# Episode 15 - GenZ Series: Nate

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2025-01-13T02:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16425858-episode-15-genz-series-nate.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-15
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode15.html
- People: Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host), Nate (guest)
- Topics: GenZ

## Summary

In Episode 15 of the GenZ Series, Nathan, the son of the hosts, shares his experiences growing up as a Zillennial, discussing his childhood in Oregon and New Jersey, and his transition to South Florida. The conversation delves into his school years, friendships, the impact of social media, and his journey through high school and college, including his involvement in DJing and music festivals.

## Key takeaways

- Nathan identifies as a Zillennial, bridging the gap between Gen Z and Millennials.
- He experienced a traditional childhood without social media until his teenage years.
- Nathan moved from Oregon to New Jersey at a young age and later to South Florida.
- He faced challenges making friends after moving to a new school in Florida.
- Nathan's involvement in DJing began in college, aiming to improve the music scene at his fraternity.
- He emphasizes the importance of music festivals in building friendships and community.
- Nathan's relationship with his sister improved significantly through shared experiences at music festivals.

## FAQ

### What is a Zillennial?

A Zillennial is a term used to describe individuals born between the late 1990s and early 2000s, who can relate to both Gen Z and Millennials.

### How did Nathan feel about moving to Florida?

Nathan initially felt upset about moving to Florida, as he was leaving behind friends and a familiar environment, but later appreciated the opportunities it provided.

### What role did music play in Nathan's life?

Music was a significant part of Nathan's life, influencing his friendships and experiences, especially through DJing and attending music festivals.

### How did Nathan's relationship with his sister change?

Nathan's relationship with his sister improved as they bonded over shared experiences at music festivals, transitioning from being distant to becoming close friends.

### What impact did DJing have on Nathan's college experience?

DJing allowed Nathan to enhance the social atmosphere at his fraternity, build friendships, and develop skills that contributed to his personal growth during college.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzTrHJJX1w8)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-15-genz-series-nate/id1764838823?i=1000683719224)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5a4IYs3IWJnAdPNlv3hSCQ)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16425858-episode-15-genz-series-nate)

