# GenX Through The Eyes of a Former 80s Kid - John Kotrides: GenXJono - Episode 75

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2026-08-19T20:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/19672356-genx-through-the-eyes-of-a-former-80s-kid-john-kotrides-genxjono-episode-75.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-75
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode75.html
- People: Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host)

## Summary

In episode 75 of the GenX Adulting Podcast, hosts Brian and Nicole welcome John Kotrides, also known as GenX Jono, who shares his experiences growing up as a Gen Xer in the 70s and 80s. John discusses his immigrant family's journey, his childhood in Rochester, New York, and how those formative years shaped his perspective on life, work, and relationships.

## Key takeaways

- John was born in 1970, placing him firmly in the Gen X demographic.
- His parents immigrated from Greece in 1965 and initially settled in New York City before moving to Rochester.
- John's family owned a diner, which played a central role in their lives and shaped his childhood experiences.
- He describes his upbringing as unstructured, with a strong emphasis on independence and work ethic.
- John was heavily involved in extracurricular activities in high school, including theater and student council.
- He transitioned from bartending to banking in his late twenties and later pursued content creation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- John emphasizes the importance of treating marriage as a treasured commitment, highlighting the need for strong communication and mutual support.

## FAQ

### What year was John Kotrides born?

John Kotrides was born in 1970.

### Where did John's parents immigrate from?

John's parents immigrated from Greece in 1965.

### What type of business did John's family own?

John's family owned a diner in Rochester, New York.

### What extracurricular activities was John involved in during high school?

John was involved in theater and student council during high school.

### What career did John pursue after college?

After college, John worked in banking and bartended on the weekends.

### How did COVID-19 impact John's career?

During COVID-19, John transitioned to content creation on social media after his bartending job was affected.

### What advice does John give about marriage?

John emphasizes treating marriage as a treasured commitment and the importance of strong communication and mutual support.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkNH-nDdM_0)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/genx-through-the-eyes-of-a-former-80s-kid/id1764838823?i=1000784417414)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6wllaTAWVPsVCX6frD3kyA)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/19672356-genx-through-the-eyes-of-a-former-80s-kid-john-kotrides-genxjono-episode-75)

