20 minutes of pre-show. So that was nothing from what we normally do. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Karen and Kelly, introduce yourselves for the people who are listening and let us know a little bit about your podcast.
00:01:38
Speaker
Well, I'm Karen. I am one of the original founders of the Blend It Gen. We've currently been doing this for three years. So it's really, I'll be honest, it's really kind of odd to me to be interviewed about our podcast.
00:01:58
Speaker
Cause I'm normally, we're normally the host. So I'm all like, wait a second, wait a second. It's like a reverse potting. I love that. Most people are uncomfortable. They're like, whoa, you're asking me
Blending Generations and 80s Nostalgia
00:02:08
Speaker
questions about it. Yeah. Totally natural. This is odd. Let Kelly introduce herself.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yeah. Hey, Tracy. Nice to meet you. Thanks, Karen. My name's Kelly D'Amico. I am a co-host with Karen with the blended gen. I was an original teammate when we got started and launched this in 2018. It's been an incredible ride. And I'll just echo, like I'm in talent acquisition with my day gig and I interview people all day long. So to flip this on me, I'm like, Ooh, this is going to be a great ride to be in the passenger seat. And it's totally fine for this to go out of control as well.
00:02:43
Speaker
This is a safe space for any kind of, you know, whatever that's going to happen. So tell us a little bit about the blended gym. What can people listen for when they listen to your podcast?
00:02:52
Speaker
So the blended gin came out of a couple of different, you know, brains like Kelly and I. Originally, we had three, but now we are two. But the original idea of the blended gin was to bring the 80s kind of vice versa of what's going on right now versus like what
00:03:14
Speaker
What were we experiencing back in the 80s? Kelly is a Gen Xer and I'm a Gen Wire because I always plug that because I am an 80 baby. And what happened to that little bit of gens, I guess I could say, generations?
00:03:32
Speaker
was that we kind of got mixed in so like if you were like late 80s like or like 81 on your like a millennial but then there was a little 79 80 mixed there that was a y um and then the x so i think the blended gen was um
00:03:50
Speaker
created, I would say the name was, because we were kind of blending generations. And we are, I mean, the 80s was awesome. And I mean, because I was born. And, and so we, we really bonded over like, how we grew up, what, what was our, you know, like,
00:04:11
Speaker
Do you remember the pager and the payphone and the rotary dial phone and all that good stuff to now, you know, I asked my niece and my nephew, like, do you know what a payphone is? And they're like, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah.
00:04:26
Speaker
So there's a lot of things of what's going on today that is similar, but we relate it to it differently. And we talk about a lot of the ways that we relate now to what we learned back in
Relatable 'Hot Mess' Stories
00:04:43
Speaker
the 80s. But overall, we also talk about just being our true selves and the hot mess things that happened to us in our lives, which we all have.
00:04:53
Speaker
And we all either don't want to tell our friends, like, oh my god, I totally did something crazy. But we all relate to those hot mess stories. Like when we created the blended gin, I was in my car. Our other friend was at a skate park or something with her kids. And Kelly was running on E with 1% battery. Oh my god.
00:05:21
Speaker
Like we were all a hot mess. We were all like, we planned the time to talk and we were just a hot mess and we kind of laughed about it because we actually figured out something in like less than 1%. So Kelly's phone didn't die. And we figured it out and we just ran with it. And we do a lot of hot mess stories and just funny day-to-day stories that we can all relate to. But I'll let Kelly tell you a little bit more too.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah. Thanks, Karen. So we've had a ton of fun at the blended gen podcast and our podcast has evolved a little bit over the three years. Uh, certainly though, when we got started, just like how anyone starts out with a podcast, it's a little clunky, a little rough around the edges, you know, but we knew that we had something at the time, uh, you know, it was three of us and we all come from different backgrounds. So we thought, Hey, you know, really highlighting that, but the one thing we had in common was that.
00:06:15
Speaker
We grew up in the 80s and we all had hot mess stories to share to make people laugh and relate to. And we thought, you know, sometimes it's the silly that makes life fun. And you got to stop and laugh at yourself sometimes and highlight the ridiculous to know that it's okay.
Evolution of Communication
00:06:28
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And it's been a lot of fun.
00:06:30
Speaker
That's awesome. And it's the blended gen of all the generations because I am a millennial, but I was born in 89. So I mean, a lot of, I really can't, I have some experiences that other millennials can't relate to where it's like, dude, I didn't have a cell phone. Like cell phones for us wasn't really a thing. Like when I was in high school, you had one, but it couldn't do anything. Like you maybe had one minutes weren't free. Like nights and weekends was the only time you could like,
00:06:59
Speaker
You know, it was a real struggle and it was very, very ghetto. And it was, and it was too, like if you lost your phone, it was like a million dollars to get another one. Cause I remember someone stole my phone and my parents were like, what is happening? So yeah, but people can't believe like kids nowadays, they're like, what? Like phones are phones. Like I could get a new phone. Like I'm like,
00:07:22
Speaker
Well, we talked about cell phones and the old brick phones, but we grew up at a time when to call your friends, if they lived just on the other side of the city, you might have had to pay long distance at like 32 cents a second. And so your parents would be like, you'd be on your rotary phone with the cord wrapped around the hallway six times, hiding in a closet to talk to your friend who lived on the other side of town, but it was considered long distance. They're like, $5, you're up.