## Transcript

[Music]
Welcome to Genex Adulting. Today we have
a very special guest with
us, our older son Nathan.
So welcome Nathan. Hello, hello.
Our first question is
what year were you born?
1997. And where were you born? Oregon.
Okay, you're born outside of Portland. So
I'm sure you're aware of this by now just
from us doing this podcast.
But before we did this podcast, did you
know you were a Gen Z?
No, maybe. But I'm sure there's some
subtype thing that I'm
about to get bucketed into.
Yes.
I think from the last episode it's like,
Jen's the lineal or something.
So you're a Zillennial, which is a small
group. And I know you've
listened to past episodes.
You get the best of both worlds. For
those who haven't
listened to those past episodes,
Zillennials can relate to part of Gen Z
and they can relate to
part of the millennial group.
They also spent most of their childhood
without social media,
without phones, without technology.
Most didn't have TVs in
their bedrooms, all that.
The computer, if it was in the house, was
in a centrally located
location, not in their bedrooms.
Even if they had Xbox, a lot of them, it
was in a centrally located location.
So you guys kind of like you just said,
got the best of both worlds.
You got a traditional childhood and then
social media and
phones entered the world.
And I know we're going to touch on that a
little more later on in the episode.
So you were born in Oregon and how long
did you live in Oregon?
Two years, right?
About two years. Just shy of two years.
I didn't have my consciousness yet.
I don't remember anything until I was
like eight, like third, fourth grade.
Yeah, you were young
when we left Portland.
Right. So we, where
did we go after Oregon?
New Jersey, Sparta, New Jersey.
Yeah. And that's where we, you actually
celebrated your second birthday.
So you were just shy of two.
Yeah.
What are your memories
of living in New Jersey?
Like what stands out to you?
Playing baseball.
What was that? Station Park?
Yeah.
Playing baseball there, going fishing
when we had that boat, the like little
John boat that would not work down here.
Yeah.
And then I'd say a lot of like family
parties and stuff because
that was kind of our life.
It was school sports.
And then I felt like just because we were
kids, you know, it's not like I was going
around doing things.
There's play dates and stuff.
But like, you know, now, even in like
high school, middle school down here,
it's like you made your own plans.
Right.
We'd bike around. But like, I was so
young that that wasn't really a thing.
So it was a lot of like family parties,
you know, major holidays, birthdays.
I do remember going to Grammy and
granddads a lot after school throughout
the week and having
dinner here and there.
And that might have even happened less
frequently than I remember it.
To me, it feels like we
were there all the time. Right.
Probably wasn't the case.
Yeah, I'd say a lot of that. And there
are still like bits and pieces of, you
know, school things.
I remember doing like Bingo Club and like
we did the Hacky Sack Club.
Yeah. Yeah. I think in
like fourth grade. Yeah.
You two ran it, I believe.
Yeah. I mean, I ran all the clubs, but I
believe dad came to at least one.
Yeah. You came to one because Brian is
actually still very good at Hacky Sacky.
Like he just has a knack for it. And so a
lot of time spent doing it.
Yeah. In college. But we started a club
at your school. You
went to Catholic school.
I do remember now that you say that you
bought all those Hacky Sacks.
Yes.
And we had a pile of Hacky
Sacks with us as we moved around.
Off of Oriental trading
for people who remember.
I don't even know if Oriental trading is
a thing anymore because
Amazon's probably taken over.
Probably.
But at the time, Oriental trading was the
place you went to get pretty much
anything for anything related to kids.
And parties.
Which is really funny if you think about
because there was a pretty like.
Like straight edge community,
I feel like in Sparta. Yeah.
And like some of the clubs were like, you
know, arts and crafts bingo.
Very normal things.
Then you have this arc or family hippy
bullshit start the Hacky Sack Club.
Yeah.
And what was it? Reverend
Brown. Reverend Brown. Yeah.
Yeah. Catholic school.
You were Catholic school.
I'm sure they were like,
okay. Yeah. You can do that.
It was innocent fun. It was certainly the
first Hacky Sack Club.
For sure. Probably the only one.
Probably the only one. Right.
And do you remember your sister being
born at all during that time?
No, I remember like obviously not when
she was a little kid.
I mean, we're only three years apart.
Right. So. Three and a half.
So those early years, I
still have very spotty memories.
I feel like up until like 10, you know,
it was like big deal things that happened
that I remember that I
could like pick out of a hat.
Right. I remember going to her sports.
I remember that.
But for New Jersey, it's spotty. Yeah.
Yeah. She was just kind of there.
Yeah. And so then and I
probably a lot of your like you said,
a lot of your main memories
are with your cousins. Yeah.
You know, that's where you got really
close with your cousins.
And it's this might sound bad, but her
and I beefed a little
bit when we were younger.
Like we were best friends
now, but we were not like that.
Right. Up until she
was probably like 15, 16.
And obviously that relationship got
better as time went on.
But when we were younger, I remember
because like I have two cousins that are
older than me and then one cousin who's
like basically my age and then another
one that took a year or two younger.
And so I remember that
group of like four or five.
It was mainly Tommy,
Gabby, Christopher and I.
As like the core group that I remember,
like playing video games with then mainly
Chris and I would play
like wall ball upstairs.
We'd play running bases outside of
granddads or manhunt,
all those random things.
And then Amanda and Kyle would get
sprinkled in here and there, but they
kind of did their own thing.
So to me, like they were definitely
involved in a lot of those things.
But I remember hanging out with like
Chris the most and then
Gabby and Tommy and Chris.
There was an age difference. So it's a
natural natural separation.
And we were also young. So like we would
play like computer games and
Nintendo 64 and GameCube a lot.
Those that's like the house when those
things were coming out, like
we started with Nintendo 64.
And I remember we'd play in an
traditional today's upstairs
room across from Chris's room.
We'd be up there playing these old ass
games that you'd look at them now and
it's like they're blocky and shitty.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then we
started playing like Warcraft a lot with
like Uncle Chris and
then the GameCube came out.
So we'd play that a lot. And that was
like what we do in the daytime.
And then, you know, it felt like we play
a lot of like manhunt and stuff at night.
When we were playing video games like
that, a man and Kai were in their room
playing dolls or some girly thing.
And there was definitely like a split.
Like we never mingled. It's not like we
ever were like, oh,
let's go do that with them.
It was like, right. You guys go do that
and we'll do this. And Anthony was and
then Anthony was born and
he kind of stayed with them.
Yeah. But he was really little. He was
little. He was because right. He's six
years younger than me.
Yeah. And I moved. We moved away from New
Jersey when I was 11.
And that is a good segue into right
before you went into fifth grade, dad,
his job moved us down to South Florida.
So what's that 11? So yeah, 10 11. And so
Kyle was about to go into first grade.
You were about to go into fifth grade. Do
you remember how you felt when you found
out we were leaving Sparta?
You want to know? Yes.
No, no. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
I remember being I actually do remember
this. I was in the bath crying. Yeah. So
I was like, I'm going
to leave all my friends.
Like what is it? I don't want to go
anywhere else. Like this is where our
family is. This is where my friends are.
But I was like 10. Right. So in my eyes,
it's like this is like my
life. Like why are we moving?
And I don't remember moving from Oregon
to New Jersey. Right. And so that was
like we lived at that eight
West Cherry Tree Lane house.
Yeah. We had our cousins around us. We
had a schedule. It was comfy.
Yeah. Some real small town. Like there
was no deviation. It was like fish on the
weekends for fun. See our family do
sports, do school. How was it?
So then it's like and I never I never
been to Florida. Right. No. We really
didn't like leave all that much.
I feel like in New Jersey on some of the
vacations, like once we get down to
Florida, I feel like we did more.
But then I remember, you know, I was in
the bathroom and dad came in and he was
like, hey, you're when you
turn 16, you'll thank me.
You're not going to get it right now. You
have no clue what I'm talking about. But
you'll see, like once you once you go a
bit over, you know, you'll be
happy that we're down there.
And did you understand when you turn 16?
No, that I remember telling
him actually in high school.
He was like, I think I'm told him
multiple times like, yeah, yeah,
definitely better than especially after
going back to Sparta.
Oh, geez. Yeah. And we visited once or
twice. I'm like, geez. Yeah. Thank God.
I'm like, whoa. Oh, my gosh. So then we
get down there and I assume starting a
new school again, it's a Catholic school.
It's a small school. I assume you were
incredibly nervous,
probably nauseous on the first day.
How was that transition in that
adjustment? Yeah, I think that that whole
first year was like figuring it out
because because
obviously there's a new school.
Right. I lost a lot of friends. So then I
had to make friends. And what was helpful
actually was was you reached out to the
secretary of the school in the summertime
when we were moving down there.
And I honestly, you're probably one of
the only people that's ever done that
ever. And it'll ever do that again.
But you got a list of all the kids that
were in the class and then started cold
calling the parents
trying to set up play dates.
And then I ended up coming into fifth
grade knowing like five or six kids,
making friends with like two of them.
And then that was at least like a safety
blanket because I think a couple of them
were in my class. Yeah.
Well, I think because we did some play
dates over the summer from cold calling
and one of the kids,
they were a set of twins.
So you knew there were two. There were
the classes were split. You knew you'd
get at least one twin. Yeah.
So that at least you knew you had one
friend going in. So that
probably helped a bit. Yeah.
And some of those people I was friends
with for a while, like like Margo, we met
in the summer and then we went to high
school together and we were friends up
until graduated high school, I think.
Yeah. And then last week you went to one
of your friends housewarming parties from
the use, but you didn't really get to
know Tommy until sixth grade.
Right. Yeah. So the way it worked was you
didn't switch classes
a lot. You stayed in.
I was in five a right with Mrs. I forget
her name and then other
kids were in five B. Yeah.
So there was like I think it was like
twenty eight kids per class. And we would
go to music and art and library and then
we had a typing class.
And those are the only times we'd ever
leave in P.E. Those are the only times
we'd ever leave that class. Actually,
they taught typing back then.
Yeah. We had to put a cover over the
keyboard and sit there and get typed to
learn. I wish it was like one of my
favorite classes. They stopped that.
I don't know why kids don't have typing
class anymore. It's so ironic. Dylan do
the yes. And Kai does a little bit too.
Yeah. You don't do that. You know, the
QWERTY where your
hands going all that. OK.
But I also I've played a lot of computer
games. Yeah. So that's it's been needed.
Yeah. It's been very helpful. You know,
it's crazy. There's a lot
of people my age to do that.
What? The two fingers. The two fingers.
Oh yeah. It's painful. And I'll be like
when I first started to grant it, you'd
I'd sit behind someone all the type in an
email. I'm like, what
the fuck are you doing?
Yeah. Put your goddamn fingers on the
keyboard, man. Yeah. Like, why are you
going like this? Backspacing and a lot of
people like don't know how to do like
control C, control V. And they'll do
right click copy right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. But yeah, no, that was that was a
good class. I'm glad we had that because
I couldn't imagine not knowing how to
type. Yeah. Like writing papers in
college and high school. It's like, I
could not imagine. How are you going to
sit there and go like this?
I think that your your generation that
last gen or the oldest Gen Z's I bet you
you're the last one's the last ones who
had typing. But I bet it's not even a
guarantee. You don't even think everyone
your age. I'm telling you. I've sat
behind people like that were your age
older. Oh, wow. Twenty eight. I was 22
when I first started working. Meeting
people that are 25, 26, 27, 30 years old.
Fucking those are millennials.
Typing like this. It's like it's like,
you know, that drives you crazy. Wow.
It's a painful thing to watch. I honestly
think typing class should be reintroduced
into the curriculum at every school. It
makes zero sense to me with how kids are
completely on computers now. It makes
zero sense. Well, now you just buy that
program. It's like $150. Well, I think
you just say Siri or AI engine. Type me a
paper. Yeah. Now we're in intern into
that world. Okay. So,
you spent middle school in Catholic
school. Well, no, no, no. Back to that.
So, okay. So the way it worked in fifth
grade was we were all in that same class.
So I only made like really good friends.
I was around 30 of the 60 kids. Right.
Besides lunchtime. And I would probably
made a couple of friends through other
people. Right. From like a birthday
party. It'd be like, oh, this person from
5B is coming to the party. And you know,
there was some mingling, but
it wasn't as forced, you know,
something I honestly miss about school.
And I'm jealous of Dylan is you're just
forced to be around people. Yeah. You
make a lot of friends. You meet a lot of
a lot of girls just from being in class.
So it's it's it's it makes it easy. You
mean versus your life now as you're
working. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just
forced, right? Even in college, like, I
mean, if you went to class, like a lot of
people were just there real quick and
went home. Yeah. It wasn't like, let's
let's be friends. Now we're in class
together. It's like, I have a friend
group. You're my classmate. Adios.
It's so true. School gives you automatic,
typically gives you automatic friends and
gives you an automatic potential dating
pool. Automatic. Yeah. Yeah. I never
thought about that before. That's
interesting. So so then, yeah, I I'd say
by the end of sixth grade, right? Because
then sixth grade rolled around the class
is switched. You had some people from
fifth grade that in your class, you got
some new kids that you like knew about
their, you know, they were just also in
fifth grade. And that's when I became
really good friends with Tommy.
Because he was in that sixth grade class.
And I think a couple other people that,
you know, you guys would see my birthday
parties and whatnot. Right. So by the end
of sixth grade, it was like fully mingled
in. I would say I'd say getting through
fifth grade was like the nervous jittery
part. But then after sixth grade, it was
okay. I've met everybody, you know, and
there's no surprises like it was the same
60 kids. So there was a couple of people
that come in a couple of people that
would leave and then they'd go through
it. Yeah. And I probably had a soft spot
for those people because it's like, oh, I
was just there last year.
Let me know if you need anything.
Well, because with a lot of those kids,
especially in a small private school or
in a Catholic school, they've been in
school together since at least
kindergarten, sometimes since preschool.
No, there were people in my class that
had family friends from when they were
like two. Yeah. And that always like, I
was kind of jealous of that a little bit
because it's like, I didn't know people
like that. Yeah. And I still don't know
people like that. Like I have friends
like, like, Collins, one of my really
good friends. And he has people.
He's been friends with since he was, you
know, two or three, four years old. And I
don't have any really friend in my life
now that is past like 15 years. Right.
Collins is probably one of my oldest
friends that I'm still friends with. We
met when we moved. We lived across the
street from him. In sixth grade we moved.
And that's when I became friends with
him. And he's probably the only person
from that time period that I'm still in
at least constant contact with.
Obviously, I could if I see some of these
people like church, when we go out and
about them, like, you know, the app or
whatever. Right. I'll run into them. It's
like, hey, what's up? Right. But I'm
pretty sure he's probably my oldest
friend at this. He's in your circle, I
guess, in a sense. He's your oldest
friend. Yeah. If we had stayed in New
Jersey, that's not that long. Right. I'm
27. Right. So I'm missing like almost a
dozen years of friendships with people
that there's definitely people like
Tommy, for example, are still friends
with people like people that
were at his party last year.
Last week that, you know, he's been
friends with them a lot longer. And it
was it was it was good. I saw a lot of
those those same guys from that like
fifth grade, sixth grade swing. Yes. And
that was the first time I've seen him in
a while. That was probably cool. I think
if we hadn't moved from New Jersey, you
would have those friends. For sure. Yeah.
You would have the. You're just forced.
There's no option. Yes. Especially in New
Jersey. It's a great way to look. It's a
small town. You either know what, Sparta
High or Pope. Yeah. It's not like Boca
High was bigger than both those schools
combined. Right. Right. And down here,
there's six high schools in Boca. Yeah.
So no, in New Jersey. Yeah. I'd probably
still be friends with like Adam and Joey.
Right. And you remember their names.
That's how close that body. Yeah. Real
follow each other on Instagram. But I
wouldn't consider them my friends. Right.
Right. Well, what's what you're talking
about as far as your friends who have
known people pretty much their whole
life. Dylan will go through that. Dylan
has friends he's known since he was two
and a half. Like when him and Chase hang
out. Yeah. They've known each other. They
were five. But they don't even go to
school together anymore. Correct. And
they it's like, oh, Dylan's with Chase.
And that's like, to me,
it's like, oh, I remember that.
Five years ago. Yeah. Or like Shane or
all those kids. So I'd say he has more
friends at his age now than I did. Right.
Because you were you were new. And Kai
probably is in between that. Yes. She was
younger. Yes. So she got to build it up a
little better. Because if you think about
it, I was I basically started new in
middle school. And then that was three
years, four years to make friends in that
school. But then we all kind of
separated. Well, what's interesting, I
was actually going to bring this up.
First of all, being new in basically middle school. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think middle school, that's
just a loaded statement because middle
school is hard, even if you've known
everyone since you were two and a half.
Middle school sucks. I hate middle school
as a parent. And I think most kids hate
middle school. But yeah, yeah, it sucks.
I don't remember like hating it. But if I
think back, like those years, we're
probably the most, like annoying to deal
with. Yeah. Compared to like high school
is awesome. Yeah. Right. No middle
schools and elementary schools, you're
just a kid. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing mattered.
Right. Everything was taken care of.
It's just like we're having fun,
we're doing sports, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, middle school's rough.
It's when mean girls get real mean,
and it's when alpha boys decide
they wanna be the alpha-est of them all.
And so everyone suffers.
There's a lot of casualties there.
Everyone suffers from subtle bullying,
which is the worst bullying,
because adults don't catch on to it,
teachers don't catch on to it.
And as a parent, if you
try to talk to another parent
about their kid doing crap,
those parents are like,
they don't wanna hear it.
So you're just kinda stuck in this vortex
of having to get your
child through middle school
to the next step.
You're just getting through it
so you can get them to high school.
And that's whether you
have a boy or a girl.
Unless your kid is the mean girl
or is the alpha-est boy of them all,
all of us parent, anyone
listening that's a parent
knows what I'm talking about.
So my next question to you though was,
you entered into high school,
Boca High is a huge high school.
And you entered into high school
coming from a small private school.
And as you just said,
most of the kids you knew
in eighth grade scattered.
I would say most of them went to Pope.
Most of them went to Pope.
Which was the
Catholic High School in Boca.
Yeah, that was the logical step.
Honestly, a lot of my friends
that I considered good
friends in middle school
went to Pope.
So it wasn't like people scattered,
but the people I cared about
and wanted to be friends with
or was friends with and
wanted to stay friends with,
a lot of them went to Pope.
I didn't want to go to Pope.
So it didn't really
change anything for me
in terms of wanting to go to Pope now.
Yeah, just to be clear,
he could have gone to Pope.
Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing.
We totally failed this.
No, no, no, he wanted
to go to public school.
That's funny.
Okay, so just to be clear,
he was a Catholic
school child his whole life.
He wanted to go to public high school.
Can you share what was your motivation
to switching into a
totally different environment?
I want to say it came down to,
and this is so nerdy,
but they only offer a
couple college level classes
for freshmen.
And it was like, you're
basically on our track, right?
You're on our runway here.
This is what you're able to take.
You really can't overachieve.
And I was a pretty
bright kid in middle school.
And I would got really
good grades in high school.
I went to Florida
State with 72 credit hours.
I was a junior before
I even got to campus.
So that wouldn't have happened.
If I went to Pope,
I wouldn't have gotten a
double major in four years.
Just a little sidetrack.
I think a lot of parents have,
there's a kid that's just smart
and ours happened to be our first born.
And I tell people, I
didn't realize Nathan,
Nathan is very, very brilliant.
And I did not realize that
until a parent came up to me.
He was in second grade.
And after school, a
parent came up to me and said,
"Oh my gosh, congratulations."
And I was like, "For what?"
And they're like,
"Nathan won all time reading
for the class."
And I'm like, "Oh, cool."
And they're like, "And
he won all time math."
And I'm like, "Oh, cool."
And they're like, "And
he won all time English."
He won every single subject.
And I was like,
"That's when I came home."
And I said to dad, "He's smart."
And we had no idea.
And so that's when we actually,
up until then we had no idea.
And it's interesting being--
I remember I'd get the stickers.
I might be full with
stickers all the time.
He's the child who got the hundreds,
who didn't really have to study.
And he killed his ACT.
So when he's talking
about, and I'm not bragging
because this had
nothing to do with Brian or I,
he was born this way.
So part of making that decision
to which high school to go to,
what you're saying makes sense.
You wanted to continue to
be academically challenged
because that's where you
were coming from mentally.