## Transcript

GenX Adulting Podcast: Welcome to Gen X Adulting. And today we have John Katridis, also known as Gen X Jono on social media with us. Welcome, John.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Welcome, like I'm happy to be here.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We're so happy to have you here. And our first question is always, what year were you born?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Nineteen seventy.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So you are Gen X.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Definitely Gen X. I'm right in the middle, the heart of Gen X.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You are. You are. You're we're seventy one, so we feel the same way. We feel like we experienced it all. Every Gen X
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: There
GenX Adulting Podcast: moment.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: there are three levels they say to Gen X or the babies, which are like seventy-six to eighty. There's the OGs, the sixty five to sixty-nine. We're right in the heart of it. One foot in digital, one foot in analog, and something to say about all of it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's so true. And where were you born?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I was born in Rochester, New York.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. And do you know how far back your family goes there? Was it your grandparents, your great grandparents? Like how did you guys end
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, my parents immigrated to the states from Greece in nineteen sixty five.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. And did they land in Rochester? Is that where they settled?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: My dad s flew to Worcester, Massachusetts at first, because back in those days you needed to be sponsored. So the Greek Orthodox Church there sponsored him and said, Hey, we'll be responsible for him being a good civic citizen. He worked for about six months studying, learning the language, going through whatever the church had him go through to help, then moved to New York City, worked another six months and got enough money to bring my mother over. they were married a year before they could be here together. And so they settled in New York City for about a year before moving to Rochester, because at that point in time my oldest brother was gonna be born soon and my mother didn't want to live in New York. It was just too big a city for her.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So they were married in Greece before your dad came over. Do you know
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: why he came over here?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So if you look at the depression that the United States went through, you know, in the thirties, Greece was going through that straight through the sixties. just no jobs. Everyone in, you know, a lot of Europe at that point in time saw opportunity here in the States. And at that point in time, there was a big push for for immigration, and there was things for, you know, them to do that gave them opportunity. And so they came over and honestly just for a better life for themselves and for their kids someday.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I assume they have a lot of family that they left behind. So that had to have been a really hard, especially for their parents, to see them go.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yep. We spent every summer when I was a kid, either my mom would go with one of my brothers or my dad would go with me or two of there'd be different groups going every summer back, you know, and we we had a Greek diner. We had a diner in the small gr town that I grew up in outside of Rochester. So we always joked that that was our fourth sibling. Someone stayed home with the restaurant every time. but we would go back and forth to Greece a lot.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's wonderful. Okay, so they settle in Rochester. You said you have an older brother. is there more siblings besides him?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Three of us, three boys, I'm the middle.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. And y what's the spacing?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Four years, four years, four years.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And was your mom a stay at home mom?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So again, we owned a diner, so I mean, yes, in the sense that we grew up in the diner. I mean, we spent more time at the restaurant as kids than we ever did the house. That's where we had dinner, that's where we ate. You know, as soon as I could reach over the counter, they put us to work. The reason so many Greek restaurants are known as family restaurants is because that's who's working.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah. And so that's what your dad did. So your parents owned the Greek diner. And so did you have the latch key kit experience?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, no one was home. The diner opened at five in the morning and went till ten at night. On Fridays and Saturdays, it was open twenty four hours. We'd get home from school and we were on our own. There, mom was at the restaurant, dad was at the restaurant. We'd we so Rochester, about forty miles east of Rochester, was a small town known as Woolkett, New York. W O L C O T T. And that's where we grew up. When I was young, my parents moved there because a restaurant was available. And you know, that that was the primary everything. Everything was centered around the restaurant. We caught, no one was home. We'd make ourselves something to eat, we'd clean the house, we'd play outside with our friends, we'd run the mile to the restaurant, grab a quick bike there, maybe, then leave again. We were on our own. I remember friends peeling off one by one as their mothers called time for dinner. And we were the urchins that were still outside. There was no dinner time. We ran to the restaurant whenever we were hungry.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And so even so I assume as it got close to bedtime though, your mom would at least leave the restaurant and get you guys settled in?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: yeah, she'd usually be home by like five or six, I guess. My dad would show up around eight or nine. but we didn't really have a bedtime. It was vi it was very unstructured. As and we learned to be invisible very quickly. Because number one, my mom was in love with shows like Dallas and Dynasty and Knott's Landing and showing her the life that she thought America represented. She said when she got here, she thought everyone was rich and she was Very quickly removed of that opinion. but those shows came on in the 80s, and she's like, that's what I envisioned. But you gotta understand the language, the the vernacular, the pop culture references, she didn't quite get them. So at eight years old, at 10 years old, I had to watch Who Shot JR with her so that we could translate. I knew at 10 years old that JR was sleeping with Kristen, that he was intentionally getting Sue and drunk to throw her in the sanitarium. you know, I had it down cold.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, absolutely. Drama back then, right? But how Yeah