00:07:49
Speaker
You're done. Do some dishes. Yeah. No, people don't. And then think about this, even with the phone concept, cause our, like my mom will say to me, like, hang up the phone. Like, and I'll say that to my nieces and nephews and they have no idea what I'm talking about. They're like red circle, like what red circle. And I'm like, hang it. But it was back in the day when you actually like, I had to hang it back up onto the receiver, but yeah, that's completely lost now.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yes, it is. And so we kind of we go back and forth, we laugh at those things, right? Because it's, it's funny how we react to the news now, and how instant and instantaneous it is, right? You know, it's, it's so just right there in your face. And
00:08:32
Speaker
We talk about waiting for people to call you. When you said that you were going to call me, guess what? You're going to call me. And we would have words if you didn't call me, right? Because it's like you're waiting at the phone and then you're coming back to listen to your voicemails. You didn't get to listen to your voicemails on the road being like, oh, I missed your call. No, it was hours later maybe.
00:08:57
Speaker
And then people said, I'll be there at five o'clock to pick you up. You were ready at five o'clock. This was no text thing. Oh, I'm in traffic. None of that stuff. And so we kind of laugh about that. And our big thing is just to be your authentic self. If you're saying, hang up the phone, heck yeah. Keep it up. Hang up.
00:09:22
Speaker
Kids are so confused. They're like, what is happening? But the kids now, they don't know of a world like FaceTime. I always dreamed of it being the face chat and all that. But it wasn't a real reality for us when we were growing up to have this kind of conversation or even dialogue. I remember when I was playing my PlayStation as a kid, and it was like PlayStation 1, because I had a Genesis as well when I was a kid, because I'm in that.
00:09:47
Speaker
But I used to be like, man, I wish I could play with my friends who are over at their houses. I wish we could all link up. And now I'm playing with people across the country, and I'm just talking to them at whatever times of the day.
00:09:58
Speaker
You know, it's great. I mean, because growing up in the 80s and I remember the Jetsons and I always, I was like way, way far. So I wanted a hologram like this big, this video, face, chat, computer, phone, whatever we're doing right now. No, I want a hologram and I want us all to three to be sitting here in my room with me, you know?
80s Culture Through Modern Eyes
00:10:18
Speaker
That's basically what's happening. But then it's funny to tell kids that, you know, they're like the Jeff A, they're like the Jetsons. Okay, now that's. Some of them watch old cartoons because I DJ for a lot of kid organizations like Jack and Jill and like Boy Scouts and stuff. And they surprise you. They'll know some of the older ones just because like they're either hanging out with their grandparents and that like this is all they have of content. So, you know, it's just like I'm at grandma's house and I'm watching a DVD.
00:10:46
Speaker
Or, you know, they might just be one of these kids that dig into Netflix and think that old stuff is cool. Yeah, yeah, no, I've yet to meet those kids, so I need to follow those kids.
00:10:59
Speaker
There's a couple in every bunch. There's not a lot. They always surprise me with music. They come up and they're like, can I hear Michael Jackson? And I'm like, you're all right. You know what? I like you. For real. I love it so much. Because we're seeing that now. Kids and the younger generation, they're totally loving the flashback to the 80s old school. But I remember when I was in the 80s and 90s, man, I did not like my parents' music. I mean, some of it in the 70s. But don't throw me the spinners back in the 50s. I mean, maybe.
00:11:26
Speaker
There was like the fifties old school do up stuff. And now I appreciate my parents' generation music. I'm like, yeah, that was some right on, you know, stuff. But when I was a kid, I didn't want any of that. And now kids today, they're totally flashing back to the eighties and we're seeing the trends relive in our lives as adults. Well, you eightiesers, you killed disco. You're the only generation to kill a whole genre of music.
00:11:53
Speaker
Like statistically, you guys are like burning albums and like revolting. You're like, we're sick of this shit. Disco sucks. Like that was a real thing. So yeah, I would say that you, you hated your parents' music. Hate your parents' music, but rap was born and MTV was born and the MTV generation came out strong and in force, right? Like I know like Friday night videos was like the thing on NBC late at night, one o'clock in the morning. I used to stay up late.
00:12:23
Speaker
watch it and sneak it. And then MTV, man, that just changed the world. It did because everybody, young people being very ratchet on TV. I mean, it was just, I didn't even know the possibility. I was like, look at all these people in a pool. They're just hitting a beach ball. There's a concert. I need to be a part of that life. And that's probably why I am in entertainment right now.
00:12:45
Speaker
It's because I listened so much. BET MTV VH1 was even like not that trash when I was a kid, but now it's like awful. I wouldn't. This is all reality TV. They've completely just trashed
'Dear Jen' Listener Stories
00:12:58
Speaker
the network, but it was about music at one point.
00:13:00
Speaker
It was. It really was. And Kelly and I, we flashback so many different ways, and we also, we have what we call the blended gin, and it's actually deer gin, and it's our
00:13:18
Speaker
you can write in if you don't have a friend. You move to a new place and you're like, dang, I don't got any friends and I need to ask this question and maybe your friends are out of touch or maybe you haven't seen a friend in a while and you're just like, gosh, I have a question burning. So we do have a little segment where we do Dear Jen. So we get some letters in and
00:13:41
Speaker
They're from people, and so we kind of give our spin on kind of a Dear Abby slash Dear Jen type throwback to, you know, ask us anything. We're here, you know, we're being honest. If we've had an experience like you, then let's talk about it. So what's the craziest Dear Jen you've had?
00:14:02
Speaker
Great. I mean, the, gosh, that's a hard one. Having people write in is very dangerous. That's why I asked this question. Anytime you give people an open forum to like express themselves or just ask, it's usually not good.
00:14:18
Speaker
One that I can remember is this. It was a dear Jen and it was a mom. And she had, you know how like we have Amazon now and your kids are just like, Amazon, I want to buy. And then all of a sudden your bill is like $500 million. But so happened, her kid had asked her to buy some stickers.