And this is not to shit on Pope at all.
But I did like the
fact that it was bigger.
And honestly-- You mean Boca High?
No, no, no, Pope is smaller.
Yes. Right?
So you're dealing with less.
It was way more close knit.
It was safer.
It was a safer option.
Yeah. Right.
And honestly, I kind of skipped over it,
but I got lucky with,
and this probably influenced my decision.
When we moved in sixth grade to the house
we rented for a while,
it's like five blocks
from where we are now,
I met Colin and Tyler,
and through them met a lot of kids
from the public school system.
And what really helped was we
had a park in our neighborhood
three blocks down that a bus stop was at
for the main, for Boca Middle,
which is where a lot of the people,
a lot of the people in Boca Middle,
basically everyone in Boca
Middle went to Boca High.
They're really close by, I
think it's the same zone,
same bus loop, all that.
So every Friday after
school, after St. Joan,
I'd go down to the
park with a couple people
that I was friends with
on the public school system
and meet all their friends.
And I'm talking like 50 kids at the park.
Yeah, yeah.
And we would play football, basketball,
just sit there and talk shit.
That was the first time I ever saw a kid
who was like in eighth grade get drunk
right after school.
And that was like, I went
for my cushy little Catholic
lifestyle to like,
these kids are smoking weed
and drinking and we're
14, like what is this?
(laughing)
I'm going to go into Boca High.
Yeah.
(laughing)
I guess so.
That's not how, but it did help me
because when I went to Boca High,
like I already had, as
much as my friends went
from St. Joan to Pope,
I knew a lot of people
going to Boca High still.
So I kind of just switched friend groups.
Well, there was a couple
really good friends of mine
from Boca High that also went to Pope,
or a couple really good
friends of mine from St. Joan
that also went to Boca High.
And I remember my freshman year,
I'd say my first friend group
was with a lot of those kids
from St. Joan.
And then we picked up some stragglers
that we would hang
out with in eighth grade
that weren't going to St. Joan,
but were going to like St. Paul,
or the various middle
schools around Boca.
And then we all knew we
were going to Boca High,
like Dylan knew kids that he wasn't
currently at school with,
but were going to be at school with.
And it was a lot of the same of that.
So then it was three or
four different schools of us
all hanging out the first
freshman year at Boca High.
And then obviously I
started meeting people.
Would you say that
transitioning into a public high school
as a coming from a private
school is much more challenging?
I don't know, because I think Boca High
was a little unique.
We were a really good school, right?
It was one of the best
public schools in Florida.
I think it still probably is,
especially when our
principal or director was there,
we were like-
It was 35th in the country, I think.
Yeah, it was like an A plus plus school
all four years I was there.
It was run really well.
Like it wasn't the
stereotype of fights every day.
Oh, that is not allowed.
No, that wasn't a thing.
It was business, right?
Like I took like four
college classes my freshman year.
And so that honestly kept
me away from the hooligans.
Cause I had this little
niche like STEM program
that I was friends with
and met a lot of the kids
that they're all come from good families.
They're all smart.
They all knew that
this was for college now.
Right, like you guys
drilled into me in eighth grade.
You need to get good grades
because this will be looked at.
And I don't even know if that's true.
It is.
But this will be looked at
to go to whatever college
you want to go to.
So that I had that
mindset going into high school.
It's like, this matters now.
Like I can't fuck up.
Well, part of that was
you were taking two classes
in eighth grade that were
high school credit classes.
Oh yeah, yeah.
So there's math and something else.
By English.
So those counted, that was part of that.
The one thing I would clarify too,
it wasn't necessarily you
have to get good grades.
You have to do well so you have options.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then it opens up the
landscape of what you can do.
Choices.
But so my experience in high school
is definitely different
than a lot of people's.
And probably not a lot of my friends
because we're all pretty
similarly like smart and driven.
And I think a lot of the
people I'm friends with now
had that same mindset of,
I'm not going to be a fuck up.
And I'm not just going to like skate by
and just try to have fun.
Obviously I had a ton
of fun in high school.
No, I mean.
High school was a lot of fun.
Yeah, I mean, let's say
that was my next question.
So although you were
very academic minded,
you also partying.
Well, not freshman year.
Freshman year I was pretty focused.
Obviously that was, you know,
that's when I had my
first serious girlfriend
which took a lot of my time.
And then yeah, I was in a
lot of really hard classes.
And I was like, it wasn't that hard.
Like I got good grades all
four years of high school
but it was definitely a
step up from middle school
and from being in the like,
this is the, you know,
these are the classes
you're going to take.
You have to take these
right when I got to high school.
I kind of had an option.
And I remember I took
a couple of AP classes.
I think my easiest
classes probably like Spanish.
And that's just
because I got taught Spanish
for five years down here.
But the rest of the
classes were all AP, ACE
and I had to take these
like college level tests.
But so freshman year
was definitely like still,
still a young kid, still figuring it out.
I think I switched front
groups like two or three times
in between, I'd say from
the start of freshman year
to the end of sophomore year,
I had a whole new group like
every nine months probably.
Would you say that's common?
Cause I think I'm seeing that again.
It's sort of like high school,
the freshman year of high school
feels like a transitionary year.
Well, you got to think about it.
Cause so this is the big difference.
Every class of Oka High,
I had different kids in that class.
And again, we'll go back to the,
you have to automatically
become friends with these people
because this was the same group of people
I was in class with at seven periods.
Yeah.
I think I had four college level classes.
So in those college level classes,
they were mostly freshmen,
but I did have some
sophomores, juniors and seniors.
Like my AP human
geography class was third period.
I had like five seniors
and these kids are like
going out on the weekends,
coming in hungover on Monday,
like talking all this shit.
I'm like, what the heck?
I'm going home and playing Xbox
or like throwing the
football or something.
Like I'm still 14.
So it was, that was a
wild thing to then go from
was this tiny little
middle school to these kids
who are driving and
going out on the weekends
and like, you know,
having sex and all this shit.
Yeah.
Right.
To go back to the academic part,
I remember, that geography class,
I remember he needed help.
And I started reading your book
and it's this book like this big
and it's college level science.
And I'm like, you're on your own buddy.
(laughs)
Yeah.
You helped me out with
math after eighth grade.
Yeah.
I'd come home and be
like, have questions.
And you're both like,
and there was no chat GPT.
No.
So you're both like,
you would study the book.
You'd have to go back and
teach yourself a lesson.
We're not stupid, but there was like-
I'm stupid in math,
but we ended up hiring a
tutor a couple of times.
Mr. Weiss helped you a little bit.
Yeah, I was like, probably
sophomore or junior year.
But in general, you
handled all of your academics
pretty much on your own.
I always high school figured out.
I never went to my locker.
I never carried around textbooks.
I did my second period
homework in first period.
I did my third period
homework in second period
and so on and so forth.
And sometimes like in my seventh period,
I do the days homework,
they got assigned real quick.
So I could just go home and
then go out and fuck around.
Be a kid.
Well, I think honestly-
High school was easy.
But there were some
classes you had to study
and you had never studied before.
And I remember you being frustrated
because it's almost like
you had to learn study habits
for the first time.
And it's too bad
because I didn't have any
going into college and I got blindsided.
That got real.
I think that happens for kids
who where academics come naturally.
And so they never learned study habits.
And then you end up going somewhere.
Like if it hits you at the end of high
school or in college,
you actually have to learn study habits
for the first time in your life.
Well, I'd say the biggest
difference is in high school,
you got to test like
every couple of weeks.
So it was chapter
one's quiz is on Friday.
Okay, that's 15 pages of the textbook.
I can memorize that
real fast and smoke that.
Then you go to college.
It's like, all right, class,
we're gonna have our test in November.
It's August right now.
So figure out how to retain
three months of information.
And this is gonna decide your grade.
And it's like, whoa.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
And then you're cramming
a whole semester of work
like 10 days before
the test, sitting there.
It was like a full-time job.
And that was the beauty of my major too
was this was so scheduled.
I would go to class and learn whatever
and write the papers and
do these little quizzes.
But then you really only had to be on
like two times a semester.
That's all the tests would line up.
But I did not, high school did not,
that was not like that.
No, it wasn't.
So then just to go back,
you played baseball
from the time you were five
until when did you stop with baseball?
It was 14 or 15.
I got kind of fucked.
What made you, cause you
didn't play in high school,
what made you decide to
stop after eighth grade?
So I was, we did the first league
of the Boca Little League.
Yeah.
Right?
And we played at FAU Stadium.
I remember that, we're the Phillies.
Yeah.
I got to pitch on their stadium.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I remember
that was a great season.
That was probably my
best season of baseball.
That was 13, 14.
Seventh grade.
No, no, no, that was-
Well, no, at that point you were 12.
It was Little League.
No, but like Connor was on my team
and we had, maybe that was eighth grade.
Well.
Cause I came into high school
and I knew some of my
teammates at Boca High
from the year before.
I think it was eighth grade.
So I was like 13, 14,
like starting pitcher,
pitching as much as my arm could let me,
leading off hitting.
And then if I wasn't pitching,
I was like dicking
around in the outfield,
which I hated.
Yeah.
But I was, it was like, I
was figuring out baseball,
total assets of the team.
You also closed.
Yeah, I would pitch all the time.
Yeah.
And then the next season
that like league ended.
And then my birthday was March 31st.
So the cutoff made it.
So I had to play as a 14
year old with 16 year olds.
And like, I was
throwing like 40, 50 maybe,
and hitting 40, 50,
and it was all fastballs.
And all of a sudden these kids
were throwing 50 mile
per hour curve balls,
65 mile per hour fastballs.
And there was no loading period.
And so what happened was
because I was the
smallest kid on the team
or youngest kid-
You would not be younger
than you were in the league.
No, it was fucked.
Because you were the
first day of the new year.
Yeah.
So, and you would drive me to practice.
These kids were shaving and driving.
Yeah, I think that tricked you out.
I rode the bench the
whole year and I was like,
fuck this, I don't
want to play this anymore.
And I honestly, it
burned me out on baseball.
It's too bad because I
was good and getting better.
And then it just all fell apart
and I didn't want to do it anymore.
Because that one season was like,
hey, I'm good on this.
Like these kids take away,
and it was a mental thing, right?
I remember older,
been playing for longer,
probably had a couple of years of
experience on the belt
and way more serious about it,
where I was still like kind of a kid.
And like, this was
just the extra curriculum.
Like I've been playing
sports my whole life.
This is what I do.
I didn't take it that serious.
I do travel.
Dylan probably takes the
cross a little bit more serious.
You guys take Dylan's across more serious
than we took my baseball
and that's just how it was.
But then you show up
and you get in this league
where you're the youngest kid.
And honestly, I was
just outclassed physically.
I remember there was one kid who was
driving to practice.
He was a baller and it was very serious.
He had a beard.
He had a beard, yeah.
And it was like, I'd
know that tripped you out.
And it was like-- My
voice was still cracking.
You were pitching against him.
He was gonna hit the
ball. No, I didn't play.
Yeah.
Well, you did get out there a few times.
I remember watching, but--
It was like bottom of
the lineup, left bench.
Yeah, see you.
You having fun, Nate?
Like, not really.
Well, plus add on to it.
This is South Florida.
We are a baseball state still, right?
Football and we're
baseball and we're soccer.
South Florida baseball's--
It's every sport down here.
There's so many people and
there's so many athletes.
You can practice any sport year round.
If you wanna get
nasty, you can get nasty.
Yeah, yeah.
So you ended up not
playing baseball in high school.
No, I did stupid cross country.
You did cross country.
You did cross country, I
think, for two years, right?
A year and a half, then I tweaked my back
and I was done with that.
You were done with that.
And then I started partying.
Yeah.
(both laughing)
I quit sports.
I was like, "I'm gonna go
drink and talk to girls.
I'm done with this shit."
(both laughing)
Yeah, so you--
I didn't know that.
Yeah, so you would say
you started partying,
what, like mid-softmore year?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
As soon as, because it was,
so cross country was in the
fall, then it was a track,
and I was pretty quick.
I wasn't the fastest
kid, but I was pretty quick.
But it sucked.
Like, every day after school,
"All right, let's run five miles."
Yeah, I know, right?
Great.
In the heat.
Awesome.
In South Florida.
So then sophomore year,
cross country, roll around,
and I had a few friends on the team.
And they all felt the same way.
So we'd do these off-campus runs,
and Whole Foods is right across the
street from the track.
So the coach would be like, "Go run.
Go run your four miles."
We'd walk over to Whole
Foods, get pizza, sit on the bench,
wait for our team to run by,
and then hop in the back
and go back to practice.
Oh my God.
And I'm like, "God,
get me out of this shit.
This sucks."
And then I think I had that,
I had like tweaked something in my back,
didn't do track, and
then never went back.
Yeah, you had a soft
tissue and injury on your back,
and then you didn't go back,
and then you ended up having
a lot of fun in high school,
but still maintained
your grades and everything.
Had a long-term girlfriend,
did the whole traditional--
There was an honor roll every semester.
Yeah, yeah, did all that.
And then it came time for college,
and we did do a tour your sophomore year,
and right from then, you wanted FSU.
Yeah, I remember
going to, we drove by UCF,
which I don't wanna be too mean,
but Orlando's the
worst city in this country.
(laughing) And then we went to Gainesville,
and Gainesville was just bland.
Like the buildings were
white and gray, I think.
Just looked very
cookie-cutter, spread out.
Well, we actually, we went to FSU first.
Maybe that's where it was.
Because I remember
you're like, "This is it.
I don't wanna steal a thundergourd."
Yeah, because I was used to like bricks.
Yeah.
It looks like a college.
Yeah.
And when I didn't have,
so I wasn't one of those kids that was
like thinking about going to
Harvard the whole four years.
I'm not gonna lie,
I didn't think about
college until it was like,
"All right, we need
to apply for college."
Yeah.
I didn't have a dream
college I wanted to go to.
I just knew, it was just, the gist was,
I have really good grades,
and I have extracurricular stuff.
Like, you know, I was volunteering.
I had a bunch of service hours.
I did sports for a little bit.
So I knew that I would be able, yeah,
and I worked a lot.
Junior and senior year, I worked a lot.
I worked like three to
four days a week at Custom I.
Was that at Custom I?
Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Yeah, you worked a lot, and you did--
Sunshine.
You did a lot of volunteer work with--
Tons of volunteer work.
Mentally and disabled children.
Yeah, the whole summer.
Yeah, you still do it.
Yeah, you still do that.
But, so yeah, you had a great resume.
But my whole thing was,
I never really cared
about where I was gonna go
because I just knew I'd
be able to go somewhere.
Right.
And there were kids in
my grade that were like,
"I'm gonna go to Cornell.
"I'm gonna go to Harvard."
They were smart kids, smarter than me.
Like, they cared, they didn't go out.
I didn't see them at the parties.
Right. Yeah.
Right, so I was like,
"I'm gonna go to college
"and get into a good school,
"but I'm still gonna
have friends and, you know."
The balance.
Do things. Yeah.
Right.
So that was never a concern of mine.
And then we went to
Florida State and, you know,
you see the, you see like,
I remember watching Blue
Mountain State when I was a kid,
which is like this school about this,
or this show about
this backup quarterback,
who just loves being
the backup out of college
because he just gets fucked up
and, you know, he's just
doing whatever in college.
And I remember like seeing that campus,
it's like the bricks.
And any movie you see
is always this, you know,
very like historic looking campus.
And then, yeah, we went to Florida State
and it's like, this is it.
I mean, you think about that fountain
going into that Ruby Diamond Hall
at the top of College Ave, and it's like,
"Geez, this place is awesome."
So we went there and
then hit Gainesville and UF
on the way back and then
UCF, and I'm like, "Eh."
Yeah.
Let them download. I remember.
They're like, "Do you wanna
go look anywhere else now?
"Let's just go there, that works."
It's true. I remember we had
a little tension,
cause I was like, "You
gotta at least go look at UF."
And you were like, "No."
And we got there and it was like tense.
It was tense.
I remember being in the gift shop
and I think we were all
like kind of being snippy.
Cause you're
surrounded by blue and orange
versus garden and gold.
There's just, that's
what she's just so excited.
Well, you had made up your
mind and you fell in love.
You had made up your mind
and you did get into both
and you chose FSU.
Yeah.
Yeah, so.
Nothing's funnier than the
day I got into Florida State.
There's two things
actually, it's hilarious.
I remember I took the SAT
and the SAT is very writing focused.
I don't like writing.
I'm good at reading comprehension.
I like reading, I read every night
for about an hour and a half.
I've been reading for about every night.
Probably fifth grade, right?
I think I've read Harry
Potter like seven times
and I've read it for the
first time in like fourth
or fifth grade.
We used to go get the books
probably even earlier, honestly.
You've read more books in your life
than I've read in mine.
Easily.
Yeah.
I read like 30 books last year.
I've already read five this year.
It's the 10th.
Something stupid.
I think I'm on my fourth
book and it's the 10th.
Well, and kids your
age, actually your age
and maybe a little older will remember
those midnight releases
of the Harry Potter books
and we would go to the
local bookstore in Sparta.
The Green Bean or whatever.
Yeah, what was the Sparta
bookstore next to Green Bean?
Next to Green Bean.
And we'd all be waiting in line
and you guys would dress up a little bit
or some kids would dress up,
but I'm sure there's--
That was second grade, third grade.
Yeah, I'm sure it's a shared experience.
I'm sure there's many kids your age
remember actually the release
of the next Harry Potter book.
And yes, you were
reading those at that age.
Yeah, but so I took the SAT
and we did like pre-SAT stuff.
I didn't do tutoring at all.
A lot of kids did tutoring.
Like my girlfriend at
the time tutored every week
for the SAT just to get
better at test taking.
I'm a good test taker.
I like tests.
I don't like writing.
I hate writing.
I would get bad grades on writing
and you give me a test, I'll study, fine.
So I remember I took the
SAT and walked out of it like,
"Damn, that didn't go well."
And I didn't even get
that bad of a grade,
but I got a grade
where I had to work on it.
And then I took the ACT
and I remember walking
out of that bitch like,
"I just smoked that test."
I think that was so easy.
And she's like, "So we got my
SAT score before my ACT score
"because it takes a
little bit to get it."
I got like a bad grade in the SAT
and she's like,
"Let's get you in tutoring.
"Let's do this.
"I'll sign you up.
"We'll get you the whole test book.
"It'll take a couple
hours, but we'll get you there."
And I'm like, "You need to relax.
"It'll be okay.
"I have a good grade coming.
"Don't worry about it."
She's like, "No, no, no, no.
"I'm like, just wait.
"I'll do tutoring if my ACT score
"isn't as good as I think it is."
And then the ACT score comes out
and it was like middle,
it was like on the upper end
of what you needed to get in first aid.
Way upper end.
Yeah, it was like a 29.
And then I took it again and super
scored, it's like a 31.
And I was just like,
"Yeah, yeah, no tutoring.
"I'm good."
I took the test twice and that was it.
We were done, no.
And I never took the SAT again.
I was like, "I'm sticking to this test.
"That's not my thing."
And that happens.
I know your sister, the
SAT was better for her.
Yeah, my girlfriend at
the time only did the SAT.
She took the ACT once
and was like, "That sucked.
"I'm never gonna get good at that."
Because that's way more problem solving,
I think more math and science focused.
So you chose Florida State.
Oh yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
And the day you found out.
So my whole life and it's
still an issue I have now,
I hate waking up and
also I stay up way too late.
Middle school and high school,
I was probably up
till 1 a.m. every night,
even though I was
waking up at like seven.
And I'd wake up to toast
made and my shower on and hot.
Hot water going.
Because she knew.
Your brother's in the same boat.
Well she knew because I'd wake up and be,
leave me alone.
She's like, "The shower's
on, we're wasting water.
"Get in there."
And then she'd throw my ass in there
and it'd be like hot already.
And that just wakes you up.
I think that's why I shower every morning
before I go to work.
Well I would hope that's
one of the reasons you shower.
A lot of my friends shower at night.
Oh.
And don't shower in the morning.
I shower in the morning.
I can't wake up unless I shower.
Yeah, totally.
Like that's like my cup of coffee,
it's hopping in the shower.
So I remember, this was
probably what, senior year, right?
Yeah, no senior year and
it would have been like--
Fall, it was November.
I remember I had the whole semester
after I found out to just fuck around.
Because I knew I was
getting into college.
So she wakes me up, she's like,
"Come on, the results are
here, the results are here.
"Open the thing."
I'm like, "I got in,
leave me alone, let me sleep.
"I wanna go back to bed."
Oh, so you're seeing
the envelope from Memphis
who came in.
Early, early decision.
Early admission, yeah.
So she's like, "Open it
up, let's see if you got in."
And this was like 15
minutes before my shower
is supposed to be taking place.
I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, it's just 7.15.
"Leave me alone, I'll open it."
I'm like, "I got in,
don't worry about it."
She hands me the
envelope, I open it up, I'm like,
"Yeah, see, I got in,
let me go back to bed."
It was so uneventful.
And now kids get these emails
with all these like
confetti and everything,
but you got a nice