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dude, it was awesome.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It was. Do you remember there was the like Who Shot JR shirts, buttons? Remember buttons was big, right? Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. So I've done a lot I I did a deep dive into it not too long ago. And part of what did that was unintentional. There was a major writer strike that meant that that lasted three months longer than it should have. That that extended that whole cliffhanger. Just like so much in our lives, we didn't get what we wanted whenever we wanted it. We got it when it became available. That's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the difference.
GenX Adulting Podcast: One hundred percent. And that's such a great example of that. That's a great so and but I just thinking about you with an immigrant parent who I assume she understood enough English to run a diner, but you're saying as far as the what was going on in pop culture and it show the nuance. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, so I mean some of the pop culture references. Think about like a word like I use sanitarium. They Sue Ellen
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: was constantly going to the sanitarium because of her what now would be understood as an illness. Back
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: then she was just a sloppy drunk. That's the way the eighties worked.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So my mom understood sloppy drunk, maybe not so much sanitarium. That's where the help came
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: in.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. So you're there with your mom. Did your brothers help too? Was it like the three of you? Was it
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: yeah, it was it was a family affair. We were good.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I'm sure you got to stay up. That came on at like nine or ten or two.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: As long as we didn't fight, we were up till eleven o'clock every night.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was gonna say, yeah, because I didn't get to stay up and watch what was on at ten? Was it Dynasty or one of them was at ten?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dynasty was 10 o'clock on Wednesdays. Dallas came on at 9. They pivoted it. And then Knott's Landing would be right after, which then got moved to Thursdays, and then Falcon Crest came on. I'm telling you, for a kid that was outside as often as I was, as soon as it was six, seven o'clock, streetlights are on, TV. I so much television.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, and back then you got actual a huge number of episodes. I think it would be like what forty episodes or something. Okay. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Mm-hmm. 25 to 30 episodes a season. And you gotta remember, they were still filming as we were watching. They weren't done yet. Whereas
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: now they wait until the entire season is filmed and then they release it all at once, eight episodes. You know, the eighties was all about the miniseries, and now I feel like everything is a mini-series.
GenX Adulting Podcast: One hundred percent. One and then the excitement was in the summer you'd get to watch reruns and then you'd be waiting
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, so Knight Rider would maybe be up against Dukes of Hazard. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: you had to make this this Sophie's choice about what you were gonna watch.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And so the summer was a chance to get some of that back. So now I'm gonna pivot and watch Knight Rider instead or A-Team or, you know, whatever it was. Let's be honest, even when VCRs came along, I don't know about you, we used them to watch movies. We rarely had it set to record so that we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: could watch one thing while taping another. We didn't do that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, same, same. No, it was more to watch movies. unless there was like some major thing. Like I remember recording LiveAid because I was like but I was watching
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, but you were watching it at the same time.
GenX Adulting Podcast: it as I was recording it because I wanted to remember it, right? yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, we did it for posterity, not to see what else was on.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Absolutely. You know, I never thought about that, that reruns gave us a chance to watch the shows we didn't get to watch during the regular season. You're so right about that. And then there was always this anticipation of the fall and that the new the new seasons.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. The the shows that would come on the specials to give you especially Saturday morning cartoons. When they do the Saturday morning
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: cartoon preview, it was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever. Because there were, you know, we all talk about Saturday morning cartoons. I've talked about it a lot and and we really do give it its due, but every once in a while there was a really bad slot of cartoons.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You know, when I I call it the the serial years, where everything was like about it was the Pac Man cartoon or the you know, it wasn't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it was just selling to us. Then it was kinda rough.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. Okay, so you guys are like you're out doing the latchkey feral thing, and then in doing just the typical Gen X, watching all the shows, watching all the pop culture. You're going to bed late. Were you guys tired for school? Cause you're having to get up early. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dude, I don't remember ever being tired as a kid. I'm really tired now. Tired was like sunscreen. I don't think it existed in the 80s.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's true. That's so true, actually. I yeah, that's so true. Yeah, now that you say that, I don't I don't know. I remember being tired in high school, but I think it's 'cause I was partying. So I was probably hung over. But Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. Yeah, that's hungover. You're mistaking the two things.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I was hung over. We just went and went and went. We just went and went and went.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dude, I mean, when's the last time you thought about running? When when someone says, Were you tired as a kid? We ran everywhere. You got off the bus, you ran to the door. You went