00:14:38
Speaker
just some regular old pack of 100 stickers for $5. So she was like, yeah, go ahead. You know, he was going to decorate his helmet, you know, going out bike riding, skateboarding, whatever he did. And she didn't, she, you know, she, the stickers came, he decorated his helmet. She didn't pay no attention to what was on the helmet or anything like that.
00:15:00
Speaker
And he came home after the skate park and she's like helping him get out of his gear and everything. And she looks on the helmet and one of the stickers was a weed leaf, a pot leaf.
00:15:12
Speaker
Well, of course, her son's like eight or nine. It's like grass, yeah. He's like, oh, look, a leaf and, you know, like, other, like, stickers. It's a tree, yeah. It's a sticker. And so she had wrote in and she had asked, like, what do I say to the parents? Because she wasn't at the skate park, but you can only imagine, like, parents out there, like, looking at you. Calling CPS, absolutely, as they should, I mean.
00:15:39
Speaker
What is happening? But it was kind of like a hot mess story and a dear Jen, like what would you do type thing? Like if this happened to you, which is possible, right? It's hilarious. Yes. My nieces, I have 10 nieces and nephews and they're constantly grabbing stuff and I'm like, wait a minute. Let me, let me make sure. Yeah, totally happen.
00:15:59
Speaker
So I think we get stories like that. We haven't had any juicy ones. Kelly, what's your favorite hot mess story? Well, we've definitely had some really hysterical hot mess stories over the years, probably more so than Dear Jen. I mean, we've had some good Dear Jens. Some Dear Jens, though, just to close that loop, have written in. They have some
00:16:19
Speaker
some problems, you know, like how do I handle this, you know, and so I'm grateful that we've created a platform and a space for people to come and share and it really resonates with our listeners. And we've had some good dialogue and follow up with that. But in terms of Hot Mess Stories, those are the
00:16:34
Speaker
They're hysterical. They're hysterical. There was one in particular a woman shared, you know, she had an experience with her dogs. So she went on a family vacation and her husband had to stay at like their beach house a little bit longer. So she drove home with two kids in the back and this dog and
00:16:50
Speaker
the dog ended up having like explosive diarrhea all over the front seat of the car. And it was the whole play-by-play as she's driving in the highway with the kids in the back. This dog is like exploding all over the place, all over her, all over the seat. The kids are throwing up now in the back seat. It's like a whole big wreck. I mean, absolutely disgusting. But her play-by-play of going through this, I was like, you poor woman, man. I know. Blow that car up.
00:17:17
Speaker
The wine, yeah, and if it's found in the river somewhere, I got you. I get it. Sorry, Progressive Insurance Company. It is what it is. It was hilarious. I can totally see that happening. Dogs are gross. I have a puppy. He just has diarrhea randomly because he's trash. He's a dog. He's like, whatever, putting my head in the garbage, whatever happens, happens.
00:17:37
Speaker
I would puke off of his diarrhea. So yeah, I can only imagine small children with just. Yeah, we're going right there. But we had, we were in stitches when we read this story and she was an amazing storyteller walking us through. But we had everything from that to like hot mom moments, like, you know, with the kids and the tooth fairy and just like, I mean, and beyond, like there was even one recently for Valentine's weekend.
00:18:02
Speaker
and I think it was a male listener wrote in, Karen, right? And he had a steamy Valentine's story totally go AWOL off the side of the road with like a rat in the house and a bat that flew in a window.
00:18:18
Speaker
It was wild, some of the hot mess stories, yeah. He was trying to be romantic with his wife, I think. The cat had, oh, that's what it was. The cat had bought in a rat that they thought that he had killed, right? Brought it up on the bed, of course, because you know cats like to show off their stuff. But the rat was still alive and ran, okay? So you're in bed.
00:18:43
Speaker
there's a rat in your bed and then it runs, the cat runs, but then not even like less than 15 minutes later, then a bat flies in because they kept the window open for the other cat. And so a bat flew in. So then he tried to get it out. And it was, what did we call it? The cat's bats and rats.
00:19:07
Speaker
I don't know, it's a hot mess story for sure. No Valentine's love going down in that bed that night, that's for sure. And rats, where are you guys at?
00:19:16
Speaker
I'm in California. Oh, me too. Okay. So you know about the rat situation here. Well, I'm in the country. I'm Northern California, so it's nice out here and I'm sure, I mean, it's not any better. These are like small squirrel rats here. There's a sitch. There's a sitch happening. That sounds like a problem. The police watched me run from rats and I looked at them and I was like, why the fuck wouldn't you help me?
00:19:46
Speaker
It's at night, it's only at night. If you walk past a trash can, they'll try to run under your feet to get to the buildings. It happened to me. Okay, so since you guys are on my show, I'm gonna tell you a hot mess story.
00:20:03
Speaker
OK, so me and my friend are walking. It's at night. We're downtown L.A. Like we're right by the Cecil Hotel, which is so funny because the rats were in front. This is where I got chased by rats. So that documentary with like that building being possessed and all that, I think it's the rats, to be quite honest. They just run the place. So anyway, his building is on that block, which is totally fine. Like we didn't even know that place was on the block.
00:20:26
Speaker
But this particular day they were working in the sewers. So they had went down there and they shut the power off and like they were in the ground, which means that all the rats that are in the sewers are now what? On the streets.
00:20:39
Speaker
So we're walking, we're walking, walking and then we're like, dang, are we walking back? So we're walking back from wherever we went. I think I don't know where we went to probably a smoke shop or something stupid like that bodega because we're snacking. Right. So then we're walking back and all of a sudden we look and there's this sea of rats.