envelope with a beautiful letter
and it was so uneventful.
He's like, "Yeah, I got in."
Like, can you close the door please?
Turn the light off.
I'm gonna fuck around.
Oh, that semester was awesome.
We had so many people that
got those early admissions
and then I still got really good grades
and the issue was my
senior year of high school
had eight college classes
and I only had six classes.
Or I had seven college classes,
but the way I worked at Boca High was
the older you could drop a class.
So freshman year you had seven,
sophomore year you had seven,
then junior year you
could leave a period early.
So then we were getting
out after sixth period
instead of seventh period.
And I think you could have
done fifth period senior year,
but being the nerd I was,
I just took another class.
And then one of those
classes was a double block.
So it was microeconomics in the fall,
in the fall semester, fall like winter.
And then like US government or something.
Yes.
Some government or like political course
in the second semester.
So I had seven AP classes
and I still had to like dial back in
to make sure I pass
those to get those credits
so I didn't just waste those classes.
So like there was a lot of us that knew
we were going to school,
didn't have any worries.
There were still a lot of
people like taking the ACT,
SAT, trying to rush the shit in.
And for those that knew we
were good and going to school,
it was like, all right, let's,
we can hang out after school now.
Go out every, we were going out every
Friday and Saturday.
I was still working a
lot, but it was like,
it was go mode
because everyone was leaving
and we all, we were all
getting older and looking older.
A lot of us had fake IDs.
And I remember that was
a really fun semester.
Because there was no worries.
It was like, all right, we did it.
You did it like four months ahead of time
and you still had to graduate,
but that wasn't an issue for me.
Like that was automatic.
The hard work stuff.
It's maintaining, it's
what I've told Dylan is that--
It was like, don't fuck up.
Yeah, yeah.
I've told Dylan you
put in the work freshmen
sophomore junior year to get into college
and then you just maintain senior year.
Senior year should not be
where you're still trying
to work to get into school.
No, the resume was there.
But if you want to set yourself up.
The resume was there.
It was like, just
continue, like, don't do it.
Like, don't get a
DUI, don't get arrested.
Don't do something dumb.
Just stay out of jail.
Don't get a girl pregnant.
100%, it was like, just
don't do anything too dumb.
And then you did at FSU,
everyone typically
does the summer session.
So you headed up to Talley.
This was our first child
that we took to college.
So I remember that was
an interesting year for us
because you were graduating high school.
Kaya was graduating eighth grade.
So she was graduating
from Catholic school
and our youngest was
graduating kindergarten.
So we had three graduations that time.
It was a very, one of those things
would be emotional for a mother.
I had three and I--
That was a fun year.
It was a great year,
but I remember suppressing my emotions
during that last month or so
because I knew if I started crying over
any of these things,
I wouldn't stop.
And I remember when we
dropped you off at Degrath dorm.
By the McDonald's.
We got you all set up at Degrath.
And I remember I grabbed,
when we checked out of the hotel,
I grabbed a box of Kleenex
before we dropped him off.
We took him to
breakfast, we dropped him off.
I remember looking in the side mirror
and just watching you walk.
I can still see it walk
away from us into Degrath.
And I remember, and I'm sure you do,
I opened that box and I cry,
tallied to where we live is--
Five and a half, six hours.
With the way that Brian
drives, like six hours.
I think you stopped crying.
You finally settled down around
Gainesville and Ocala,
which is about an hour and
a half to two hours away.
Two and a half, two hours.
I don't know.
I felt like it was all the way to Orlando
before I calmed down, but it could be.
I just remember I started crying
and I didn't stop for a really long time.
And I remember Kaya and
Dylan were in the back
and just everyone was silent.
Everyone let me have my moment,
but I had waited
because I wanted you guys
to have each of your
moments to be positive and happy
and not about my sadness.
So I waited until I could just do it
where everyone had their
moment and now it's mine.
And I thought I cried
till Orlando, but maybe not.
But then the second time we
dropped you off in the fall--
I turned you out at about Lake City.
You got off, I'm 10,
you're like, holy fuck.
Everyone was dead quiet.
But then the, I always tell people
the first time's the hardest.
The second time was when we
brought you back in the fall
and I didn't cry as much.
I cried for a bit and
then I just ate a bit.
Oh, that's right,
because I didn't have a car.
Yeah, so we had to bring you up.
So you guys were bringing me up, right?
Because summer was six weeks?
Yes, so then you came home for a while.
For August, we brought
you up and I cried for a bit
and then I ate a pie when we got home.
Well, but by then
too, that's after summer,
everyone's fear was gone
and probably mostly yours too, right?
You're like, I'm ready to get back.
I'm not scared.
There's no nerves,
because I got this shit.
I don't remember having
much nerves going into college.
He had no nerves.
I was ready.
He was so ready, yeah.
You had a great time in college.
I also knew a good
amount of people going up
and I had a really good summer.
I met a lot of people, like
I met Mason's in the summer
and then I got the summer bid to my frat,
which was that would have been the
nerves, would have rushed.
But I hung around that frat long enough
and just integrated
myself with those people.
It just kind of worked.
I didn't even mean for that to happen.
A lot of the kids from Boca
go up to Fei Del and a lot
of my friends went into Fei Del
and I was around there a little bit,
but I didn't really want to
just be in the same fraternity
with all the people I just grew up with.
And there were some people that obviously
went different ways,
but I remember I met Mason
and then he introduced
me to a lot of the kids
in the frat I joined.
So then it was like every
day, him and I would hit the gym
together every day, play racquetball
and then go to the frat house.
I wasn't even in the frat yet.
And then by like the
fourth week of the summer,
one of my really good friends, Pierce,
who I'm still really good friends with,
him and another guy who I
had eventually lived with
offered me the summer bid.
And then it was like, well, now I'm good.
I don't have to do rush.
I'm just gonna go up.
I already have this bid.
I just have to show up and I'm good.
If I didn't get that summer bid,
I probably would have been like, fuck,
I gotta go through this.
So would you say that summer session,
if you're interested in Greek life
and if your college has a summer session,
utilize that to network?
Even if you're not trying
to join a frat or sorority,
you should 100% go do the
summer C or summer B session.
In Florida, it's
called summer B or summer C.
I think UF's the summer B or summer A.
Florida's stated summer C or summer B.
Cause there's a summer A is all 12 weeks.
It's like a full term.
That's right.
Then there's the first six weeks,
the second six weeks.
The way the freshmen works is you come in
on the second six weeks,
which includes July 4th.
July 4th is like the first weekend
or second weekend up there.
So you're moving into college
and all of a sudden it's the 4th of July.
And that's one of the
biggest days at Tallahassee.
But so I would definitely
encourage you to do that
because A, you learn
where the buildings are
and you kind of figure
out your day to day of like,
where am I gonna eat, how
to do laundry in the dorm
where you have to put
quarters in or whatever.
Yeah.
I mean, I was spoiled.
I got fed, I never did my own laundry
and I didn't really clean.
So all of a sudden I
have all these things
that are now my
responsibility and I still suck at,
but I had to figure that out.
Yeah, yeah.
And so that was a good six weeks
because the way the
summer session works is I took,
one class was a joke, it
was like computer studies.
And as long as you
memorize the little test sheet
you gave you, you walk in and get 100.
And it was these like
classes that were like smushed
into a six week schedule.
A condensed schedule, yeah.
And you just whipped
through it real quick.
They're really easy.
Like it was so easy.
I got my English class out of the way.
Never did English again.
And I hated that class.
I hated, it was again, writing.
Well, we should say you
entered in with so many credits.
You were officially a junior.
So there were some prereqs
you didn't even have to take.
Yeah, I took one math class.
I took one science class.
I took one English class my
whole four years of college.
Right, because of that.
Thank God.
Because those classes,
college algebra smoked me
and I'm good at math.
It is so much harder
when you're not in like
a 30 person class learning,
when you don't have like
attention from the teacher.
Yeah, so I didn't have
to worry about all that.
And I used that summer
session to get rid of English.
But no, I would encourage that 100%.
Because I met some people, right?
It worked out for me probably
better than a lot of people.
Just because I did get that bid
and I automatically came up like knowing
this is the frat I was gonna rush
and associate myself with.
And it helped me out
during rush because I came in
being the kid who was
hanging out with them
and partying with them all summer.
But like we would go
out a lot with those kids
and whenever they'd get a
table or have like a bus come
to pick them up and
like do all this stuff.
Me, my girlfriend and her
roommate were all invited.
So we just had this like,
I came up with like a
system in place already.
So it worked out really well for me.
But even if that didn't happen,
it still would have
gotten me somewhat acclimated
to living on my own.
So what would you say--
Without a lot of pressure.
Right, right.
So what did Greek life
and your frat give you?
Would you say?
In the moment and also still?
So for me, a lot.
And it's one of those things where you
can make a lot of it.
Right, there was people
like myself and my friend group
who were around the house all the time
involved in the pledge process,
involved in like I was
on the pledge committee
rushing kids every year.
I was in the interview room,
interviewing these new kids,
freshmen to see if they were cool or not.
So I got to vet out,
that was one thing I did a lot.
I got to vet out these new people.
And I had a lot of final says
on if these people could get in or not
with other people.
But so for me, I was always around it.
That became like my social life.
I didn't really hang
out with a lot of people.
Even people I was
friends with from high school
or from Boca, I didn't see them a lot
because it was like, I'm
just gonna chill with my frat.
But for me, it gave me that, right?
It gave me a friend group
that I'm still really good
friends with to this day.
It gave me a job.
I saw from a year I was
DJing for my fraternity
and that helped me DJ everywhere else.
So that was great.
That was like basically a recommendation
to everyone else in
Tallahassee, like this is our DJ.
He does this all the time.
Like it gave me a resume.
So that was nice.
And then junior and senior
year, mainly senior year,
I was the pledge educator.
So that was the first time I
was ever in charge of people,
ever.
I was like a manager of 60 kids, right?
I had to keep them on track,
made sure they weren't
failing out of school,
made sure they were learning
the history of our fraternity,
made sure they weren't fucking around,
making sure they were
learning how to carry themselves
correctly and not
being weird towards girls
and not being like a jackass at the bar.
And that was the first time I've ever,
probably the only time
still where I've ever been
like a manager of someone.
It's almost, sounds
like you were mentoring
those kids in a sense.
Yeah, that's probably a
little like too polite
of a way to play it.
They were definitely, they liked me,
but there was
definitely like a factor of like,
this kid could totally
flip my life upside down
if I don't respect him and
listen to what he's saying.
So it was an easy situation.
Cause it's like, I was their guy.
They'd confide to me.
Like I remember one kid came up to me
my first year doing pledge educator
and he's like, man, brother Barker.
They always cut, we, most
fraternities aren't included.
If as a pledge, you had to
say like brother last name
or brother, whatever, certain people
would, other things.
I hated it.
I never made them call me that.
I always got mad at them
if they'd call me that.
I was like, dude, just call me Nate.
Like I don't want to hear
you ever say brother Nate,
brother Barker, like that shit's weird.
You have to do that with everybody else
unless they tell you otherwise,
but please do not call me that.
I just felt awkward.
It's like, you're,
some of them are my age.
I'm not going to look down on you.
Like I'm no better than you.
You just happened to
not be a brother yet.
You're just a pledge.
And so I remember this
one kid came up to me
at the end of my first year, first
semester doing that.
And he's like, brother
Barker, man, I just can't,
I can't do this anymore.
Like I'm losing my mind.
Like what do I do?
And it was, they were
getting initiated the next day.
And I was like, listen
pal, you need to nut up.
Like you got one more day.
I'm not, I'm like, you
cannot tell anybody this,
but just listen to me.
I was like, you have one more day
and you get initiated tomorrow.
He's like, are you fucking with me?
I'm like, I'm being a
hundred percent serious.
If I find out you tell
them, I will kick you out.
So like you just, you got to hold on.
And he was like, all right, thank you.
Then the next day.
So it was like, that was the first time
I ever had to deal
with anything like that.
Where it's like, I'm like responsible
for this kid's wellbeing.
And so I would say like
to back to your question,
you know, it taught me a lot.
Obviously it gave me this
really good friend group
and you guys have met most of them.
A lot of good guys.
And I think both Ben and
Abdel have talked about this
on the previous episodes.
We have a group shout
out of like 22 people
that talks every day.
I'll probably get off this recording this
and I guarantee you there's a message
in that group shout about something.
And that started with Pierce, Ben and I
when we used to go to
Music Festival sophomore year.
There's the three of us.
And then as time went on and honestly
as people got initiated, right?
Like Ben and I were the first Ben Abe,
Abdel and I and Mack were
all in the same pledge class.
So we were all in the fraternity.
Pierce was there.
He's a couple years older than us.
Then shortly after that,
like Jesus, Quinn and Ali
were all in the same
pledge class and they came in.
So those guys were behind you?
Abdel, no, Abdel, Abe, Mack and Ben
were all my pledge brothers, fall 2019.
So then like that was
like the first stage.
And then as each pledge class came in,
we'd be very involved
because a lot of my
friends were similar to me.
We'd be around the house every day.
Cause there's people who get initiated
and you never see them
again until there's a party.
That's really interesting.
And they'll come cause
there's free booze and girls.
That's cool.
If that's what you want to do,
like that's what a lot of
people joined the ship for.
And then they have friend
groups that they hang out with.
But for us, it was like,
why not make the most of this?
Everyone here we like.
And we also had a huge
pledge class of like 55 people
or whatever, 49.
So you just instantly
have this friendship
and this group to hang out with.
And I never really looked past that.
It was like, hey, I
like a lot of these people.
And we hung out every
day, literally every day,
either at my place or Abe's place or
someone's apartment.
It was every day.
And there was even more
people, like it was a bigger group.
Obviously it's gotten reduced over time.
But it's like that group
chat started with three people.
And then as these pledge classes came in,
it was mainly like we
were going to music festivals
and doing this.
And then eventually after Pierce Bennett,
I went to like five
or 10 of these things.
Some of the other
people were like, well, shit,
this looks fun, I want to come.
And then they'd start coming with us.
And then they'd get
out into the group chat.
And then a new pledge
class would get initiated
like Ali and Quentin Jesus.
And then it was like,
well, we like them too.
Let's get them in the group chat.
And I think the last one that got out
was probably Evan McKenna,
because he was the
class I was in charge of.
He was the last addition to our chat.
And now it's like 20 strong.
So you've mentioned a few times,
you've said music festival.
And my memories of those years,
once you, I don't know if
this started during high school,
I feel like it started
when you got into college.
High school.
End of high school?
Yeah, think about it.
Junior year I went to Ultra.
Ultra, yeah. Ultra.
So that would have been
the beginning, right, Ultra.
So music festivals were
a constant in your life
from 16 probably until just
a couple of years ago, right?
I mean, I just went to base after for
three nights last week.
But I mean on a regular basis, but yes.
No, I went to a music
festival in April with Corey.
Oh, true.
So there's still-- I went to Suwani.
Yes, yes.
So music festivals entered
your life when you were 16.
As you already know.
It's reduced, but it's still a thing.
I mean, if another really good festival
pops up in the area,
I'll probably look into it.
And I kind of equate that.
Our listeners probably don't know,
or they may, if they've
listened to past episodes,
but Brian and I are dead heads,
and we have been dead heads
since we were 16 years old,
15, 16, where we
started seeing them live,
and are still, and
just like how Nathan said,
if a music festival
comes around, he's going,
if there's typically anything high
quality, dead related,
we go still, and we're 53.
It's just music in general.
It's music in general.
It's not even specific to music publishers.
And that's why I think
my friend Group and I
are still such good friends.
That's what I was going to say is,
do you feel that the common bond
that really has held you
guys together was music?
Yeah, so like obviously
I was our DJ for a while.
Now my buddy, Alec, his
DJ name is Illo, Superfire.
Definitely check him out if you haven't.
Dropped the bond there.
He is firey.
He's incredible.
He's incredible.
So he's kind of carried the torch now,
and he's gotten way
better than I ever was.
It's been awesome to see.
But so like that was always a thing.
A lot of what we did in college,
and this is why I
have a lot of my friends,
is I would DJ at the bars and whatnot,
but a lot of what I did
was DJing after we go out.
Like the 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.
late night after party stuff.
And so we do it a lot at Kappa Sigma
because that was the best
speaker system in the world.
We had this like just super way too
obnoxiously loud bass
from a JBL bass from Guitar Center.
But we had no
business having that set up.
It's still to this day one
of my favorite places to DJ.
How did you get that?
Did you guys talk even to--
No, I was sorry, it was all there.
Okay.
And yeah, I mean,
that's a different story
if we want to talk about
how I even got into DJing,
but that was already there.
So we do that a lot at Kappa Sigma,
but then junior year
we met a lot of these.
We had some friends from Atlanta
and a lot of the kids that
he was friends with in Atlanta
went to another fraternity.
And you guys have heard me imagine
these people like Gage and Cole.
So they were in a different fraternity.
They lived at an off-campus house
with an also really good speaker system.
And they had a six person house
and everyone in there
didn't care if we DJed or not.
So the whole thing was like,
even if we wouldn't go out,
like senior year, I'd
barely went out senior year.
It was just like, "Yo,
let's go DJ somewhere
and let's just invite people
and get booze or whatever."
And so that was a lot of
what our friend group did
was like, "All right,
where are we gonna go party?"
We would just kind of
make our own little parties
and just do our thing.
Cause like either I was
DJing or Gage was DJing
or our buddy Finn was DJing.
We were just friends with,
we kind of created
this like DJ friend group
to where there was
always someone willing to DJ
regardless of the hour.
And then it was, let's
invite as many people as we want.
And people would always come.
If you're playing music
and there's, you know,
booze and people talking,
like you can easily get
people to get behind that.
And that was a lot of
what our friend group did
was either party at
the house just on our own
or like I'd skip happy
hour, invite 10 people over
and they could invite
whoever they wanted.
We all just sit in the backyard
and I would just play
music and we'd dick around.
Yeah.
And that's how our
friend group kind of function.
And then you guys would
go to different festivals
like Okeechobee, you went to Ultra,
Bay Sector New Year's
Eve and others that,
you saw Charles I and you traveled.
You guys would travel.
You're going in March
to see somebody in March.
Yeah, going to see
Grammatic and the Red Rocks.
Right.
I'm going to Tampa in February to see,
just do the other trees
with some coal engage.
So all these people I just mentioned,
I still hang out with bullets.
And like, I'll hang out
with them without music,
but a lot of it's like, hey,
this guy's coming to Tampa.
You should come out and
it'd be nice to see you
and we can go to this concert.
All of you guys are actually working
and professional now, different cities.
So it makes sense.
That's the common bond.
We kind of wait for a
good concert to pop up
and then get as many people
as they can to jump on it.
And then additionally,
because of being our son, I think,
the Grateful Dead has
been a part of your life
literally since you were born.
And so you are also a deadhead.
So you have these two worlds in a way of,
you're very much into
this one type of music,
heavy bass or however
you would describe it.
And then you're also
very much into jam bands
and Grateful Dead and
that life, I would say.
And so I think it's really interesting.
I think your life is
very consumed with music.
It's literally, yeah, that's all I do.
Yeah.
Like I always listen to music.
I don't understand how
people either don't like it
or like my buddy at work just doesn't,
he doesn't have an aux cord.
He just listens to the radio.
I'm like, you're
fucking out of your mind.
Right, right.
I'm either commutes 10
minutes and I'm like,
all right, what am I gonna listen to?
It's funny if I ever were in the car,
the first thing he
does is touches the radio.
I can be in the car in silent.
He's been like, how do you do this?
And it's for me, it's
like, I just want silence.
I want peace and he's dialed in.
Well, he hasn't been a career hit.
I go to the beach and bring my speaker.
Then when I take a shower from the beach,
I bring my speaker into the bathroom.
And then I'll listen to my
music until I hop on Xbox
or leave the house.
That's hilarious.
So it's just always on.
So another aspect of that is,
and I've told people that you and Kaya
weren't necessarily close
when you were growing up.
And I think a lot of that
has to do with the fact that,
you know, you guys had
different personalities.
You were very compliant, easygoing,
and she was very strong
headed, strong willed,
and a little more loud as a young child.
And then you guys--
She's crazy.
(both laughing)
You guys came to this
union that I think was music.
It was bonded over music, yeah.
It was bonded over music.
You took her to Ultra and she actually
had to get a fake ID
to prove she was 16 to
go to Ultra with you.
And from those music
festivals, from that very start,
she was 15, I think that's
what was the bridge to form
that you guys are