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: next door to a friend's house, you didn't walk, you ran. If we were running kind there was no tired. Now I think back and I get tired.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, I know. Yeah. There was always that urgency of let's go do this. Let's do let's go do that. Let's yeah, you're so right. Well, we we had all of that freedom. It's
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: really an amazing thing when you think about it. So when you were in elementary school and into junior high, because you I know your parents had the diner and so you had that to go to, but were you involved in any extracurriculars like sports or art or clubs or theater?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So I mean we worked at the restaurant, I could carry four coffee cups and make change out of a twenty at the age of six. I mean my dad's favorite game would be to run around the corner and say, How many dollars are in forty seven quarters? And then we had to answer it like that. And if we didn't get it, he's like, Well I thought I'd send you to school.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome. I have a question about that. Why why are there's a a lot of folks from Greece own diners? What's the the rub there?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Because it was something they could do with limited language and a lot of work. If they
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: were willing to put their backs into it, be the cook, be the dishwasher, the wife would man the cash register, be the waitress, the kids would run around, they could do that sort of work just based on the sweat of their brow. And they knew
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: food.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No that yes they do. They still know food. Our local town diner was owned by a Greek family. So is that too
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yep. It truly is because it's something they could do with limited levels of expertise and just a lot of work.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So did you not do extracurricular extracurriculars because you were at the diner?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: In high school, I did every I was a theater kid. I did every play that came along. I was a political
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: kid. I did student council. I was kind of a nerd. So by the time high school came, I remember being really bored with school. So if something popped up that could get me out of school, I was all over it. we had this thing called Boy State, which the American Legion does, and they do a boy state and girl state in like every state. So five thousand kids got picked for New York. I became governor. of our boy state out of the five thousand, which got me to go to Boys Nation in Washington, where I met President Reagan and I was one of the two people selected for the presidential race in that. I got to go to the Netherlands and England as part of the 25 kids the US picks for a model UN. so I just I did a lot of extracurriculars, but like everything else, I did it while working. I I I worked at the restaurant every weekend. At 10, I would do overnights on the weekend with my mom So that we would be busy after bar rush in town. And I remember reading in the booth, because I was a nerd, I'd read my Stephen King books at 10 years old. Then two in the morning would hit. I would bust tables like a maniac. Four in the morning we'd go home. Nine o'clock, I'd be up playing with my friends. At fourteen, my parents showed up with working papers and said, It's time for you to work now. And I'm like, Well, what have I been doing so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Ha ha ha.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: far? And like, no, no, not for someone else. They got me a job across the street for a a lumber yard and hardware store because it was important that I learned to work for someone else. never remember getting a paycheck. My mom put that away for me somewhere safe. I assume it's still calculating interest today.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so wait. So so you go and work in a lumber yard after working at the diner basically from your earliest formative years. what was it like having to work for someone else after working for your parents for so long?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We were always the best employees, and I I mean that humbly but honestly. It didn't matter how old I was. My parents would come visit me in college and I'd be wait being I'd be serving at like a macaroni company at a Italian restaurant or I'd be bartending somewhere. Didn't matter where I went, my mom always said that she was so proud to hear every employer we ever had say nothing but amazing things about us kids. I would show up at work hungover, stamp still on my hand, I would work the full sh You it's it we were just raised that work was really important and how you were perceived at work was really important. And we had
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: bosses, you know. I I remember not only did I work the lumber yard, my brother worked for a clothing store in town, like a surplus store called Gallows. And Joe Gallows said, I want you to work for me too. And I'm sure, I got some time. And I picked up a third job while, you know, at school and on summers. And the things that Matt I cannot tell you how many times he threatened me that if I didn't find second gear, he was gonna break his foot off in my ass. You know, there's no HR. But it
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it's okay. You know what I did? I found second gear. It it was important. And and I mean I'm really glad for it too.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think that overall, Gen Xers had a strong work ethic because we didn't think that calling into work was an option. We that was never an option unless you're literally throwing up and can't stop and are dying on the floor. It was not like you said, stamp on the hand, hung over, maybe didn't sleep, breaking out in a cold sweat, you're still going to work. It just was never given that space was never given to us. And so the concept of not going to work the next day or not going to school the next day, it didn't exist.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And I'll give credit where it's due. I'm a hard worker, not like my parents. They were insane. The level of work our parents, for a lot of us, were able to put in. I don't remember my father being sick ever. Ever.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: 12, 14, 16, 18 hour days routinely. And still coming home and being affectionate and a good dad and and all those things. So I think we emulated what we saw for for I think the reason we did it was twofold. One, it was expected of us, and two, we didn't want to fall short of that expectation out of a sense of respect. I think part of what we need to own is our kids don't need to live up to that expectation because we've kind of relieved them of that expectation.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, I think it's an interesting thing we've tried to balance as parents of giving them more space to be able to communicate their needs and actually validate those needs while also trying to still inst still instill a work ethic and expectations. And that's a delicate balance right there. You can easily falter. and