00:20:56
Speaker
blocking the sidewalk. They're just running back and forth. They're scurrying. They're making the noises. They're in the trash cans or whatever. So there's mad homeless people who just camp out there. And they don't care about the rats. They say it out loud. They're like, whatever. They're just rats. But I'm like, dude, it's rat city right now. So then there's a little patch where it's open. And I look at him, and I'm like, Lewis, come on. We got to run. This is our time. There are not a lot of rats we can get through if we run.
00:21:23
Speaker
So there's a little break in the rat thing and we start running. He's looking like this guy that I'm with, he's probably six foot seven. Big guy. He ain't running with the rats either because he's like fuck all these rats, right? So we're running. So I start running and then all of a sudden this rat comes and it runs under my foot. So I jump.
00:21:44
Speaker
And then as I'm about to land another rat run, so I have to do this like mid-air Mario climb over the rats. And I'm like running, running, running. And that's when I saw the police officer and I'm like, why the fuck would you help? Like the rats are fucking chasing me. And they were just laughing and just going about their day. So LAPD did nothing to help me as I got chased by rats.
00:22:07
Speaker
Oh my word. And you know something? I think you just created a new video game series called real life LA or something with the LA drama, man. I'm telling you because they, it was the most, it was the craziest thing. And all I remember was looking down and seeing that second rat and being like, Oh shit. I was going to step on a rat and it was a big rat.
00:22:27
Speaker
Did you lock eyes? Was it a locked eye moment? It was one of those. It all happened so fast. But needless to say, now I'm traumatized and I don't walk at night. If it's nighttime, I walk like by the Staples Center where there's like less rats, but like downtown where there's much of the garbage, I ain't doing that no more.
00:22:45
Speaker
That could be some sort of app. Like how they have traffic flow on the highways, you can have an app. Like where's the rat flow? But you know what? It was because they were in the sewers. There was normally not that many rats. We had walked past there a million times. That's why I'm like, where did these rats come from? But they were down working in the sewers and it was just completely bizarre and gross.
Midwest Origins and Experiences
00:23:05
Speaker
that is that is thank you for that hot mess story please please feel free to share that story with anyone you like and let them know that there's a real situation going on over here and I just moved here from from Indiana so it's like country I'm used to that like field mice whatever I had cats who caught mice these rats
00:23:27
Speaker
My dog runs from I have a huge dog. He's a like 80 pound puppy One-year-old and he's scared of the rats. He's like, what? Where did you bring us that we now have this problem? That is too funny. And that's that's really cool that you're from Indiana because Kelly and I are from Ohio Really? So it's Midwest all over Ohio stressful for me. Can I tell you where are you guys from in Ohio? Oh
00:23:52
Speaker
I'm from Dayton. Dayton, OK. Dayton's all right. I grew up in northern Ohio. I lived in Cleveland growing up. And then I went to school and lived in Toledo for like 12 years before I moved into Arizona. That's what's up. Yeah. Dayton, I'm from Indiana, so we pass through. We go back and forth. Also, I went to Purdue, so I kind of hate Ohio. But I've just never had a good experience in Ohio at nightlife, I think. I think that's why it stresses me out.
00:24:19
Speaker
That's what it is. I grew up in Cleveland, and at the time, it was fun growing up in the 90s. That's when you were going out, not so much in the 80s, but the 90s were a good time. Go down to the water and the flats and party, have fun or whatever. That was a good time. But then I went to Toledo where there's nothing.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah. It's a bunch of, you know, working on the cars and all the different plants. I mean, good people. I had a great time there. We made our own fun. But it wasn't fair. It was like going to the Regal Beagle to drink your beers on Friday night. Right. That's where you went. That's that Midwest living. Yeah. It was simple, easy, good. But we came to Arizona and never looked back. Yeah. Oh, for sure. I moved to California. I'm like, Indiana has rent. Buy one, get one free. I ain't going back.
00:25:05
Speaker
I like that so true, right? Why would I do that? I mean, just the pace on the West Coast is completely different, you know? And if you want to be a mover and a shaker, I think that the West Coast is where it's at. Yeah, definitely. I agree.
00:25:19
Speaker
But it's so funny because when we started the podcast, Kelly, I, and our third friend, we all didn't realize how much time we all three spent in Ohio. Because our other podcaster that started it with us, she grew up in Ohio too.
00:25:38
Speaker
So it was it was kind of it was it was really weird because we all met in Arizona I lived in Arizona for a little bit and then we all met and we did it We didn't even piece piece our stories together until like, I don't know you're one
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was way later after we started working on the podcast and really getting to know each other more. We met each other in a business networking environment. And we instantly became attracted to each other in terms of our energy and who we are. And we just hit it off and started independently hanging out and going to different mixers and things like that along the way. And then when Karen came to me and was like, Kelly,
00:26:20
Speaker
I'm working on something. Do you want it? I was like, oh, my God, that sounds amazing. Let's go. Let's go. You know, and then we started chatting. And the beautiful piece of this is, yeah, the three of us, when we started, this is awesome learning that we all were in Ohio for a really substantial part of our younger lives. But the three of us are all very different people in our backgrounds and upbringing and even who we you know, who we are today. But our core and our essence are so aligned. Right. And I think it's just a powerful
00:26:49
Speaker
piece that like when you meet people, you know, you never know their backgrounds, you never know even, you know, present day, they could be totally different on the surface, but the root of who they are, you could align with some great people. And I'm so fortunate that I've now, you know, have two best friends from this experience. And we would have never, never even known. That's, that's so dope. And I, I do think that
00:27:10
Speaker
just Midwestern people have really good cores. I feel that and it's so crazy because I'm here but I constantly link up with people who are that because I think I'm attracting that just by just good sweet people you know who are just out here because being there is just slow and we don't want to do that no more.