basically best friends now,
and you continue to see music together.
So I can tie this into why
I'm friends with my friends
and why my friends are friends with me,
why we're all friends with each other.
When you go to a
multiple day music festival,
it's not real life, right?
You go out to
Okeechobee, and by the end of it,
we would all rent an RV.
So my buddy, my best friend
in college, Abe, had an RV.
We'd pack like four
or five people into it.
First year, we were the
only ones with the RV.
Maybe someone rented an
RV with a different group.
But by the end of it,
I think the last Okeechobee went to,
which was after we graduated.
So we're all fully paid jobs,
not living near each other anymore.
We have three or four RVs.
So we're living in the
high life at Okeechobee.
But my point is, when you get out there,
we'd go for four days, right?
There's no, you don't
really use your phone.
It's not like you can go to a
store and get what you need.
You shop ahead of time,
and whatever you bring,
that's what you have.
So then you're kind of on your own.
And that's like, it's
borderline like survivor,
like that show survivor.
It's like, you're out
there for four days,
and the objective is to
see the music you wanna see
and have fun.
But also, you still need to eat.
You still need your drink water.
You still need to clean yourself
and brush your teeth and all that.
You can't, it's not like you
just go into a wild animal.
You still gotta function.
But it's way more bare bones.
There's no showering,
you don't have a bed.
So it's an uncomfortable four days
while you're still doing what you want.
And that's when I feel
like we all got really close,
is when we'd go through
those experiences together
and turn into that almost
like a clan of individuals
going through this and
helping each other out.
It's like, you'd ask
your friend for a favor,
and I don't know.
It feels like when
you're at a musical festival,
you help each other out more.
You're way more
understanding of what do you need?
I'll go get it done for you.
And that'd be times
where I'd go to the bathroom
and my friends would look after Kaya.
Or someone of the
girlfriends at the time would walk,
but they'd go to the bathroom with Kaya.
And that's just one example with her,
but it's like you really bond over that.
And it comes into a team effort to like,
all right, let's have a really good time,
but all be very
responsible for each other.
And you come out of
that week, I'm like, damn,
I really fuck with these people.
Because you just had a great time and
there was no issues.
And but we did that like 20
times through our college.
So every time it was like,
we know what we're doing,
let's go have fun,
we're gonna go see this.
Like we had a system where it was like,
everyone was on the same
plan, everyone was on the agenda,
and we just did it.
And I think we had
more fun than most groups
that would go to musical festivals,
just because we were all so like,
just about whatever happened.
Like no one really, if
there was an inconvenience,
it wouldn't end the trip.
You'd still with it.
Yeah, it was just keep
on rolling, whatever.
And so when your sister was a part of it,
you two together as siblings
had to also figure out
that weekend together.
And so,
And that's when her and I became close.
Every time you guys
had those experiences,
you got a little bit more closer,
a little bit more closer.
And then of course she
got older and all that.
So I've always cherished
that about your relationship.
Well, she handled herself well.
She wasn't a nuisance to deal.
That's why she kept getting invited back.
It wasn't like, she was
a lot younger than me,
but it wasn't like
stressful enough to worry about.
Right, right.
And I'm hoping that once Dylan is older,
he also will be able to have that
experience with you guys.
So that's, so, okay.
So that brings us to, you graduate FSU.
All right, so if we go back a second,
you'd mentioned you're doing your DJing.
Or you got into DJing.
How did you get into that?
I vaguely remember,
but where did that start?
Where did that come from?
So, so freshman year,
freshman year I was the
pledge the fall semester
and had no say in what happened, right?
We just, I honestly-
Like the music scene?
I couldn't even tell
you what was going on.
Cause my life was so stressful,
worrying about moving
ice around and refilling.
Cause at parties, pledges
would do shifts of bartending,
make sure the ice was there.
We'd have to go get extra booze
cause we had like a lurker closet.
So that was like not even
a, I couldn't tell you what.
Clean the frat house after a party.
But even during the
party, like, I don't know.
I couldn't tell you what was happening.
That shit was so blurry,
just getting through that pledge ship.
Yeah.
But then I remember when I was,
when I came back after a Christmas break,
I was a brother, we started having,
like we'd have the parties
that we were always having,
but I was paying more
attention to like what was going on.
And for a little bit,
one of our brothers was
like a janky little DJ
and would like try to spin,
but it was like real bush league stuff,
not committed to it,
which is fine.
Like it's, it takes some time.
And it was, it was nice that
he was like willing to try it.
Like it was like this tiny little thing.
But for the most part,
we would use those nice ass JBLs we had,
rig it to an aux cord,
and then someone would
sit there with their iPhone
and shuffle the playlist.
So the issue with that is
when everyone gets drunk,
everyone's a dickhead and
comes up and unplugs it,
replugs it, unplugs it, and replugs it,
and wants their music on it.
So all yours popping
and popping and popping,
and they're like almost
blowing out the speakers.
And I remember towards the end of the
semester being like,
this is not it.
Like we, there has to be
a better alternative here.
Like we need to figure
out a way to like make it
so one person controls this and just DJs.
And this isn't, cause it'd be like a
country song would be on
someone would get angry,
yank it, blow everyone's ears,
throw on like a rap song.
And it'd be like the middle of the song.
And it's just like, there's no flow.
So I remember I went
home and I asked you,
I think that summer I just worked.
I didn't go back up to school.
So I was home.
And I remember being like,
you gotta buy me a DJ border.
You know, I probably
asked you in a nicer way.
But it was like, I need,
I want to figure this out.
I want to be the one that does this.
Cause no one else was taking an issue.
It's not like I told anybody my frat,
hey, I'm going to go learn how to DJ.
It was like, I just knew, I identified
that that was an issue.
And if we wanted to be like better and
have better parties,
we needed to figure out music.
And I think that was
probably talked about,
but it wasn't like, it's not like,
cause we had meetings every Sunday
amongst the whole fraternity
in the frat house.
Like, and we'd talk about
suggestions, yada, yada, yada.
That was never like, it
wasn't like someone was like,
all right, I'll do it.
So I remember I left and I was
like, I'll just, I'll try it.
I'll take a swing at it.
Then you bought me that tractor board.
I remember I spent the
whole summer downloading music
and figuring it out.
And I didn't look at many videos.
I didn't know anyone
who DJ'd at the time.
So I didn't have anyone to ask for help.
I just sat there and
played basically pots and pans,
asked transitions,
giving myself headaches,
trying to figure out
what did what and all this.
And then I came back in the fall and I
was like, all right,
we're done.
This is a new look.
I'm going to DJ.
Like, well, give me a
semester to figure it out.
It's going to suck.
But just bear with me and
this will be a lot better for us
in the long run.
Everyone's like, no
one had any objections.
Everyone honestly
thought it was pretty cool
for the most part.
Is this something that you
present at like a meeting?
No, I just kind of
told everyone like this.
I think this is what we should do.
Oh, okay.
So it wasn't like, there
was no voting or anything.
No, no, no, it was just like,
because I moved in that
year with my three roommates.
So honestly, I was like really fuck with,
I'm really glad I
moved in with those people.
You know, Josh, Deebo and Mason,
and then eventually
Mason became the president
and Nick moved in.
Were you in the frat house then?
No.
That wasn't until senior.
That was a cliff.
Okay, cliff, that's right.
My first apartment.
Yeah, the blue place.
This is sophomore year.
Sophomore year.
And I remember I came back
and they were all older than me.
Like Deebo gave me my
summer bid as a freshman.
That was his senior year.
And you met his dad at dad's week.
No, I liked them.
Straight guys.
So I'm really glad I live with them
because I was still
like a dickhead 20 year old
and they were all like 21, 22, 23.
They're more mature.
And they taught me how to not be such
like an immature kid.
And so it was cool
living with those guys.
But I remember I moved in and I was like,
yo, look what I got.
I have a DJ board now,
you guys wanna hear it.
And they all would give me
a little shit, supportive,
but it was like, oh, DJ
Barker, blah, blah, blah.
And everyone would fuck with me.
Like, oh, you wanna be a DJ now?
And obviously I wasn't that good at it.
So I'd do it in my apartment.
And I'd kind of try to
teach them how to do it.
And I'd sit there and
just practice and practice
and practice.
And then there's actually
a picture of my Instagram
of all four of them posing with me.
I think the first tailgate ever,
like where I think I'm in like a Jersey
or underneath like a tent.
And it was brutal in the beginning.
Like I only knew how to
mix music that I liked,
which mainly didn't have words.
It was like more like
underground, like bass music stuff.
And obviously that wasn't a big thing
at Tallahassee at the moment,
which eventually that
kind of became a big thing.
But so I'd get a lot of
complaints in the beginning,
like, hey, play more
words, play more words,
play songs people know.
But it was hard to DJ that.
Well, I think if you go back a step,
what the DJing you were doing
and were describing and talking about,
isn't just like going
from like a journey love song
to the, or from one song to the next,
like the wedding or something.
You're creating music.
Yeah, there was constantly being mixed.
And it was never, I
never owned like an agenda
or set list or anything.
It was just, I have this 500 song library
and we'll all figure out together
what we listened to
today at this tailgate.
And I'd play like house
music in the beginning
or like Drake, you know, popular stuff.
And then as I drank and as people drank
and I was like ramped up,
I'd more move over to like
the dark, like deeper stuff
and start getting like
kind of experimental.
And then I'd get that first semester,
I got a lot of complaints like, dude,
what the fuck are you playing right now?
Really? Oh yeah.
That's funny. You had to think,
this was a time where
half our fraternity,
this is right, when I
joined, we weren't that great.
It was a lot of like
Georgia panhandle kids.
It's some country boys. Country.
And then me and a lot
of kids in my fraternity,
in my pledge class were very so flow,
like new generation, kind of like
dickheads a little bit.
And not like we just
fish and hunt for fun.
Well, it's a combination.
They're listening to
country music in Georgia,
catching possums out of your frat room.
You guys are all down in
South Florida going to ultra.
Yeah. Yeah, very different.
But that was my influence for sure.
And a lot of people didn't
have that same influence,
but as I DJed, we're
like, yeah, this is cool.
And then got into it, like a Del and Abe,
two of my friends at first were like,
damn, I need to check this out.
Not really that, I'm not gonna say that
because that's just not how it was,
but like they liked rap a lot
and didn't listen to
what I listened to a lot.
As I got better at DJing and as I was,
it was insistent on like, yo,
you need to come to this music festival,
you need to check this person out.
People started coming around to it.
But that first
semester was definitely rough
because I was still figuring out,
it was the louder you
play, the harder it is to DJ.
Because your mistakes
are so much more apparent.
When I was in the
bedroom on two little speakers,
it was muddy and I couldn't
tell where I was fucking up.
And then I got to the,
on the big speakers we had
and I was like, geez, I sound like ass.
Like I need to figure this out.
So that first semester was
a lot of complaining to me.
Like we had a Facebook
page and I'd check my phone
and be like, Nate,
dude, what the fuck is this?
And it wasn't like
terrible, but it was like,
I was like just trying to wing it.
But then as time got on,
it got better and better.
And honestly, like it, I
got, I had to figure out a way
because they wanted more words,
but I'm a stubborn bastard
and I wanted to play this bass music.
And I was like, you're gonna
figure out a way to enjoy this
and I'm gonna make sure
that I figure out a way
for you to all enjoy this.
So then my focus was
downloading super popular music
and then running it over
the lyrics over my music.
And then by like the end
of "Star From the Year",
beginning of "Junior",
everyone's coming up to me
who hated that music.
Like, dude, this is sick.
How'd you do this?
Like, what is this?
I'm like, this is the
music you hated six months ago.
I now just figured out
a way for you to be able
to like stomach it.
You put words to it.
Yeah, and so then everyone,
then we started getting like
people would come to the show
and like, I don't wanna
like sit here and be like,
"Oh, I was the man,
people came to the party
because I was DJing."
That's not what it was.
But there was a lot of
times where like my friends,
like girlfriends or
their friends would come up
and be like, "Yo, we only come here."
Or like, "We come here a lot
because the music's awesome here."
And like, you know, people,
we used to do this thing
called Four Loco Friday
where we'd buy a bunch of four locos
and it would lead into happy hour.
And then as time went on
and as more and more
people kind of came around
to the music, it would
just turn into like half
the people would go to happy hour,
half the people would
just stay at the frat
and we would just party
and I would just keep DJing.
So it was a work in
progress of figuring out
how to get that crowd of people
that I really didn't see
eye to eye with on music
to put up and tolerate what I was doing.
And I feel like that helped me like get
good at mixing a lot
just because I had to figure out a way
to blend the genres more
so than I would wanna do.
Because when I was learning,
there was just no words
like bass music rhythms
and as simple as
possible, that's a lot easier.
When you start
bringing in lyrics, you know,
that gets tough.
But that's why I got into it.
I saw that our frat needed it.
It was something that had to be done
and otherwise we were
gonna stay in this like,
just this mid party
scene where you have no clue
what's being played.
Because that's jarring
when you're like at a party
and then all of a sudden it's silent.
Yeah.
And then a new song
starts and then it's silent.
And you're looking around
like, dude, who's on Ox?
Well, we have videos of
us going to the party.
We did, yeah.
There'll be people all
around me freaking freaking out.
My question, what's that like for you
when you're sitting, we were there
we're sitting behind
you and we're all just,
the place is going nuts.
But we were
participants, you were driving that,
which was really cool.
You know, as least from our parent,
from a parental perspective, it was like,
this is pretty fucking cool.
It was cool.
But from your perspective,
can you think back to then
and you're like, you're into
it, other people are into it.
But then you look out and
there's like a hundred people
in the frat yard just getting off.
Yeah, it's fun.
It's cool, right?
It's the best thing in the world.
Yeah, yeah.
For sure.
I'd look up and there'd be like,
and the best was like, I
knew those people, you didn't.
You just see like, by centers.
I know that person hates the song,
but I got it into a way where he did,
like they didn't even realize,
all of a sudden we're not
listening to heavy bass music,
not country and you were like into it.
And it was fun.
It was a powerful feeling.
Like you were in control,
I was in control of it all.
And like the music drives a
lot of the vibes of a part.
Yeah, it drives a
hundred percent of the vibe.
We do like Halloween parties.
I'd make sure I had
like a matchup with like,
what's it, like Freddie
or whatever that movie,
like Halloween, Michael
Myers, like the piano.
Yeah, I'd have that with like a drop.
Or we did like a jungle party.
I had the Lion King song with a drop.
So it was doing shit like that Christmas.
I had a whole
playlist with like rap songs
with Christmas beads
and like all this stuff.
So would you say that your frat
became a more popular
frat during that time,
than it was?
Yeah, but not just because of me.
I think I was a contributing factor
and I'm covering my ass here.
So my friends don't
just absolutely get to me
after they listen to us.
They're gonna be like, oh,
you think it was all you.
It wasn't that.
We recruited better.
We got better people.
Like our friend group, like, you know,
people like Ali coming
in, my whole pledge cost,
like Ben, Abe, Dell,
Mac are all just cooler
than where we started and
more outgoing, more social.
Right, this is all social.
So when you, just to
clarify for the audience,
what do you mean when you say cool?
Like we went out and met people.
Okay.
When I started, we barely
hung out with like a sorority.
We didn't have like a main
sorority we hung out with.
It was like a hodgepodge of individuals.
Like our relations were
low with other fraternities.
Our relationship was
low with other sororities.
And this was not, this was mainly like,
our leadership got better.
Like Pierce became president.
He was our social chair.
He managed recess.
He was a bartender.
He was facey, right?
We just had face here
people like that knew.
Explain facey.
Like you had some pole when you went out
around Tallahassee, right?
Cloud.
Cloud, yeah, yeah, cloud.
We had more cloud.
We had bartenders in every bar.
Like Mac got into standard.
We never had a bartender
from Kappa-Sig in standard.
So that became a thing where, you know,
we'd go to happy hour and my roommate
was the bartender at Clyde's.
And then there was now 30
of us all just, you know,
talking and around this area.
And then we'd meet
people and bring them back
and be like, hey, come to
our parties, come to this.
So I think we just had
a more social like shift
more outgoing, more outgoing and
confident and all that.
So have you been-
It was a group effort.
Have you been back since?
Yeah, I went for a Clyde's 21st birthday.
I barely was at the, I
think I went for the,
for a concert actually.
They had one of my
like favorite DJs to play.
Oh, okay. It's pretty cool.
Cause we built this big
stage for the last party I did.
It's like huge stage.
We made the pledge to build it.
And it was sick.
And we were like 15 feet above everybody.
Gage, Finn and I DJ'd my two
friends I mentioned earlier.
Did we even see that at graduation?
Wasn't it in the back
corner of the frat yard
facing towards the frat house?
Yeah, probably.
Maybe we saw it on graduation weekend.
Cause it was there.
So like that was there.
And then, yeah, I
went up for Clyde's 21st
and they had a really good DJ there.
And I remember going, it was cool.
It was like kind of where I left off,
but that wasn't where we started.
So they've carried that a little bit.
I haven't seen it really since.
So I can't speak on that.
Right, right.
But I just know from the
time when my pledge class
and my friends started
there to where we ended
was like a massive
jump in like popularity,
connections, relationships
amongst other fraternities
and sororities.
Cause we all had
friends and other frats too.
Where some, like when we
first started at least,
then this is all I've been told.
I wasn't there, but it
was very like seclusive.
And we weren't like, we
didn't have good like relationships
with other fraternities.
Kind of did our own thing.
And then by the end
of when we were there,
when we did those like after parties,
I'd say like 25% of the
people there were Kappa-6.
The rest were our friends
that we've met through like out,
nightlife, different
bartenders, different DJs,
different girls that
we'd always go out with.
This also stems from the music festivals.
We'd meet a lot of these
people at music festivals.
And a lot of the times when
we went to music festivals,
half of our campsite would be people
that weren't in our fraternity
that we were just friends with.
And then when they'd be like,
oh, this was a great
time at the music festival.
Let's hang out in Tallahassee.
And then we'd make more friends.
And then that would just, it's an
infectious thing where,
you make friends with this group,
then they introduce you to this group.
Then all of a sudden a
year you have five groups.
Right. It was fun.
Proximity wise too, if your frat house
was right near pots in
that hot stretch there,
if you're DJing, you're
leaving pots and you guys are open,
people could easily flow in and it's on.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And also you guys were on Sorority Row.
I don't know, did that help too?
Yeah, I mean, I'd like to think so.
And getting girls there at least?
Yeah, just because
they'd go to their house,
whatever, take pictures,
and then our house was
the first thing in sight.
So it's like, hey,
they're up to something,
let's go check it out.
And then I think in the early years,
it was like, man, these kids were lame,
but then as time went on and as our group
kind of got control, right?
Because when I started,
we had all the older kids were in charge.
And then each year, the seniors graduate,
then the juniors who
are now becoming seniors
typically move into like
president, social chair,
the important positions.
And so as that happened,
as like the new age
individuals became more important,
like things got better.
Right, that makes sense.
Because we were more
all on the same page too.
That makes sense, yeah.
The whole frat leveled up
because of the kids that were in there.
Yeah, that's all of this.
That's really what happened, yeah.
And music, really.
I have a question.
I think you maybe wanna
go to a different topic,
but I'm curious on the music front.
So as mom, you know,
the word to the Grateful Dead,
we just bought a three day pass
for Billy Strings in St. Augustine.
So we're gonna go have some fun there.
Oh, when's that?
April. April.
You're welcome to join us.
(both laughing)
Is it GIA or you have seats?
With seats. Yeah.
Either way, so, you
know, one cool thing for us
as you've gotten into music,
you've introduced us to a
whole different world of music,
whether it's Grammatic, BassNectar,
Alec, you know, Alec as a
DJ will drop the plug again.
You gotta go see him,
he's from Denver, Metro.
What's his name again?
Illo, I-L-L-O-H.
Yeah, check him out on,
definitely Apple,
that's how I listen to it.
Spotify and SoundCloud.
Yeah, check him out, honestly, good,
just amazing stuff.
But, so you've
introduced us, we've had a lot of,
the music's are tying
bond within this family.
The entire family,
because even Dylan is very,
he's like you, he always has music going.
Yeah. His music stinks.
No, it doesn't, no, every generation,
he's the youngest Gen Z,
they have a different music.
We used to think your music sucked, too.
Oh, I listen to some of my
older music and it sucks.
Yeah, yeah, either
way, where I'm going is,
I was lucky enough to go
catch some New Year's Eve shows
of BassNectar with Nathan
and, I think it was Nathan and,
well, we went by ourselves
maybe, then Ben was with us.
He was with Ben, who was on the podcast.
And the second year was
Ben, back, Ali Pierce.
And then the last two years
was like, all those groups.
Everybody, big group. 30 people.
It started with us three getting seats
in that tiny little
enclosed area in Birmingham
and out of a great spot.
Then the next year was Standing Rumoni,
five of us kind of packed together.