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And we did.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and in and in a lot of ways we did. And a lot of no, no, no. No.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm not saying you and I necessarily, but generationally speaking, we fucked up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I think we tried in some ways too hard to for some of us. It's
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: The road to hell is paved with good attentions.
GenX Adulting Podcast: funny you you say you're you don't remember your dad ever being sick. I remember my dad being sick once and we're like, Is he gonna die? And I
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: think he just had the flu. You're like, my god, he's staying home.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, my dad, I remember we were he has to stop by the restaurant for something. And Sunday was the one day the restaurant closed early. From Friday at six AM till Sunday at one PM, it didn't close. But at one PM on Sunday, that was it. The restaurants closed. That was the early day. Not so we could go to church or anything, but just so that my dad could breathe a little bit.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And I remember we had to go to the restaurant on a Sunday and it was blazing hot. and we had had one of the Glass doors leading into the restaurant break. So the glass man came and delivered a sheet of glass and left it outside. And my dad didn't want it outside because somebody might get hurt. Left us in the car. We must have been in the car for an hour. Me and my younger brother, very young, eight and four, before we realized, wait a minute, where the hell's dad? When he moved the glass pane into the restaurant, going from hot to cold, it shattered. Shredded his arm. He flagged down a truck driving by and got taken to the hospital. And we were still in the car playing with the cigarette lighter, burning ourselves
GenX Adulting Podcast: my god.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: at will. It wasn't till the New York State trooper came to get us that we realized something was wrong. And my dad was in surgery. They were reconnecting tendons and nerve endings. He was back at work two days later.
GenX Adulting Podcast: my gosh. And also let's note you guys were left in the hotel. With the windows
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, well
GenX Adulting Podcast: up.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the only missing was the free to a good home sticker on our chest.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Now they'd be like arresting your dad for leaving you guys. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dude, we treat dogs better than they treated us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's so true. It's so true. So you okay, so you're working, you're doing all the things and you were able to maintain your academics?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, and more importantly, my play. I had an amazing childhood. It all fit. It all
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: fit. The only thing that might have been sacrificed is sleep. Which
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: was another good lesson. Because you know what? It's overrated.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It you know, it's funny. I think w we get less sleep now than ever, and but we're more productive than we've ever been. And I never thought that would happen.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Good. Dude, when I hear you know, I when I hear Gen X's are like, I'd still go out, but I gotta be in at nine. No, I don't. Everything in moderat I'm a night owl anyway though. I've I was up till two, three in the morning last night. I got up at nine today. I I don't know. It's I I I I'll sleep when I'm dead.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Can you though so how's your social battery now? Like when you say you can be out, can you be socializing late and s not hit that wall of okay, I'm done talking to people?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: My s so I there's no wall to hit. If I'm with a group of people that I'm comfortable and happy and I'm glad to be there, I could be there for hours on end, never ending. If I'm being dragged to a wedding where I know nobody and my wife is making me do it out of obligation, I'm ready to go for minute one. So it's not a I ran out. It's either I've got it or I don't.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I've got a question. Yeah. Do are you do you go out voluntarily or do you have to get dragged out?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So until about six months ago I was still bartending two, three nights a week just because I wanted to get out of the studio.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So I didn't stay here all the time.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Well, you grew up interacting with people in a service industry. So that's like hardwired in you. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. Well, and I mean I talk about the restaurant, but when I was fifteen, so the the r the building our restaurant was in that we owned, we rented out half of it to to a bakery at one point, to like a convenience store at one point. And when it became empty, we lost our our our tenant when I was fifteen or sixteen. So my parents built a bar because my older brother wanted to get into the bar business. So at eighteen they built him a bar and he ran it while in high school.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Nice.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: He hired the bands. It was only open on the weekends because that was his schedule. Because again, he was in high school. He bartended at eighteen. He hired the staff at eighteen. He did the bands and the payroll at eighteen. And I was bar backing right next to him at fifteen. And then half the time just started bartending anyway because people asked me for a beer, so I opened it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And back then you could legally. Not necessarily. no. No. I thought you could back then. there was still
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No. Legally no. but nobody cared. Especially again, small town. Who cares?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what a good deal for your parents, because they have a diner next door twenty four hours. People are leaving. And they get French fries.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And and they would go right from one to the other. They would eat dinner, they would get drunk, they would come back, sober up, eat breakfast and go home. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah, no, your your parents were on it with that. So by the time you were 18, how many different jobs did you have?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, I I'd worked at a restaurant, I'd worked at Gallows, the clothing store, I worked at Russell's, which was a hardware store, lumber yard. then I went to college in Buffalo, which is about two hours away.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: When I got to Buffalo, I got a job at a place that was like a service merchandise or brand names. It was called Doll Kempers. And I got that job my first day I secured a job there and working at a restaurant called the Macaroni Company. So I was working two jobs while I was at college just because the hours worked really well. And it's one thing to make five dollars an hour at a retail store. You always made more money serving. So I I ended up doing both and then on the weekends I would drive home and work the bar.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow. Okay, so as far as college, were you guys raised? Was college discussed? Was it assumed you were guys were going to college?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That was something and then where did you go?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: University of Buffalo.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And was that your first choice? Was that where you