00:27:27
Speaker
It is very slow and I drive a pickup. I drive a pickup on the west coast now too. So I drove it all the way across the country. Um, and people are like, what? But I'm like in Indiana, that was it, man. You went to, everything takes 20 minutes to get to everybody's kind of just hanging. It's closed at 10 30 except for the clubs, you know, but that's like a mixture of techno country, R and B hip hop. It's like,
00:27:50
Speaker
You know what Midwestern clubs are like? It's like people are the line dancing while people are like jumping up and down and raving. And then there's this hip hop that's just bled in because of like all Chicago and like, you know, just.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yep, no, that is so true. For real, you hit it on the head. You just took me back. You took me so back to growing up. And that's exactly what it was. It was, let's go line dancing. We had the boots on, right? I want some boots. And then somewhere in the middle comes in some sort of biggie, like playing. Oh, no. People in Indiana line dance a little, John. They be like, yeah, yeah. And it's like lit. I mean, it's good stuff. We used to go to bar. It's a whiskey business or something like that in Indiana. But it's a good one. Whiskey in the title just sums it up, right?
00:28:32
Speaker
Just a big ass dance floor. They got like 27 beers on tap. The DJ's playing like every genre of music and people are cool with it. It's legit. It's a good time. That's what I'm like, it's really cool. But it's like, I'm 31. It's like, I really want to turn up my career right now and not be like buying a house and just have this big, huge pot of land, which you can do for really cheap out there too. Talk about the differences and level.
00:28:58
Speaker
Oh, yeah, a big difference in living. But I grew up mostly in Denver. And so I just kept trying. You've been around Denver. Yeah. How was Denver? Because I love Denver, but I stayed in the Airbnb. I wanted to move there because of just when I was going there and partying. Then I stayed in the Airbnb that was in a neighborhood and I was like, I can't do this.
00:29:19
Speaker
I don't like Denver at all. I don't know what neighborhood, but I think it was close to downtown though. And maybe that's just a yeah, that's probably, that's probably true. Um, I grew up on kind of the Southeast, like suburbs of Denver, Denver, um, in Aurora. But, um, that was, you know, back in the eighties and nineties, you know, so it was totally different. It was kind of rural back in the day, you know, it, believe it or not, when you go out there now, it's like, what are you talking about? Yeah. I'm like, what?
00:29:49
Speaker
It was in the 80s, it was really rural out there. But it's grown a lot. And I've seen it grown a lot. And I like it. I always said I would retire there. I need to experience some other things. If you like Four Seasons, that's the place to go if you like to hike, bike, or ski.
00:30:12
Speaker
those are the places to go and live, you know what I mean? You have the best of both worlds out there, but I still like the West Coast, though. I love the Northwest because you have the mountains and the ocean, and that's... What is your winter like, though? That's my... The winter in Denver? No, I mean like in NorCal. Oh, in NorCal? Oh, it's nothing. I mean, I'm used to snow, and like...
00:30:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I have been hesitant to go north in California because I'm like, I'm not going back. I mean, it was cool, but I didn't see any snow out here. I mean, if I don't see any snow, it's a good winter. Agreed. We just got here on New Year's Eve. So literally, we were packing our shit up Christmas Eve. It was like snowing and raining, and we were just throwing stuff away, throwing it in the U-Haul. We sold everything and just came.
00:31:07
Speaker
Oh, nice. Good for you. We were we visited in October and then I was DJing like a million. I was a wedding DJ. So I had a wedding in Indiana and I got Covid at a wedding. And then I gave it to my wife and then I was like, shit, we were sick for like a month. And then I was like, listen, we make it through this week out of here. And we did. We just sold everything and we left. That was it.
00:31:29
Speaker
And now we live downtown LA because we wanted to walk everywhere. We were tired of driving. Like, especially when like the lockdown first happened, we were in the house. Like both of us, our jobs, luckily, you know, we could do from home, but we were in the house and that in Indiana really wasn't what we were looking for. Like we could be locked down here and be completely fine because we could walk to grocery. We can go hike. We can, you know, have enough outside space to do that without having to rely on getting in the car every, I had three cars in Indiana.
00:31:59
Speaker
We have one now. Yeah, yeah, no.
Shopping Then and Now
00:32:02
Speaker
The city life is way different, right? And where I moved to in Northern California, it's back, I'm kind of rural again, and you have to get in the car and drive. I'm not in any big city, but yeah, it kind of takes me back also to the 80s when you actually had to go and get up and drive a couple of miles to a store where it wasn't like you can get out and be like, oh,
00:32:27
Speaker
the, you know, Safeway or Circle K or something's on the corner and boom, you're here. Let's talk about this because I'm traumatized by shopping as I hate shopping right now. Like I was at the grocery store earlier and my wife was like, why are you so grumpy? And I'm like, I just genuinely hate this place.
00:32:42
Speaker
because it's just it's stress it's a stressful thing and that is because when we were kids my parents will wake me up and my mom eight o'clock seven sometimes we're going from store to store I've got to try clothes on I've got to do all this and you're exhausted and now it's 7 p.m. and we have to come home and put this stuff up it was a whole day experience to shop
00:33:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, go ahead, Kelly. Well, I was gonna say, I totally agree. It was a whole day experience. You went for the whole thing. Maybe if you were lucky, you got lunch at McDonald's. Like, I mean, it was, I mean, right? It was like the thing. An all day thing. And now we're so used to just having convenience, right? Like grocery delivery, grocery pickup, who needs to, you know, maybe that maybe you go to a couple stores and you have everything ready for you. Now we're this like,
00:33:30
Speaker
click, click instant gratification society because we just don't want to be bothered with the mundane, right? Yeah, and it's ruining our lives because we're now expecting instant gratification in every way. And I catch myself in that because I am. I'm like, I'll shop around. I'll be like, hey, you know, I need this computer cord. And then if I can't walk somewhere and get it or have it today, I'm pissed. Honestly, Amazon sometimes works opposite for me.