And I think Greensboro is the next one.
And that's when it became
like probably 15 people,
mainly from Kappa Sig,
mainly all other fraternity brothers.
And then I think in Louisville,
that's when things really exploded.
We had like three rows of seats saved
for like all these different people.
Yeah.
It's cool. That was wild.
What I think is so cool is that you
wanted your dad there.
Oh, it's precious.
It was a funny question.
Everyone's like, how did this come to be?
Like, you're cool with
your dad coming here?
I'm like, bro, that's
the coolest thing ever.
It's like, he doesn't
care what we're doing.
If he wants to come, I'm not
gonna tell him not to come.
Okay, but you just nailed
what I was about to say is,
we've tried to raise you guys
with complete and open communication.
I think we always told you guys,
and we still tell Dylan this,
you have all the freedom in the world.
The only one that can
take it away is you,
as you were growing up.
And mainly our biggest
issue was if you lie.
Yeah, I would say
that's the number one thing
that I was told not to do.
Do not lie.
That we can work anything out.
We were very open about,
we know you guys are gonna party.
You guys are going to
do different things.
Our main issue is safety and honesty.
I think the two times I
got grounded was when I lied.
Yeah, probably.
And I didn't get
grounded for having a party.
I got grounded for lying about it.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So, but I think maybe one
of the reasons you felt,
and correct me if I'm wrong,
you felt comfortable, including your dad,
because at that time at those
shows, you guys were partying.
And so you felt
comfortable letting your dad
because of the way you've been raised
with that open communication.
You didn't feel, he could
come because you didn't feel
you needed to hide anything from him.
Would you say that that's accurate?
Well, so yeah, I
think that's a big factor,
but I think a lot of
people, right, like you said,
that's a very, what you
just said is important.
We were partying.
And so I think a lot
of people are not honest
about that with their families.
And there's probably certain
degrees, right, of honesty.
But that was never a concern of mine,
A, I wasn't gonna get in trouble,
B, I wasn't gonna get judged.
I knew if, because you go see BassNectar,
any, and some of these
music customers get out of hand
with some of the
energy in that place, right?
Some of that music's so
aggressive and upbeat or whatever,
people are really moving
and letting loose, I guess.
And I knew that that
wasn't gonna affect coming home
and my relationship,
where I think some of
those people had parents.
And honestly, it comes down to you guys
also being pretty cool about things
and being dead heads, falling,
the degree of full dead
around, you've seen it.
It's not like you guys are like,
We partook.
Goody two shoes parents, right?
You probably did a lot
of the same stuff I did.
So it's like, you're really gonna,
and that was the safety blanket,
it's like, you're not gonna judge me
because I'm not doing anything different
than what you're doing.
And we shared that with
you at the appropriate age.
That look, we get it.
Our goal always from
the start was we agreed,
to know our children
authentically always.
We wanted to know who you were always.
And if we ever made our children feel
that they need to hide something,
then we're not knowing who they are.
Yeah, and I think a lot of my friends now
that I'm like, I talk too often,
like I consider my best friends,
have similar
relationships with their parents.
I can't take them to example right now
at the top of my head
that is lacking that.
But I do remember being
in high school and college,
mainly high school, it felt like,
where kids would just
lie about everything.
And their parents thought they were like,
not smoking, not
drinking, not going out late,
not sneaking out.
Not having sex.
Yeah, all this shit.
Like they would, they'd like go to church
and think they're like this angel.
And it's like, listen,
dude, that's all cool.
Like I'm not judging
you because I'm your boy,
but your parents are totally
fucking clueless about you.
They don't know who you are.
And I think that
happened a little bit probably
with those groups at Bay's sector.
There was definitely
some people that didn't have
those like
relationships with their parents.
They had good relationships,
but it was very like at face value.
Like you know about me
from what I tell you.
And I don't tell you a lot
because if I told you a lot,
you would think differently.
Well, you said before,
you didn't feel like you would be judged
and maybe they feel like they would be.
It didn't feel, maybe at that time,
they didn't feel safe
sharing that part of their world
with their parents
because they were concerned
it would alter their
relationship or they would be judged.
So a lot of the questions were like,
you really don't care
that your dad's here.
Or like, how did that come to be
and now inviting your dad
to come to these things?
Like when we went,
when you guys just went and
saw a Bay's sector with me
in Miami on the 29th.
So much fun.
Like nine days ago or 10 days ago.
And a lot of people there were like,
why are your parents here?
I'm like, they wanted to come.
I'm not gonna tell them they can't come.
I'm gonna tell them,
oh, you're not allowed to
come here because I wanna go.
Like, I'm like, I want
them to come see this
so we can all talk about it.
And I think, but for a lot of people,
and that's like, I'd
say like 80% of the people
that aren't like my best
friend that know me well
and know you guys
well are also thrown off.
Cause it's like, they would
never invite their parents
to come to something like that.
Right.
Or you can talk about it.
I would say too, your
closest friends are like,
we're kind of grooving with them
while we're there type of thing.
It was all good.
Less we're stupid and
we're misreading it, but.
No, no, no, no one cares.
Everyone's like,
everyone thinks it's cool.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think that
just dad and I cherish it.
We cherish the fact that you welcome us
and have always been open
to us being a part of that,
of that part of your life.
Because we understand that
that's a privilege for us.
And so we've all, like when he asked you
to go to Bay Center,
there was never a question.
He was never gonna say no.
I don't even know how that came to be.
I don't either.
You just asked him, I think.
Yeah, I think he just.
I might've been like, do you wanna come?
And then you're like, sure.
I probably was like, oh, okay.
Hey, Ben, my dad's gonna come with us.
He's like, all right.
Thank God it was Ben.
Ben'll go with anything.
Yeah, but him and I
kind of vetted it out.
Like, all right, is
this guy gonna be like cool
or are we gonna have to be like,
yo, you're not coming next year?
And it worked out.
Because I remember the next year,
we went with Mac, Pierce, and Ollie,
and they're like, your dad's coming?
And Ben and I were both
like, he's cool, he's cool.
Don't worry about it.
He'll get us water.
Yeah, pretty much.
He'll get us home.
I remember Ollie specifically,
and that's when you guys
didn't know each other that well.
He's like, your dad's
really coming with us.
Like, are you sure about that?
I'm like, bro, it'll be fine.
And Ben and I both
were like, it'll be okay.
We just did this last year.
Don't worry about it.
We can still do whatever we wanna do.
He's not gonna hold us back.
It'll be all right.
We don't have to worry about him.
Yeah.
That's funny.
Yeah, no judgments.
I know you cherish those times.
I love you.
And we love them, they're family.
But I know you cherish
those times, those memories.
I mean, those are some
of the coolest concerts
that you could ever see.
100%.
I remember, I guess it was Birmingham,
and people are going,
it's like a deadhead scene
in a sense, the Wooks, right?
There's full of Wooks.
I'm the only non-Wook.
I'm either a drug dealer
to the cops, or I'm a narc.
Yeah.
You're a fed to everyone my age,
and probably like, yo, what's
this guy selling to any cop?
100%.
So the cops are
looking at me shifty eyed.
The kids are looking at me like,
and then I'd see a
random dude roughly my age,
and we'd be like, hey, what's up?
But I remember when
the first notes dropped,
when Nectar came out in Birmingham,
and people just started
just banging their heads,
not banging their
heads, but were into it,
and they didn't stop until the end.
And I was just like, okay, this is a
deadhead experience.
It is, yeah.
This is how I jive with the dead.
And so it was cool,
totally different music,
completely the same vibe.
So to your point,
because dad and I had lived
the Grateful Dead experience for so long,
he was able to pick up on it immediately.
And he's like, okay, I get it.
I get with this.
You didn't have to
explain anything to him.
He got it.
I feel like I was
probably open to inviting him
based off what you guys have told me
about what you did in college,
showing me the Grateful Dead.
And honestly, I didn't
really get into the dead
until after I graduated.
Like I obviously listened to
that when I was with you guys.
I think we saw like
further when I was younger,
we'd go to various
things, but I never once,
like in college, I wasn't really
listening to the dead.
Because partly because I
was always around people
and they didn't like the dead.
And I already put them on this stuff.
I'm not gonna try to put them on this.
And I didn't listen to it
all that much on my own.
But I remember when I
graduated and I started working
and I started being
like more than an adult
and less of a college kid, I was like,
I can't just listen to
this EDM shit at seven a.m.
in the morning while
I drive to West Palm.
I need something like more
just chill in the background.
Like one year I listened to Jerry Garcia
and the Grateful Dead
like 65 days or whatever.
It was stupid.
But so that's when I
finally started getting into it
like myself when I got
like pilled and figured it out
and looked into it on my own.
And I think that's how it goes.
That's how people become dead heads.
Because usually no one
really listens to the dead
for the first time and
they're like, this is awesome.
Like there's a lot that goes into it
and it kind of is insidious
and it gets into your blood.
And then you really
can't explain to anyone
why you like it.
You're like, it's just a part of me now.
Most good music I think is like that.
Yeah, a lot.
So you graduated from Florida State.
You had this wonderful
experience with your frat.
You double majored
because you could have graduated
in two years because
of all the credit she--
Three. Or three years.
I got a call at the dean's office
so I can either come
in and I'm like, what?
Yeah.
But I can either come in
and I'm like, all right.
I'm like, where the
hell is the dean's office?
Let me figure that out.
Florida State?
Yeah, the business office.
So I walk in there like, so listen,
you're gonna graduate this semester.
I'm like, no, the fuck I'm not.
I'm like, you're out of your mind.
I was told I could do four years.
I'm doing four years.
This is like, it was like the
beginning of my junior year.
You completely worked us.
Well, we told him he can have four years.
But because of all those
credits from Boca High,
you could graduate in three.
She's like, this is all you need to take
and then you're done
at the end of this year.
I'm like, no, no, no, no,
you need to help me out here.
I'm like, what do we do?
How do I stay here another year
and not have to stay
an extra year to do it?
I'm like, how do we, what do we fit in?
Four years.
In the last year that gets me here.
And then she's like, you
could do a real estate degree.
Like a lot of it overlaps.
So I picked up the real estate major.
I ended up having to take
six classes my last semester,
but yeah, I finished four years,
four years on the dot with two majors.
You did, you got a double major in
finance and real estate.
You graduated in four
years with a double major.
And then you moved home
to start saving some money.
And then if memory
serves COVID hit, right?
Well, you got your first job
and then I think COVID hit.
Correct?
So you were going into the office.
Yeah, I think I, so I
worked up at Granite.
In West Palm.
In West Palm doing sales.
And then I was there for like two and a
half years, I think.
Maybe three, I think it
was two and a half years.
Cause yeah, I started 2019 in July.
I definitely did a year in the office.
And then that second year
began and then that COVID started
and we, it was a huge company.
So based out of Massachusetts
and then they put out the policy like,
all right, we're going
to do work from home.
So then luckily I lived with you guys
because that would have sucked.
Like living on my own,
doing work from home,
my bills would have gone up so much.
Yes.
So it was nice that I
was living with you guys.
And then yeah, I was at home.
And so I moved to Boynton with Ali,
whenever he graduated,
which I think was 2020,
like maybe halfway through
2020 towards the end of it.
I wonder if we're off a year
because COVID hit in the winter of 2020.
March 2020 is when COVID hit.
And so that's when-
I feel like I was with
you guys during COVID
for like at least nine months.
Yeah.
Definitely, if not longer.
The thing about COVID here in Florida
isn't really ended by
like the summer of 2020.
So it didn't last that long.
Oh, I remember, cause we went to Okotobi
and that was the last
weekend when COVID was going on.
And then everything got canceled.
Yes.
So that was March 2020.
Okotobi got canceled or right after that?
Okotobi was essentially
the last public gathering.
Yeah, okay.
For like two years.
Yeah.
And I remember we all were going in like,
this might not be the place to go.
I remember us talking
about it as a family.
We were like, is this, you know-
This could be where we all get COVID.
You and Kai went and
then, so then that shut down.
That was Dose Nectar's last show.
Was it really?
Yeah, cause then it got canceled.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then I think you lived
with us all through COVID
and then you ended up moving in with Ali.
So Ali must've graduated the end of 2020.
Winter.
And then we probably moved
in together like January.
I don't know if it was that quick.
Unless you-
I think it was that
summer you guys moved in.
Unless you graduated 2021
and we moved in together in the summer,
that could have been it.
Yeah, I remember.
Cause he is two years younger than me.
Yeah, so you lived with us for a while
and allowed you to save up
some money, invest some money.
I would say, like you
just said, for COVID,
cause COVID hit your age group
right as you were entering life.
And so you guys got going.
You got a good year.
You got going.
And then like society said, now stop.
Yeah.
And I think mentally, that could,
I'm sure that was very
challenging for all of you
because you were just
getting in a groove of your lives
and then you had to kind of stop.
And so the pros of you living with us
where you didn't have to
worry about the financial burden.
I didn't spend any money.
You didn't spend any money.
You had this-
I had no money going out.
Right.
I had no bills.
Right.
I didn't have a car at the time.
I didn't have a car payment.
I never ran.
Right.
You guys were paying for my,
I think I had health
insurance through my company
and then you were paying for my phone,
but then like you guys fed me.
We would do our weekly total wine orders.
Then we all collectively were like,
all right, we're turning into alcoholics.
We need to cut this shit out.
I was like, mom, please
stop ordering Medello.
I'm just gonna drink it.
Just please.
And then I remember, yeah.
And you were surrounded by your family.
So you weren't alone in an apartment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I would say-
Which that would have sucked too.
A lot of people dealt with that.
I feel like I had it fine,
partly because like you said,
it ended in Florida in two weeks.
We were back to doing
things fairly quickly.
Like at least going out.
I think by June, I think.
Yeah, like going out to the bar,
like we'd wear a mask.
We had the dumb rule,
the fucking stupidest
goddamn rule in the world,
where you had to fucking
wear a mask to show your ID.
And as soon as you're in
the goddamn establishment,
you took your mask off and
never had to put it on again.
It's the most ass
backwards bullshit ever.
Well, it's more ass
backwards north of here
because you couldn't do shit.
No, I understand that.
Florida, we at least-
It was more just like,
yeah, we're wearing masks.
Because I remember I
went down to the Key West
for 4th of July and they
had this place called Dante's,
which is like a pool
club you have from the pool.
All this whole thing.
And you had to wear a mask in the pool.
And people were getting
kicked out of the club
their mask falling off.
That's insane.
And I remember that,
so that must've been that 4th of July
after COVID started.
Cause I remember I went down there
with my buddy Evan and Tim,
who you guys know.
And we were fully masked up,
like the bars on that.
So have you ever been to Key West?
Yeah, we went as a family.
We took you guys.
So the way it works is I
forget the name of the road,
but it's like Bourbon
Street in Louisiana.
You can have an open container.
So the way it worked was
normally you go in the bar
and then you can hop around.
They moved all their
booze and stuff to the front.
To the sidewalk.
To the sidewalk.
So you'd walk up,
they'd hand you a cup of Coke
and they'd hand you a shooter of rum.
And then they'd send you on your way
and you'd pour it in yourself.
So then you're just
walking up and down the street.
But I don't think we were
wearing masks in the street.
It was just to get
into these establishments.
So it's just like, it's like 50 50.
To your point,
if you lived anywhere besides Florida,
you were just stuck.
Yeah.
If you're fucked.
Yeah, we had it the best
I think out of everybody.
That makes it hard to remember.
Cause there was like
COVID for everybody else.
I don't really
remember totally being limited
all that long.
Like I think we,
I specifically hung around with you
because of Grammy D
living with us and being older.
And then we weren't
sure what was going on.
You had the thyroid thing.
So we were a little bit more cautious.
I feel like we did like a month,
a month and a half at home.
Where you were careful.
Yeah. And then it was like, okay.
Yeah, you're fine.
Well, we traveled,
Dylan played travel lacrosse.
That summer.
We were in South Carolina.
South Carolina still
dealt with it differently
than everywhere else.
But then like the following year,
we went up to Pennsylvania.
And this year when there was nothing
going on in Florida.
Nothing's going on here.
And then we're going up there
and being like back in that world.
Back in the world.
It was a trip.
It was weird.
It was weird.
I flew to New York and
they threatened to kick me off
the plane.
We're half way to New York.
I fell asleep and my mask came off.
She's like, I'll turn
the plane around right now.
I'm like, all right, do it.
Yeah.
You're going to turn around the plane.
Well, I think it was
kind of like how you forget
it's winter when you
live in South Florida
that everywhere else.
And then all of a sudden
you see something on TV.
It's kind of like that.
Like we forgot for a while
that COVID was even a thing still
until you go to another state.
But that makes it harder to
remember what was going on.
Yeah, that makes sense.
When I moved in with
Ali, I was still at Granite.
I got him a job at Granite.
Right.
So then I left Granite
and he was still at Granite
when we lived together.
And then I think he left Granite
and that's when he moved to Boston
and I moved back in with you guys.
Well, one of the reasons
you moved back in with us
is because there was
this boom because of COVID
and because Florida was
open, everyone moved here.
And as a result, the
housing prices went up
and your rent tripled.
And that happened to a lot
of young adults where that--
And I didn't have anyone to live with.
And there was not
another roommate to live with,
but a lot of young
adults, it was a phenomenon.
I don't think just in Florida,
but where this was happening,
young adults were
having to move back home
because the rents were
tripling and they couldn't afford it.
And so you did that.
But you were only with us, I think,
what, nine months or something?
Yeah, until Nash became available.
And then you moved into a place here
with your friend near the beach.
So you've been in
sales since you graduated.
You got your degree in
finance and real estate,
chose not to go
either one of those routes.
Why did you choose,
why do you think you're drawn to sales?
Honestly, it was a combination
of not really knowing
what I wanted to do.
And that just, like
obviously when I first graduated,
I was just looking to get a job.
It felt like just go get something
and then that'll help
you move somewhere else.
Or, you know, like for example,
junior year of
college, I did an internship
at Northwestern Mutual
selling life insurance.
And that was sales,
but it was to consumers.
So calling like
parents and like individuals
that don't own a business.
All that taught me was I
never wanna do anything
that involves not calling businesses.
So I was like, that's done.
So then I was like, all right,
let's go try business to business sales,
which was, it was good.
The issue is COVID
kind of threw things off
and like warped the reality of business.
And that persisted into my next job.
But I don't know, I like
sales just cause I like talking.
I like convincing
people to agree with me.
It's also like, I'm pretty money focused.
And, you know, I like
that I have a base that gets,
you know, my bills paid,
but then it's like the harder I work,
the more money I can make a commission,
you know, then that opens
up to how much you can make.
It's also just a social thing.
Like, I feel like I'm that stereotype of,
you know, talking a lot,
being like pretty outgoing.
You know, I like going out
to the bar and meeting people
and like hanging out with
my friends every weekend.
And a lot of the same
people I'm friends with
are also in sales.
Cause it's just like a
competitive thing where,
you know, your go, go, go,
everyone you work with
is pretty like-minded.
You know, I wouldn't
fit in like a back office,
like with a bunch of IT people.
That's just not my personality.
Like I don't share those interests.
You're throwing with IT people.
But I don't know.
I couldn't really put like a word on it.
I'm still gonna continue to do it.
I do it right now.
I think whatever job I do
next will be in sales as well.
I have a theory.
Do you wanna hear it?
Sure.
(laughing)
So you like to gamble a bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think you get that from
your great, great grandfather,
your great grandfather, your grandfather.
That's from my side.
I think the sale is,
it's like that hit when you get the sale.
Yeah, 100%.
It's like you got the win.
Yeah, you hit a bet,
you hit a sale, yeah.
Yeah, so I think it's
tied to that same part
of your personality.
That you like the anticipation and the
work towards something
and the excitement when it hits.
Yeah.
And even when it doesn't hit,
you're just onto the
next thing to get that.
Yeah.
So I think it kind of goes
hand in hand with your person.
I think you would have
been, at least at the time,
and at least right now in your 20s,
would have been bored in finance.
Even now, I couldn't
see myself doing that.
Even though you have the mind for it.
It's just like, that's a
total different thing too,
because you're not
talking to people as much.
That's more like crunchy numbers,
staring at like spreadsheets.
No, you have collaboration internally.
You're obviously on calls,
but my whole shtick is
like, just pick up the phone
and then bullshit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where that's not like that.
Right.
Oh, so fun.
Yeah, so I think it
takes that personality
that likes to talk to
people, likes to convince people,
and also likes the
hit of making the sale.
So then that's what makes you a
successful salesman.
But I think it takes a
certain person to enjoy sales.