00:33:57
Speaker
because I'm like, where's Best Buy? Where's all the stuff that I used to be able to do? Now I'm like anti that instant, not anti it. I just want it in a different way. I just want retail stores again. I feel like everybody's gone away from retail and everything's delivery and I can't try it on and I can't put my hands on it. When I used to be able to just go to circuit, you remember Circuit City?
00:34:21
Speaker
Oh, I grew up, I was that kid. Like my parents would give me allowance and I would go to Radio Shack and buy batteries. Like I'm going back and saying catalogs. I remember waiting for the catalogs. Uh, if the mailman don't get a twisted three 30, the mailman would come around and I'd be the first one to get the catalog. So I could hit, you know, you could circle.
00:34:43
Speaker
or put the little page, like fold the corner. You're like, don't forget this page because I might have to go back because if I circle too many things, then I won't get that many things, but I'll have to remember this page. Yep. Yes. I mean, and it was JCPenney. It was Sears Montgomery ward. If you were from
00:35:04
Speaker
I got one for you, is the Columbia House catalog. When that rolled up, oh, I just got you, didn't I? With all those two. The Columbia House catalog with the little images this big on that little catalog. I had a hundred copies folded up. A million of them, right? Circled, circle, circle of all the things. And you had your penny ready to go to mail in on your order form with your 12 free for a penny. CDs, yes. That was totally like a Ponzi scheme.
00:35:34
Speaker
All the way. And I think didn't they have some kind of legal ramifications for tricking people or something like that? It was never a penny. I don't think I never paid. I only paid a penny. I never, I was like, how did this, how did, how did that business wise happen for us?
00:35:49
Speaker
But I do I had hella order forms. I would just steal them from magazines and all kind of stuff or like the AOL CDs. You remember when the Internet like was like an introductory CD that they mailed out to everybody. I went down my block and stole everybody's Internet CD because my mom had just bought me a machine computer. Oh, wow.
00:36:08
Speaker
And I like unscrewed the thing and took the thing off because the processor was so slow. It was so loud and I hooked the fan up. So like, it was really crazy. So that I could keep burning music all night from LimeWire and Napster.
Music Sharing in the Pre-Digital Era
00:36:22
Speaker
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I had a whole business off of CDs. I sold CD, illegal CDs and DVDs when I was a kid. They got smart. Made so much money. I mean, Shark Tale, that was a hit. I saw so many copies of Shark Tale. That's the one DVD I remember on top of my head.
00:36:38
Speaker
Oh my God, so good. Well, I remember, I mean, even before Napster, so now I'm a little older than you being a Genexer and Karen and I have chatted about this. Like, so you'd used to sit like Saturday morning, Casey case, um, top 40 countdowns and you'd have your boom box, right? Like on the floor next to your bed with like the, the Memorex recordable cassette tape.
00:36:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And with your fingers ready to go. But that dude spoke to the very last millisecond before the song started. And you were like, boom. And you had to nail it every time. But then when you listen to your playback, sometimes it's still Casey Kasem saying like whatever he was saying at the same time. That was like our own ratchet, like Bernie. Yeah, all of our music. And I did it the radio.
00:37:21
Speaker
I did it with a talk girl from, you remember Home Alone came out and then they put out those talk girls and talk boys. So my mom bought me one of those when I was like six or seven and I had hella tapes, hella. I was like dubbing over everything, but I would like, I was a rapper when I was a kid, by the way. So I would like listen to a beat in the background and then I would like rap into it so that I was making a mix tape. But mix tapes were lit when we were kids, right? Like you could give somebody a tape and be like, listen to this whole album and they would be like, and do it.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. And then you would have- It was the thing of like love songs, right? So like your high school crush or boyfriend or whatever, they're making you a mixtape and it's got, you know, all the good love songs from the nineties on it. Like all that good, good R&B, the smooth stuff. It's like, oh yeah, this is so good here. I made you a mixtape. Yeah. And I wrote on it and you hope you can read my handwriting because this is like in Sharpie of some sort and you're blowing on it to like make sure it doesn't smudge.
00:38:22
Speaker
That's so funny. No mixtapes and tapes period. I remember getting in my first fight because somebody wouldn't give me my tape back. Like that was like back in the day. For real? Like back now, it's like, oh, somebody didn't give you your CD back. You can burn it again from somewhere. I don't know. Nobody has CDs. And I mean, if you're buying CDs at this point, wow.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, just wow, you're just burning through money. I mean, you might as well do Apple Music. They're giving it away for free. Exactly. But now you can recover everything, right? But with a tape or a CD, it was fighting. I remember my friend, she's still one of my good friends. This was further into the 90s, like high school.
00:39:08
Speaker
And I had a car, and she had put her tape that she had got from Christmas in my car, so we could listen to it over and over again like you did, right, in your car. And I remember a year later, her being like, hey, can I get my tape back? And I was like, that's not your tape anymore. It's been in my car for a year. Right. It is now the car's tape. I was like, that is currently mine.
00:39:31
Speaker
And we always joke about that. Like I was like, I gave you your tape back, but I don't. And it was a Leah's tape. I remember. So what was that tape? What was your one tape? That's what I meant. That's a good one because back in we had to buy tapes for people who are listening who are can relate to this.