Most people I know that aren't in sales
are always asking like,
how the hell do you pick?
Like, why do you like being on the phone?
Like most girls I meet
don't understand how,
like they hate getting on the phone.
Right.
And anyone who's not in
sales just like thinks it's like,
like picking up the
phone's like this horrible thing.
Like if I order, like if I
order food in certain places
and they have an order
online, I'm just gonna call them.
Yeah.
That's hilarious.
So do you know--
Like I don't wanna go on my,
I wanna talk to this person
and make sure they're
not gonna fuck my order up.
Yeah, yeah.
So--
And it's quicker.
Yeah.
Do you think, you look at
somebody like Dylan's Generation
where they do not, their world--
I don't know what they're gonna do.
So their world has been
social media, texting,
Snapchatting, and then maybe,
then it's face to face talking
or maybe on the phone talking.
I've heard Dylan get on the phone at
times with his friends.
Where do you see the difference in?
Like you're used to talking,
you're used to face to face talking,
you're used to interaction real time.
Where do you see this--
There's an awkwardness--
There's differences there with that younger Gen Z
and that Gen Alpha Generation.
So it's tough to like pinpoint right now
because like I'll pick him
up from his buddy's place
or I'll give him and his friends a ride
and they all put their faces
down and get on their phones
and no one says a word to each other.
Where I feel like when I was a kid,
we'd be in the car just like laboring.
Just yapping about God knows what.
You're probably up there like,
oh my fucking God, these
kids won't shut the fuck up.
The phone's not the worst thing
when you got five of them in the car.
No, no, no.
In this, for me, I pick them
up and like get on your phones.
No one's saying goddamn words.
We're gonna listen to music
and you all are gonna type.
But I don't know what they're gonna do
because I do think
there's like an awkwardness
going on with these kids.
I think a lot of what
they're digesting on the internet
is also just so fucking
brainless and terrible.
Like there's a lot of like
just traps on social media
to keep your attention
that's not like providing you any value.
So I'm curious.
Like I don't wanna say they're doomed
because right now they're also 14.
This is from my experience.
This is all my experience
with mainly him and his friends.
They're 14.
I'm sure when I was 14,
there was an awkwardness of speaking.
You're a little nervous.
You're still not fully sure of yourself.
You're still going through the puberty
and like the confidence of like
testosterone and all that.
So like it's hard to be like jump the gun
and be like, oh, these kids
are doomed when they get like,
as of right now,
I don't think any of them
would survive on a phone call.
I don't even think any of them
survive getting pressed by
their boss in an interview.
They're just not, but they're also 14.
So I don't know.
It'll be curious to see how it plays out.
Two years will be a big.
Yeah.
By the time he's a
junior and he's 16 years old,
I'll be interested to
see what's going on.
I do think it's going to be worse
because they're just
always on their phones.
I feel bad for them.
I don't know how I would have handled
always having being
available to like girls
you're trying to get with,
friends you're trying to make plans with.
Like when I was a kid,
there was no group chats, right?
If you wanted to make plans, it was like,
and I would call my friends too.
It's like, hey, do you want to fish?
Okay, cool.
I'll call the other buddy.
Then, hey, do you want to fish?
No.
Okay.
Call your other buddy back.
Hey, he's out.
Should we call someone else?
Right.
There was a lot of back and forth.
That's what we did as kids.
You had to like plan it out.
Now it's like, there's 12 of them.
And this is what my
friends and I do currently.
Hey, who's free today?
Let's figure out something to do.
And then all of a
sudden five kids are free
and now you're making plans
into five people that are free.
But I feel bad for them because
that's just how it's been
since he's like an eighth grader.
No, that's how it's been his whole life.
So that's, and that brings
up how you're a zillennial
whereas you had most of your childhood,
Snapchat entered your world, I think,
sophomore in high
school, freshman sophomore.
Yeah, Instagram is freshman year.
I think Snapchat was sophomore year.
I never really got on Snapchat.
I still don't, I don't have it anymore.
I think that's appropriate for you.
I think anyone on, I don't think 27.
Oh, okay.
I agree.
I agree.
But I mean, to my point is,
Dylan is the first true
all social media generation
that will be interesting to see.
It's not just an all
social media generation.
It's phone.
It's the phone.
It's the 24 by seven
by 365 access to people.
And it's getting worse.
You go to a fucking restaurant and four
year olds have iPads
and that's their version of shutting up.
It's like, geez, dude.
Yeah.
Like what do you think is gonna happen
when your kid's missing his dopamine?
But that's been going on for a while.
The iPad's been in kids
laps probably since Dylan's age
and his generation.
He used to have it here and there,
but not nearly as bad as
some of these other people.
No, it has increased.
It's definitely increased.
But do you think that
technology also has affected
the dating world for your
age, people in their 20s
and to a detriment?
I mean, yeah.
Just, I think Instagram is pretty bad
just because it's like you,
I mean, at least the
thing that drives me crazy is
like you'll meet people who on Instagram
seem like one type of person
and then you meet them for
the first time in real life
or you, you know, I'll have friends.
I obviously fall on
Instagram from like high school
or like middle school.
And all I know from
them is what they post.
And then you come across
them and meet them at the bar
and it's like, Jesus,
you're not anything like this.
Right.
So I think it's like,
there is like multiple
personalities being created here.
Obviously not everybody's like this,
but this is definitely a thing.
And I think you can tie it back to COVID
where it forced a lot
of people to be inside.
And if you were on your own,
like you were saying up in
New York for a year and a half.
That's a lot of social
interaction you're missing out on.
And to your point,
those were the years
fresh out of college.
Being a college kid is way
different than being an adult.
When you're a college kid,
it's kind of like high school where like
everybody you interact
with is on the same page of
you're not working,
really don't have any responsibilities
and you're just looking to have fun.
That's a really easy way to
bond over things with someone
when it's like, this is
all kind of just for fun.
Now it's like, there is
multiple things going on.
You have a job, you
have your hobbies you do,
you're trying to go to the gym, stay
healthy, all this shit.
And I think COVID probably
stunted that a little bit
with a lot of people
because you just missed out
on like a year and a
half of like socializing
with individuals and your way of
socializing went digital.
So you're not practicing speaking
and like looking people in the eye
and having common like
just normal social cues.
I feel like social cues
have definitely gotten worse
with a lot of people.
And that's why you
hear about a lot of girls
calling guys creepy
or like a lot of guys,
saying things about girls.
It's like, there's just been this gap.
So do you think COVID
stunted all that normal
communications and
interactions and stuff?
Yeah.
And it's got a longer term effect?
Yeah.
That is true.
Because think about it,
that's like a skill
you practice every day.
Yeah, yeah.
Like when I,
when I take, I just took a
two week break for my job.
I came back, my first
phone call was probably shit.
Yeah.
Cause it's like, I
haven't done this in two weeks.
So you do that a year,
but then you,
that's my job that I've
been doing for five years
that is also pretty emotionless.
And it's just picking up the phone
and trying to make a sale.
With this, like if
you're trying to talk to like,
like a guy trying to talk to a girl,
there's like the pressure of
like trying to win her over.
So that's riding on your head, right?
Wanting to make sure
you say the right thing.
But now you're a year and a half removed
of like practicing and
working out the kinks
and like trying to figure out the date
outside of being in college.
Well, both sides are too.
But in college, it's like,
you could have like some sort of status
just because of who you were.
Right.
Like if you bartend, right, at a bar
and then you're gonna
tell that girl pretty quickly
on, hey, I bartend at this bar.
So in that girl's head,
she's like, oh, he's cool.
He's in a fraternity.
He bartends.
He has a lot of friends.
That already does a lot of
the heavy lifting for you.
Doesn't really matter
what comes out of your mouth
from that point on.
You've been vetted
through like your social resume.
But now you're just a
sales guy at a company
that really means nothing to a female.
So you're now having to figure out, okay,
well, what differentiates me
to make this person like me
or wanna go out with me?
But you missed a year and a
half of figuring that out.
So now you're coming back into it
and there's an extra
pressure of now I'm older,
they're older and we all
still kind of don't know
what we're doing.
Like I do think that
COVID hurt that a little bit.
Well, also when they...
And that's where social
media got really like...
To define themselves.
They used Instagram or social media to,
now how am I gonna differentiate myself?
I'm gonna create a
persona on social media.
And I think that hurts me a little bit
because I don't use social media.
So if you're a girl like looking into me,
you're not seeing much.
Right.
Like I've posted once each
year, the past four years.
And I think I skipped one of those years.
I was gonna ask you that.
It's because you're
the, what'd you call them?
Zillennials?
Zillennial, yeah.
And you grew up without the tech
and then moved into the tech.
Is your age group, are
you able to not be like,
you're doing it obviously.
I'm not into social media
whereas other people are.
You can kind of straddle the fence there.
Yeah, but it's like I'd say
it's somewhat of a segregation
in terms of like being social.
Right, yeah.
Like there's certain people
that care about that a lot.
Yeah.
And like I don't, and honestly if you do,
I just don't really fuck with you.
You're more old school.
And that's both guy and girl.
It's like, dude, if you're a dude
posting Instagram
stories and wanting me to like
take pictures with you
while we go to Happy Hour,
like I'm probably not
gonna be your friend.
And that's just, that's okay.
One of my friends are like that.
You're very old school.
You know, I think
that, I personally think
a dash of old school into
your generation could go far
as long as there's girls
that are receptive to it
because they may find it creepy.
You know, like you show up to a girl's
place to pick her up,
you walk up to the
door, you knock on the door,
you might have some flowers.
They're gonna be like, what the?
They're fucking weird.
They're gonna be like weirdo.
That's not just from social
media and just from COVID.
What you gotta think
about what's happened
these last three or four years,
like the feminist
movement got way out of control.
Politics have become people's identities.
There's literally people like on hinge
and people you meet where it's like,
if you're a
conservative, don't talk to me.
And it's like, okay,
like you're fucking crazy.
The world's divided.
That's a wild take to have.
That's your personality now that
because I voted for someone else,
we're just automatically like enemies.
Like that's crazy.
I would never think of it like that.
Like I might judge you a little bit
because you voted for Joe Biden,
but I'm still here you out.
And like maybe we're still friends,
but there's people like
that, both guy and girl
that are like, just,
it's like this, it's bad.
Like the feminist
movement got a little out of hand
and partly damaging the
women, I think a little bit.
And identity politics.
And identity politics.
But then you throw
that in with social media
becoming a bigger thing and everyone
wanting to make money
from social media, like the
OnlyFans movement's crazy.
And everyone thinking like,
just because you
remotely have a presence online,
you now should be this
like influencer that's,
this is your shtick.
It's like, dude.
Right, right.
It becomes your whole personality.
So with OnlyFans, we are so out of touch
with anything that that is.
Is that really prevalent
with women in your generation
in their twenties?
Late, I guess late teens,
not that you would know
about that, but twenties?
I'm not sure.
Is it accepted?
No, I don't think so.
Okay.
I think.
(indistinct)
Yeah, you're, you're.
Yeah, my mic is wacky.
You're basically,
you're like a porn star,
but it's so proprietary.
No, I understand what OnlyFans is, but.
So OnlyFans, so young
women in their twenties
are having OnlyFans accounts and.
Asking people to send them
money and posting pictures
and videos and all this shit.
No, I get what
OnlyFans is, but that's the,
that's the genre, I
guess that's blowing up
is your age group.
It has blown up, I think.
I think it's pretty
oversaturated in the fact
that like, I saw a stat, it was like a
million American girls
and like a certain age bracket,
I wouldn't say like early twenties.
Yeah, that's true.
Trying to do OnlyFans, but the issue is,
is like, there are
some girls who make bread,
like millions of dollars,
but then there's probably,
I'd say like, that's the 1%.
But think about if you go do OnlyFans
and sell yourself out
and make 50 bucks a month,
you now have no respect from me,
no self-respect and no career.
So like, what are you?
Yeah, that's a huge risk.
Like, what are you now?
Would you say it's almost a form of like,
in this day and age, porn?
Yeah. 100%.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's more like--
It's like private, it's like
being able to be your own CEO
in porn versus like
working with the studio, I think.
But it seems like it's
more quote unquote accepted
in a way.
Well, it is.
To have an OnlyFans account.
I don't know.
Among women maybe, among young women,
do you think they judge each other?
But that's why I say, I
think the feminist movement
got a little too far.
So, just going from
empowering women to like,
selling yourself out as a
hoard and somehow being okay.
Right, right.
But I'm telling you, most
people I'm friends with,
that's like, yeah, I'm
not dealing with that.
Would you say that's
true with most young men?
Yeah, I'd say it's a deal
breaker for a lot of people.
It depends what you're
looking to get out of it.
It's wild.
I don't share that perception,
but I'm also married,
I'm not out on the market.
I think it's good for them
to have another alternative
means of an income.
But I agree with you,
if you don't strike gold,
it's rough, because now you're out there,
you've shared things about yourself.
But I think it's a good,
I'm open to anything
that lets people make money
and not be stuck in
something and empowers them,
if it empowers them, I guess.
But I don't know if
it is empowering them.
That's what--
I think it's creating
mental health problems.
You think so?
For sure.
And that's where I might be wrong.
Okay, think about this.
You think you're this hot girl
and you're getting no
action on the OnlyFans.
Now you're like, am I really this hot?
Right.
And now you're in your head like, fuck.
Am I totally wrong about myself?
Well, you've exposed
every aspect of yourself.
You've saved nothing for yourself.
That's the danger.
Yeah, and then I don't wanna date you
if you have a million
videos of you doing things
on the internet.
Right, right.
So would you say that
there is definitely though,
young men that are all about the persona
and are looking for
women that look a certain way
and fill the physical
needs of the online persona
just to have that arm candy
and don't really care
about any substance?
Yeah, but that's not new.
Yeah.
So you just, okay, so
that's just the constant thing.
I mean, that's, that's, yeah.
Look at, what's the same?
Oldest time itself.
Leonardo DiCaprio, what's DiCaprio?
Yeah, yeah.
That's the only date 25 year olds?
True, true.
That's just avoid your fillings.
I think I'm just tying
it in with online now.
It's just now more common
because everybody has a profile.
It's more visible.
True, yeah.
Yeah, but that's not,
that's no different.
So how challenging is it to
meet people down to earth,
to meet women down to earth
that are somebody you would
consider seriously dating?
Is it pretty challenging?
Yeah, I guess so.
(both laughing)
It definitely still happens.
Yeah, yeah.
You just gotta meet
it through connections.
Okay, so it's more.
I feel like it's
definitely gotta be like,
you gotta get leads from your friend.
So it's old school.
It's gotten more old school.
Yeah, it's going back to old school.
I mean, that's for me.
I'm sure there's people having success
hopping on Instagram and DMing.
Yeah.
DMing and DMing and
DMing and striking out
and striking out.
Right.
I'm not, I don't have Instagram again.
I just recently deleted it again
because I got tired of being on it.
But like that's definitely
a subgroup of individuals
probably having success.
Right.
I just, that's just, I'm not doing that.
I've looked for leads all day at my job.
I'm not gonna look for
leads on my other woman.
What about dating apps?
Like sometimes they're hit or miss.
Yeah, I've used it a couple of times.
I've gone on a few dates,
but it gets kind of old
doing the song and dance
and like where you're
from, what's your name?
Yeah, yeah.
What you study, yada, yada, yada.
But that happens even old school.
If you're old school dating,
you're still going through that.
Yeah, but that feels way more natural.
If you're just out casually
at the bar with your friends
and all of a sudden like
you and a girl start talking
and you just naturally get through that
versus like taking a
girl out on like a hinge day
and then you're forced to
sit there for 30 minutes,
going over like the preliminary basics
of this person's life,
trying to the whole time
judging them and being judged.
So you have the option,
you have the opportunity
to sell yourself in a way
that might not totally be truthful.
So it's a first
impression thing where it's like,
all right, for these next two hours,
I'm gonna make myself
sound like the fucking man.
And just either lie or
stretch the truth a little bit.
So it's like, I don't know.
It got old after a couple of times.
I was like, yeah.
It's not organic.
No, that's a really good way to play it.
It's not organic.
You're like both forcing an issue.
Well, you bring up a good point
as far as like talking
about the younger generations
that are always on their phones.
They probably, when
they're trying to date
or chase the opposite sex,
they have all this time
to prepare their pitch
because they're only using technology.
Like they don't have to do it on the fly.
So--
What do you mean by that?
So they can present
themselves through Snapchat, right?
Snapchat, texting.
Yeah, so think about like
you text someone, right?
And they respond.
You don't have 30
minutes that you could take
to formulate the perfect response.
And I think this is definitely an issue
probably with my age,
definitely with Dylan's age
and in between and
younger as they get older.
If you're only talking to
people on the phone texting,
you have all the time in the world
to come up with something witty.
And you could be some
idiot that has no wit.
But if you sit there long
enough and type in delete,
type it delete until you
come up with something, right?
You can come up with something good.
And then it's like, okay,
now I'm good for compliments
until she responds and I'll
figure something else out.
But then you go on a
physical date and you start talking
and you both sit there and you're like,
Right.
Because that's definitely a thing.
It's a skill to be able to have banter,
to be able to talk to
people and to your point.
And I think his generation
is gonna be fucked by that.
I think maybe not him,
like he's pretty normal,
but he definitely has some friends
that are gonna get smoked by that.
Yeah, I think there's
something to be said to--
It's like the opposite
of a keyboard warrior.
Yeah, you need to be
able to then follow through
on what you're presenting through text.
You need to be able to
show up and be that person.
So it'll be interesting to see
once they hit their
late teens, early twenties.
But that's an issue with him.
Yes, it's the same thing.
It's the same thing.
The first 20 messages, the
objective is to grab the number
and get a date set up, I'd say, right?
That's like step one, when can we meet?
So I can see if your pictures are
actually real or not.
And then it's like, are you
actually this type of person?
Because you can talk and
sit there and say anything.
And I will say, at least
in my experience with him,
because I don't look
at it all that often,
there'll be a week in
between my responses
for a couple days,
because I'm just not looking.
I'll miss the
notification, I'm not gonna go look.
It's not like an app, I'm opening up.
I look at my messages every
day to see if I've missed a text.
That's a total different platform
that I'm not looking at a lot.
And so then it's like, you
can do the first 10 messages
and then you can go meet with them
and then you're sitting there like,
holy fuck, I don't wanna be here anymore.
Like what do I do?
And then you're like faced
with, do I just cut it short?
Do I just, you know, tough it out
and just never hit this person up again?
But like that blows, like
that sucks to go through.
And that could happen even
with just any normal first date.
But at least if you like
meet them out at the bar,
within 10 minutes of talking to someone,
you can get a pretty good idea
if you're gonna mesh with them or not.
So you can get a pretty good idea of what you're gonna do.
So then if you take that out,
it can be real, you can be in trouble.
I think that's what's missing.
I think that's what's
missing is that initial,
can we vibe or not time?
That's what's been completely taken out
with technology being introduced
because that is where
you kind of feel out,
is this worth pursuing?
What do they call those places?
Like third places, third,
it's like a coffee shop.
Oh, the third stop.
What the hell is the
coffee place we go to in Boca?
Third place lounge.
No, no, no.
But I think that's what it is.
It's like back in the day
when you didn't have a phone,
think about the show "Friends."
They would always
meet in the coffee shop.
You meet people at a sober environment,
like a bookstore coffee shop.
That's not really a
thing as much anymore.
At least for me and a lot
of people I interact with,
it's like, I go to work, I go to the gym,
I'm at my apartment
until I go out to the bar
or like a restaurant.
And if I happen to run into
someone also at the bar, great.
But then alcohol is now
influencing the thing.
If you go to like a club,
it's like what are the intentions here
behind a lot of people?
So there's not as much casual, just like,
"Hey, you go to my
coffee shop every Tuesday.
What else are you interested in?"
I'm not going to a coffee shop.
Right, right, no,
it's really interesting.
What's your take on who should pay?
I mean, I think the guys should pay
on the first date every time.
Yeah, and then as the guy,
you should definitely make it so you're
not exposing yourself
to too much financial responsibility
by making sure you're not going.
I'm not taking a girl.
So in my opinion, and a
lot of people I talk to,
I do not like eating with
a girl on the first date.
I think the move is to go
to like a happy hour type bar
in public around people.
I even like sitting at the bar
and just having a
couple of drinks and talking,
super casual.
And then I'll pick up that tab of drinks.
It's like 50 bucks probably.
So you're not tied
into like some fucking,
then it's like, "Oh,
can I get the lobster?"
It's like, "I'd rather you not."
Because I'm about to get not the lobster.
So like, "I'm going to get a burger.
Could you not double my price?"
But like, no, I think
that you should probably pay.
Unless the girl's
like, I don't know, Bean,
it's never happened to me,
but like maybe there's some horror story
where she's like ordering
some super expensive thing
on purpose and it's like, "Hold on."
I think that happens.
Oh, for sure.
Well, there's definitely, I think--
There's people working these--
No, there's girls that use to get meals.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gold digger meal chasers.
What do they call them?
There's got to be a name for these.
I call them gold digger meal chasers,
but I don't think that's it.
That sounds good.
Yeah.
But so no, I feel
like you should pay like,
you should pay at least the first date,
probably the second date.
Again, you have to manage it
so you're not like dropping a hundred
bucks on every date,
but it's like you're
going to end up spending
like at least $200, I'd say.
Well, it probably takes a
couple dates to figure it out.
To get to your goal, you're
going to have to drop some bread.
Yeah, to figure it out.
So do you--
But then once you get like
past that like first date,
second date, third date phase,
where you're like, all right, and you
have some sort of like--
Report.
Like a recent, I went out on a few dates
with this girl over the summer,
and I think she picked up
the tab on the third date.
Like I went to pay, and
she's like, no, I got it.
You paid for the last two,
and I'm like, all right, fine.
And I'm personally going
to, if they're offering,
I'm going to take it.
Like don't offer if
you want me to be like,
no, it's okay, I'll do it.
If you're going to
offer, you can buy my meal.
Because I did just pay for the last two.
And then you hit the back and forth.
No, that makes sense.
And honestly, like if you're a girl
that's willing to go like six or seven
dates without paying,
like you're fucked.
Right, right.
You need to toss them some money.
Right, because I think
it just says something
about a person being thoughtful.
You're just disrespectful.
And considerate and generous.
Yeah, yeah, so that makes sense.
Now, I know you do the
thing where you don't let a girl
walk on the outside on the sidewalk.
Do you open the door, the car door?
Yeah.
You do, okay.
Now, do you go up to a
door or do you text them here?
Or do you not pick up?
For what?
A date.
No, no, no, that's
like meet me at the place.
Okay, so you guys meet, is that normal?
I feel like the girl
does not want you going
to their apartment and
knowing where you live.
Okay, okay.
No girl's ever like, yeah, I
live here, come pick me up.
It's always like, hey, I'll meet you.
And this girl was like
talking about not having a car
one time and I was like, I'll scoop you.
And she's like, no, it's okay, I'll Uber.
I'm like, all right,
perfect, see you then.
That makes sense.
I've never had to run into that issue.
Okay, all right.
I feel like that's
part of girls being like,
guys are fucking creepy these days.
I'm not telling them where I live.
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
And it's warranted for sure.
I think the women
definitely now more than ever
are on the watch for the red flags.
There's a good reason to be.
There's a bunch of weird little things.
I wouldn't want to get
picked up by a random girl.
Like that I've never met.
Yeah, because what if she's crazy?
No, you're fucked.
Yeah, then she knows where you live.
No, you can't do that.
You got to be like very protected.
It makes sense.
People are crazy these days.
Well, some of it might have to do
with what you talked about.
The growth was stunted during COVID.
I think a 15 year long Adderall
prescription doesn't help.
That's where I was gonna go.
Antidepressants, like,
oh, you have a tough time
getting out of bed, so
you're gonna take pills every day.
Like you're cooked.
This isn't social
media or a phone epidemic.
This is a pharmaceutical drug problem
we have in this country.
I do think that's a really big influence.
Do you think with the Gen Z's?
That's a red flag to me.
Like if you're taking
anti-anxiety every day,
I am gonna be very
cautious about what else you do
that might be a red flag.
Because there's a pattern there.
Like you're probably just fucking nuts.
And there's a certain level, right?
There's that hot crazy scale,
where you'll deal with
it to a certain degree.
But like once you reach
that level, it's like, yeah,
I'm out, I can't do this.
Right, are you finding
that a lot of people your age
are on some sort of pharmaceutical--
I feel like a lot of
girls I meet are on something.
Antidepressant or anti-anxiety.
Why do you think that is?
Like for real, why do you think--
They've been conditioned to think that
minor inconveniences
are a mental health issue.
And that's guys and girls who like,
I think the whole world is just so soft.
Like you have one bad
day and all of a sudden
you fucking think you need to pill
to not have another bad day.
Like, dude, you're gonna have tough days.
You just gotta deal with it.
Like there's days where I wake up,
I'm like fuck, I don't wanna go to work.
But me taking a pill is
not gonna get me to my job.
It's like, you just gotta
suck it up and deal with it.
And think about tomorrow or
work your way to the weekend
and then look inward.
It's like, if you only eat
fast food, never work out,
and are always on your phone
looking at bullshit TikToks
that are designed to
capture your attention
or piss you off and
create an outrage, right?
Like rage bait you.
And then you're constantly
like stressed out about it.
Maybe you should not do
that instead of taking a pill
that allows you to do that and be normal.
Like cut out some
negative things from your life
versus just
automatically going to your therapist
and being like, I need Xanax.
It's like, no, you don't.
You just need to fix your habits.
So what about people
that suffer from depression
for years and years and
have tried everything?
I'm not a doctor, I don't know.
Yes.
That's real.
That exists. That's real.
I do think that's real,
but I think all
Americans are over prescribed.
I agree with that. Way too quick.
Like you can hear a bit of precision
with like a telehealth meeting now.
I agree. Like I can hop on a call
and even just getting
your med card, which is fine.
But like you can be
like, oh, I have anxiety.
There's no testing that.
They're like, cool
here, go get legal weed.
Oh good, that's legal weed, okay.
But you can do the same shit
for like something way more addicting.
And the side effects of all those drugs,
like if you ever sit
there and watch sports,
we were all at meet,
Adele, Ben and I watched
the Notre Dame game on Thursday.
There's this commercial called Sky Rizzy.
It's for like
plaxoriasis and Crohn's disease.
But then they go really quickly
and this deep voice side
effects are depression,
suicide, coughs, coughs,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, that's what they all do.
And then I saw one, it
was a depression drug
and the side effect is depression.
Yeah. Yeah.
So like, what are we doing here?
Yeah, no, I agree.
I mean, you know me.
I think that we need to go into a whole
clean eating society.
I think when COVID hit,
we should have focused
on restructuring the health of America,
but instead it went to different drugs.
Yeah, I got pretty healthy during COVID.
Yeah. I started biking,
spending some time outside.
Cause it was like,
honestly, in the beginning,
I was like, dope, I
don't have to go to work.
I'll just play Xbox with all my friends
who also don't have to go into work.
Like the new Call of Duty was out.
It was right after we graduated.
So we all were kind
of missing each other.
And it was like, dope,
now we can spend all day
just talking to each
other, bullshitting on Xbox.
And then after like a couple of weeks,
I was like, okay, I need to
get the fuck out of my house.
This is terrible.
I got like restless.
And then Tommy would
come over with his bike
and we'd bike 10 miles every day.
Oh, that's right.
And then like, I'd start
like going on walks, running,
just hopping outside.
Like it forced me
just due to being inside
and being restless.
I had to make an adjustment
cause I could feel myself going crazy.
Yeah, no, I think that if
there was a whole restructuring
of health and wellness in America,
you would see a big decrease in
pharmaceutical sales
and use.
I really do believe that.
I do think a lot of
that's in food as well.
I mean, there's so
many ingredients in food
that are banned in other countries.
And like the companies
here that like, let's say,
like that Berea company
that makes the spaghetti,
Barilla or whatever, they
probably sell it in Spain
with 10 less ingredients,
but it's coming from the same company.
But because it's not illegal here,
we get like red dye,
blue dye and all this shit
that probably causes like inflammation,
like stress, anxiety, poison.
They're non-natural things that you
should not be eating
on a day-to-day basis.
But then that same company
goes and sells it to someone
in Europe and it's just
wheat and flour and water.
It's true.
You know?
So I think, I think there's, it's like,
as much as I think social media is cancer
for a lot of people and
preying on a lot of people,
it's like, that's not just the one thing.
That's not why people have these issues.
Like there's so much going on right now.
It feels like the world's moving so fast.
Yeah.
Well, it's gotten
smaller and it's moving fast.
And like the issue is you can,
like back in the day, you
got the newspaper, right?
And you'd read the newspaper and be like,
"All right, what's going on around me?"
That was your source of like terror.
Like, "Oh, this kid's missing."
But you saw that like
once a year, if that.
Now you can follow
news sites that will post
what's going on in Topeka, Kansas,
some shitty little city in
India, somewhere in China,
this, this and this and it's like,
"Oh my God, all these
people are missing and dying
and getting eaten by bears."
It's like, "Dude,
that's always been happening.
Why are you looking at that?"
Like you shouldn't be
stressing out over that.
But it's just constant
boom, boom, boom, boom,
bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
So then you're in this mindset of like,
"Holy shit, the world's going to shit."
But that's just because
that's what you're ingesting.
Like that's always,
that's always happening.
You don't need to know that.
You know, what's
really interesting is that
I think that has a lot to
do with why there's all these
prescriptions for anxiety.
I don't think that our,
the human brain was made to
accept all of that information.
No.
I think that's what's causing,
that could be what's
causing all the anxiety
or a lot of the anxiety,
especially in your generation
and younger generations is
it's too much consumption.
We were not made to consume this much
information 24 seven.
And I don't, I think
our brains short circuit.
It's like an issue of
serotonin or dopamine.
Yeah.
But I know the one thing
that freaks me out the most
about myself and
probably a lot of my friends
relate to this and I
don't even know the solution.
That's probably what scares
me is I wake up and probably
look at my phone to shut
off my alarm and then check my
notifications.
Then I brush my teeth and
take a shower and then I drive
to work.
Then I'm in front of a
screen from 8 30 to 5 30.
Then I come home and look at
my phone and to do whatever.
Maybe like, maybe I'm out of
my phone for like an hour at
the gym or something,
but then it's like you're,
I'm either playing X-Box,
watching sports or doing both
of those things.
And then I'm reading on my iPad.
So literally for like
fucking 15 hours a day,
I'm looking at a fucking screen.
And I don't know how to not
do that because everything
these days is on screen.
The only thing I could do to cut that
down a little bit is
to buy physical books, but
that's more expensive and more
of a nuisance to deal with.
Yeah.
No, I highly recommend the Kindle.
The Kindle reader gives
you that natural light.
I don't think it has to.
I have it on my iPad.
I have, I go on dark mode
and go all the way down to the
brightness and even on the Kindle,
my point would still be the same.
Like it's just, I feel
like I'm always on screen.
Yeah.
No, and it'll be interesting to see.
We all are.
Everybody is.
That can't be good for your eyes.
Do you have the blue light blockers?
Yeah.
But even for the brain, it's just,
I think it's a different way that
everything is getting
absorbed and I do think it's
too much consumption and the
brain is like short circuiting.
So these medications maybe
are kind of helping with that.
But I think it would be
interesting to reverse it
and everyone go back, but once it's out,
it's hard to out of the can.
You can't put it.
There's no fixing it.
It's only getting worse.
Because now you have
the fucking Oculus glasses
that just attach right to your damn face.
They cannot be good for you.
And now the Apple Vision Pros are out
where you can do all
your work with goggles
attached to your face.
Yeah, no.
And soon you're gonna have a
chip in your brain that puts
things out in front of you.
I think that's the future.
I think the solution is to
find something to make a living
where you're not in front of a screen.
Yeah, whether like a river
rafting guide in Southern Oregon
or Northern California.
No, that's what I'm saying.
But that's the solution.
But that's like not common.
It's not practical.
Well, they're saying that
the new multimillionaires
or whatever will be
trade, electricians, plumbers,
that there's so few now that
those will be the new people
that are really--
Those are better examples
than the river guides.
Yeah, the only issue with
those jobs is you do sacrifice
your body.
Yeah, yeah.
Like you fucking throw your back out,
bending over doing things.
Right, no, it's true.
I read a whole Reddit
post on that the other day.
And everyone was like, yeah, I know.
What you're saying is correct.
If you don't know what
you wanna do in your life,
you could go get a trade.
But I've grown up with, like my dad was,
for one of the examples,
just like a railroad conductor.
He's like, that dude had
been in and out of surgeries
his whole life.
Right.
He's like, yeah, he's put
a living, but he's fucked.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's like you're either
sacrificing your brain
or your body.
Yeah, no, it's--
(laughing)
Well, on that note, let's be optimistic.
And what is your, where do you see
yourself in five years?
You know, I don't know.
I don't think about that.
I probably should.
I'm not really a, I
don't have like goals.
I don't have like, I'm not
a goal-driven individual.
I don't write down
like, oh, I wanna do this.
Like at the start of the year,
I know a lot of people
probably put in like,
this is what I wanna be in a year.
I wanna make sure I accomplish this.
I just kind of mentally
like keep track of how I want
to things to play out.
Like I told myself that
I'd be less lazy this year.
And that's like my main focus.
And that encompasses a lot of things.
I think by being less,
like by being less lazy,
a lot of things will come from that.
Yeah.
And so like this, like, you know,
I'm doing dry January for
this year or for this month.
Been trying to go to the gym every day,
at least doing cardio.
If I haven't worked out,
I've gone, I've done cardio.
But like normally I
always try to do this.
I'm gonna try to actually
make it past like the 15th.
Five years though, I'm not sure.
I-
Because you'll be 32, right?
I think I do wanna get into a mode or job
that I could see myself
being out for like a dozen years
or beyond, like,
because right now I'm in this,
you know, I work for a
company that, you know,
I get a piece of the pie basically.
And I feel like I've done that.
I've worked at three different companies.
It's all been the same shtick of like,
we'll give you a base, make
sales, you got a percentage.
I wanna be in a place where like,
I have more control over that.
So something of like an
independent sales agent or like,
you know, at the very beginning stages
of starting my own firm
with whatever industry
that I find
interesting, I'm having success in.
And that's something I'm
gonna try to figure out a lot
this year.
That's a goal.
Yeah.
That's definitely a goal.
I wanna move to something that like,
I actually like doing.
I do wanna bring my
resume back into the mix here
a little bit.
Because my last job dealt
with money and I like that a lot.
So I think I'm gonna try to go back to
something like that,
whether it be for financing or insurance
or something that involves money.
I think that's, that's
probably, I'd say in five years,
I'll make my goal on this
podcast to be doing something
with my,
whatchamacallit majors.
Your degree.
Yeah.
That's a great goal.
Yeah, interesting.
That's a very good goal.
I'm just, first job is telecom.
I could quite literally give a
fuck about phone and internet.
Right now I sell a website
subscription for like data.
It's cool.
I'll probably
continue to stick around here
for a little bit longer,
but I'm definitely, you know,
getting restless in my mind
of, all right, what's next?
And I wanna fix that.
It feels like I get a
job, it's new and exciting.
And then once I figure it out, I'm like,
this isn't cool.
This isn't fulfilling.
Yeah.
Like what do I do?
What's next?
I keep always asking what's next.
And I wanna get into a
mode where that's not always
at the forefront of
my like thought process
when I think about my job.
Or whatever you're doing
is fulfilling that need.
Yeah, exactly.
The job itself is growing and changing.
So it's fulfilling that need.
Yeah.
If you think about that for us,
I have a consistent
job I've been in forever,
but I've got 50
hobbies to address the need
you're talking about.
If you figure it out,
you're bored, move on.
It's a hobby thing for me.
This is true.
And there's something
to be said when you,
once you get married
and start a family also,
that challenges you enough.
Yeah, I'm hoping now that I figured out
a little bit better in five years.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, no, I mean,
you're still very young.
For sure.
But I think by 32, I should have a
general idea of what
or who I'm trying to settle down with
to kind of finalize things here.
That sounds good to me.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's ready.
No, I know.
No, I've stopped with the pressure.
Whenever you guys, if you
guys want children or not,
I support whatever path you take.
So, you know, I want you guys to be happy
and that's the main thing.
I think everything you
just said are great goals.
Those are goals.
You just stated goals.
I just think if I
focus on just doing more
on a day-to-day basis instead of like,
fucking wake up, work, decide if I'm
gonna work out or not,
and then decide what's for dinner.
And then that's the end of my night.
And I'd watch sports.
Like, I gotta figure out, I
gotta figure out something
to do that's a little bit
more meaningful at that time.
As you do that, I
think more things will--
Or be more productive.
Yeah.
But I think as you do
that, more things will fall
into place in terms
of what's interesting,
what you want to spend your time doing.
100%.
Yeah, I'm not too concerned about it.
I do believe even
something as simple as making sure
I'm active and go to
the gym or go on a run
and do some sort of physical activity.
Luckily, softball starts up next week,
so that'll be something to do.
But I feel like just getting that mindset
of focusing on getting better sleep,
trying to eat better,
and trying to be more active in the gym,
by making the changes to accomplish that,
things that aren't even
related to that will fall
into place and work itself out as well.
Yeah, no, I agree.
And everything you just stated is,
so many people struggle
with all those things.
I'm still trying to figure it out.
Yeah, yeah.
But I think you're right.
If you continue to live that way and
challenging yourself
and adjusting and trying to
improve and be more productive,
I think more and more things will come,
because you're gonna be making space
for those things to come.
So it makes sense.
So thank you for sharing
everything with us, Nathan.
Yeah, last thing I'll say,
I'm not the biggest caffeine drinker.
I drink coffee, definitely.
Usually it's every
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
when I'm in the office.
But I work from home Monday, Friday,
and I typically don't caffeinate myself
when I'm at my apartment.
And I try not to drink
caffeine on the weekend at all.
My friends have created
this company called Fungora,
that is the lion's
mane extract supplement
that you're supposed to do.
I think it's like two
months on, a couple of weeks off,
or maybe like a month
on, a couple of weeks off.
I've been putting
that either in my coffee
or just doing it straight.
And I gotta say, it's like,
if you've ever taken
Adderall or like Vyvanse
or anything like that to focus,
it's exactly like that
without all the bad side effects.
I feel like laser focused when I do it,
and it does wake me up.
So whenever I've done the Fungora
with my first cup of coffee,
typically I never have to drink
a second cup of coffee that day.
That goes live at the
end of February on Amazon.
What's the name of the company again?
Fungora, F-U-N-G-O-R-A.
I can't wait to try it.
Yeah, we're all very excited for it.
We've been working on
it for two years now.
That's awesome.
And we just got the samples from them
a couple months ago,
and now we're all
kind of the test dummies,
and it's definitely interesting.
That's amazing.
And I think you were saying that
on the days you don't have coffee,
it wakes you up just the same.
I meant to take it before coming on here.
Because I think it would have,
I mean, it ended up being fine,
but it's one of those things where like,
like I walk in when I'm on that.
Interesting.
And there's no side effects.
It doesn't keep you up,
your heart rate doesn't increase.
Like coffee, I'll drink
coffee in the morning,
I feel like I'm still
feeling it at like five.
Or like I feel cracked out somehow.
And then I stopped
drinking coffee this week
because I was going to bed so late
and I didn't drink
coffee the last two days
and I was able to get to
bed a little bit earlier.
And I'm talking coffee at like 9 a.m.
So like that's a problem.
And then by not
drinking coffee all the time,
now when I do need to drink coffee,
it does wake me up.
Versus it just being this crutch,
where it's like, I'd
rather drink coffee and it work,
versus if I don't
drink coffee, I'm ruined.
That's me.
Yeah, that's what a lot of people are.
Yeah.
So this has been a nice alternative.
Interesting.
So it's Fungora, Lion's Mane?
So yeah, the company's Fungora,
it's a Lion's Mane extract.
It's got something
else in it, but I forget.
They go live the end
of February on Amazon.
Nice.
Well, again, I can't
wait to check it out.
So yeah, thank you for having me.
I hope to be back soon
because there's
definitely more to talk about.
More nitty-gritty details of various
random phases of my life
that we kind of glossed over.
And I think there's
definitely some funny stories
that I know you guys have
told me that we could share.
And I've told you guys, or maybe I
haven't told you guys,
but I've told other
people that could definitely
be shared around here that I
think would be entertaining
for other people.
No, we definitely
wanna have you back soon
to go over some more stuff like that.
And also we plan on
having you back in a few years
to do another recap
to see where you're at.
But yeah, we wanna do a part two
and dig more deeper into
some of those college years
and some other stories.
So we have to dig into some of the,
we talked about doing
some music sessions.
Oh yes. Really gotta do that.
That's actually something
that I think Brian and Nathan
are going to possibly start doing
is sharing some music
and talking about music.
And so, stay tuned for that
because I think
that'll be really interesting
if you're into music.
So thank you. And if you're not,
what the hell is wrong with you?
Yes.
(both laughing)
So thank you again for listening.
We welcome all questions, comments.
We love to hear from you
and we'll see you next time.
Bye. Take care.
(upbeat music)