00:39:48
Speaker
Sometimes like they would do singles, but you could also buy the album. So you could buy the single with like a club mix. It was like three different songs on, didn't they do the instrumental? So you'd get like just that version with three songs or you could do the whole album. What was yours, Kelly? Can you think of...
00:40:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So my tape was Madonna True Blue all the way, for sure, for sure. But my album, because I also had a record player when I was a kid. So going back, right. So I had the record player was Purple Rain all the way. So Purple Rain, okay. Purple Rain, Prince, absolutely. And then I had some Tears for Fears in there and Michael Jackson, of course, and on the album deck and then tape, though Madonna came out and she was the thing and she killed it.
00:40:33
Speaker
She killed it, but True Blue was the tape that was forever burnt, burnt, burnt, played all day, every day. Yeah. Okay, so my tape... Okay, I'm going back to the 80s. I loved Tiffany. That was my tape. That was my tape. Now, growing up and then having, like, other tapes, Uncle Luke, hands down, everybody knew not to mess with my Uncle Luke tape, okay? Come on, Uncle Luke tapes! You was meant to be on the West Coast.
00:41:02
Speaker
You have to be on the West Coast. Exactly. That was my tape. And fast forward, because my friends knew I loved my tape so much. And then as we grew up, then they got me a CD. And then that was my CD. That was your CD. OK. But yeah, those were. That was it. Yeah. And then just mix tapes.
00:41:21
Speaker
You, you would get those one songs that you never would get the whole tape, but like somebody made you a mixtape and like, I remember just hella just old school, like E 40, like stuff that you can't crown stuff that you couldn't get. Like those were my real tapes though. The mixtapes for sure. Um, for me, I think I'm gonna choose
00:41:44
Speaker
So I remember my Christmas when I was five years old. It's so funny, because I remember I got a boombox for Christmas. My mom just put it on the floor and put a bunch of tapes. And that was my favorite time for tapes, because those were all my favorites. And my favorite from that one, and it was all female artists. And it was explicit, too, because my parents were like, hey, just don't say the words. But you can listen to the art, because my dad was a musician.
00:42:13
Speaker
had to be debrat, functified. Debrat. I mean, I just couldn't get enough. I was like, this is tight. And then I had a Tupac tape where Hail Mary's instrumental was on it. And that was my, I was woke when I was a kid. That was, I would consciously write raps about, you know, just the African-American experience that I had from when I was five, you know.
00:42:37
Speaker
Yes, yes, no. It's when you grew up, right? Like my first tape that I remember being like, oh my gosh, I got a tape was Tiffany. But then when I grew up, I'm like, oh yeah, I got a lot of different styles and tapes out there. But for CDs,
00:42:55
Speaker
I think it would be Lil Kim, The Naked Truth. She went to jail at that point on that album. So I wrote her a letter. I had wrote her a letter in jail, everything. I was bumping The Naked Truth until she got out. And then I still listen to it from now on. I'll be like, man, Lil Kim. And then Remy Ma. So I listen to all.
00:43:17
Speaker
mostly female rappers, you know, women rappers, but New York, it's just New York rap just seems like the original form to me. Oh yeah, hands down, I agree with you. This is better than me. So I like West Coast. I still can appreciate the East Coast. Yeah, and I like West Coast rap. It's just, I mean, if it's not Tupac or like Snoop,
00:43:41
Speaker
a little bit of like EZ-E-N-W-A. I ain't really messing with it too much. I mean, E-40, I mess with E-40, but some of the music is the beats just be too crazy for me. I'm a DJ, so I'll be like, I can't mix this with shit. I ain't playing this.
00:43:56
Speaker
You play E-40 song at the club, you gotta play the whole fucking song, cause you ain't gonna be able to mix it with nothing. Right. He like, I just want my stuff to stand out. He talk on the beat, in the middle of the beat, on the weird space of the beat. He talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. You can't get a beat in there.
00:44:14
Speaker
So crazy. OK, so let's wrap it up. My final question for you is, since we're in this nostalgia moment, which is just giving me all the feels. So nice outside and
Nostalgic Childhood Memories
00:44:23
Speaker
everything. What is your favorite nostalgic memory from your generation? Like, is it a person? Is it a place? Is it a thing? What is it? Kelly, you want to go first?
00:44:37
Speaker
Man, we can go all over the place because I think there's so many things. Like the two first things that come to mind growing up child of the 80s was Saturday morning cartoons, eating cereal with my brother, like literally waking up at the crack of dawn, opening up the cabinet, having like 25 boxes of our favorite cereal cookie crisp and cocoa puffs and like, you know, fruity pebbles and like
00:45:00
Speaker
all the sugar cereal and getting like jacked out on sugar cereal for hours in the morning, literally boxes lined up in front of our big tube TV and watching Saturday morning cartoons. Like that is the epitome of my youth from being as little as I can remember and until like I became a 90s teenager, right? Like that was where it was at every Saturday with my brother. And then, I mean, hours, we would just watch hours and hours and hours of it all.
00:45:26
Speaker
And it was, I mean, that was epic. That was my youth, hanging out with my brother on Saturday morning, getting cooked out on sugar cereal. And then just running. Like then we would spend the afternoon like out when go all day. Like, I mean, I, it's funny now I tell my son who's 13, I'm like, he wants to go ride his bike in the neighborhood. And I'm like, by yourself. And he's like, yeah, I'm like, I don't know about that.
00:45:54
Speaker
I mean, I was like, I think four riding my bike, down three neighborhoods, cross the street, down, bike pass, no phone, no cell phone. And I'm like, hey, I'm either going to be at, you know, Jennifer's house, Valerie's house, or, you know, whatever, you know, here's their number, peace, see ya, you know, it gets dark. And out we went, like, and that was every Saturday. Like, never came home, who knows where the hell we were. And then my mom, you know, she was like,
00:46:20
Speaker
You could be a kid on this milk carton, you know, the face of the milk carton. I remember that so vividly. But that, if I think back to the epitome of 80s, growing up 80s, it was the Saturday morning cartoons and all the sugar cereal for sure. Yes, yes. And the bike thing, you, that's so true. I share that. And she meant four years old. Like I could ride a bike when I was four or two kids. Now they're like 10 and they're like, I never learned. I'm like off.
00:46:43
Speaker
You need to do better for your life. You need to want to do better. I fell down and broke my face 1600 times, didn't care, got back up, got back on that bike and kept going. That's how my mom taught me. She was like, you're going to fall a lot and then you're going to ride your bike home. And that's what I did. I learned in one afternoon. That's what happened. But also too, your parents knew where you were because you would leave your bike on the ground at the house and they were like,
00:47:09
Speaker
Damn it, she's over at Jennifer's. Pick your bike up and just don't leave it in these people's yard like that. At least put the kickstand down. That was where you knew where all of your friends was because you could find bikes. You threw your bike down. You threw that bike down. You're like, we got to go. We got things to do.
00:47:24
Speaker
All right, Karen, what's yours? Well, so talking about neighborhoods, my nostalgic moment is the just the lights coming on and you having to go home. So, you know, you're out in the neighborhood and you see those first lights going on and it's like clink.
00:47:39
Speaker
clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink
00:47:57
Speaker
You know, it wasn't a page that you got like come home page. It wasn't a phone call, cell phone, phone call. It was, you knew you walked out of that house to go play in that neighborhood, maybe on your bike or on foot. As soon as that light came on, you were supposed to be at home. That was the alarm clock. That was your signal.
00:48:16
Speaker
I think that to me, it just reminds me of very carefree living. It was just like, you knew what you needed to do and you did it. And that always brings me back. Even today when I see the lights go on, I'm not like panicked to get home, but I'm all like, ding, ding. It's a forever click in my head of what that means to me anyways.
00:48:44
Speaker
that and then just all the great, you know, like, like Kelly said, cartoons. But I think back in the 80s, that's when I really started really enjoying different types of music and entertainment. I think that was, that was the thing for me was entertainment and
00:49:02
Speaker
And because we did a lot, I mean, we didn't, if we weren't outside and if it was a snow day or something, you'd have to go and go home and watch the TV. So I remember the evolution of the TV and the phone. I think those are nostalgic moments in my mind
Neighborhood and Community Interactions
00:49:17
Speaker
too.
00:49:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's dope. And I'm going to share mine. All those things I still can relate to, which is on a not even on a I think I can relate to those because we didn't I was still biking and all that. I have a phone until I was in high school and it was required. But I also lived in Indiana in a border town and commuted to school to Chicago. So I was a city kid. Like, that's why I like the city. I was always running the city streets. But
00:49:42
Speaker
My nostalgia for my my childhood is corner stores You know like people don't a lot of people don't know the concept of this and I'm like dude in Chicago There's one everywhere you go on the corner. It has chips it has you know They're selling you could put chips cheese and meat on your chips like everything at the corner stores bodegas like that's what I missed when I lived in Indiana there was like no store it was family dollar and it's like
00:50:08
Speaker
I don't want a family dollar. I want a store where somebody's family owns it and I get to talk to them and build a relationship with them and I can buy penny candy or 50 cent chips or whatever. That's my thing. Y'all remember those? Oh yes. In Ohio a lot. In Ohio I remember being sent down to the corner store to pick up a whole bunch of stuff that probably we weren't supposed to be picking up.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yeah, cigarettes included. Back in the day, you would get your grandma a cigarette. Oh my gosh. Do you remember the cigarette machines inside restaurants? Pizza Hut, I swear, had a cigarette machine in the lobby. You used to put in your $5 or quarters or whatever and then pick your Winston Slims or whatever it was. I totally remember that. You used to be able to smoke inside. Yeah, smoke inside.
00:50:56
Speaker
All day. I remember, you know, I mean, I came from a family to like, they all smoked like chimney smoked, like, you know, it was just a part of life, right? And, and same thing, like smoke inside restaurant, smoke inside anywhere you go, sit at the table, sit down and you want smoking or non smoking? Exactly. Nobody even asked you that anymore. And that was the main thing. My mom was not smoking, you know, because she didn't want her hair to smell like smoke.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:51:20
Speaker
Yeah. I'm like, these are the better seats. There's nobody there. What are we doing? Just sit around my grandma smokes. What?
00:51:29
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. That's so awesome. Yes. This feels so good. And folks listening, you really need to tap into their podcast, the blended gin, all of their information is going to be below. Thank you so much, Karen and Kelly for joining me here. You guys are awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. We definitely appreciate you. And yeah, it was great. I love this.
00:51:53
Speaker
Anytime you need a millennial to just drop in there and, you know, just give my perspective. I can. I got you. It sounds like we got a lot more in common than we think. Yes. And, you know, you're always invited. So might have to call you up and be like, hey, let's do a segment. Yes, I'm down. Thank you so much, y'all.
00:52:14
Speaker
All right. Thank you so much for joining with the pod. Once again, again, nice shameless plug for this nice mug. It's huge. That's why I'm showing you is 15 ounces. So, you know, buy it because it directly supports the podcast. Um, if you are listening to this, uh, go ahead and look at the link in bio when you get a chance and you can actually watch it. And if you're watching it vice versa, my name is DJ Tracy trees. And thank you for listening to what the pod.