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No.
GenX Adulting Podcast: went
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That's where my my brother went to Buffalo, so I had to go to Buffalo. My parents
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: were already paying for an apartment there. That was it. It was done. You can go to Buffalo
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: State or you can go to University of Buffalo. You choose. So I chose UB because he went to Buff State. I that but felt like I was flexing something by choosing the other school.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so wait, so they did you live in a dorm? 'Cause
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, I lived in an apartment with my brother.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so your brother was there. Okay. So was your other brother at the at about
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So four years between us, so my older brother was already at college when I joined him. He was finishing up
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: his fifth year when I started school at UB. And then my younger brother would have been just starting high school and he started working at the bar. We like it was perfect timing. I'd go
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: home on the weekends to run the bar and my little brother would bar back with me the same way I had done earlier with my older brother.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's actually really awesome. Are you still the three of you super close? That is really, really cool. Okay, so you're living in an apartment with your older brother. So you didn't really have that dorm experience then,
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I assume. And you were going home on the weekends. So did you ever have that party experience in college?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: not right away. When I was a s junior, let me think, two years in. About two years in, my brother, my parents bought the built the bar in Wolcott for my older brother. And then when he was 21, 22? Yeah, and I was about 18. So it was really after my first year of college. With my parents' help, he bought a bar in Buffalo. And then I started bartending while going to college. So I'd work four or five nights a week while in college at eighteen, nineteen years old at his bar. and that's when the partying happened. I just got paid to do it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah. That's awesome. D what did you go to school for?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: English education.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And is that what you graduated with?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It's what I graduated with. There's no way I could have ever become a teacher. That was a huge misconnection. I love English. I love teaching. I hate parents.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well then don't go into teaching, that's for sure. So
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Exactly. Nope. I started student teaching and I just I I just I couldn't do it. Parents coming in. It's a different what it comes down to is that was the beginning of things changing. When we were getting through school, our parents would show up at a conference and say, My kid did what? And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: then this was when they started saying, My kid did what? And and it shifted. No longer was the teacher automatically believed the kid was. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm like, I can't do this.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And that's just amplified every
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: decade. Yeah, they blame the kids. It's never rarely the kids respond they never look at their kid first.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And listen, I get part of it. I grew up where if there was a fight, I remember Mr. Paul Dean, Mr. Cheryl, Mr. Bogart grabbing kids, throwing them against the wall, doing I mean, they got into it and ended it. And no kid thought for a second, I'm taking a swing at these guys. It didn't happen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I remember being paddled by a teacher. I have no misgivings about it. I thought it was all just fine. I get a call tomorrow that a teacher put their hand on my 14-year-old daughter. For as much as I'm saying it was fine for me. I've got to be a little bit of a hypocrite here. Maybe it's because I truly don't believe my kid would ever give a person a reason to hit them. And I really believe that because they have the fear of God in them. I raised them, my wife and I are both Greek. Our kids would never. They they so maybe there's that. I don't know. But yeah, as much as I say, you know, I'm I'm on the teacher's side, if I've heard that the school put their hands on my daughter, it wouldn't be a good day.
GenX Adulting Podcast: But I think no, I think that's consistent though in general with our parenting. I think that's where I think the trick gets us, is that we know all the things. So we're not ignorant, but we're there's so much we're not gonna let our kit happen to our kids. We're not gonna let our kids be exposed to, or we're gonna have their back where maybe nobody had ours, not even our parents' fault, just society in general wasn't like that at the time. So I think that's the mix of our parenting is a little bit of. our upbringing, but we also did flip it a little bit. And as you said, some of us went too far on the flip, you know, and I'm think I Yeah, probably.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I think we all went too far on the flip on some level. In f if we're being honest, we'll look and say, okay, over here I overdid it. But what parent
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: doesn't?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Exactly. Exactly. And I'll I think that what's gonna happen is cause in technology wise, because we were the first ones who first parents who had kids who had phones. We are the first generation of parents who have kids who have phones. And I think that as protective as we were, maybe they weren't as feral as us because we knew what was out there with technology, we were semi-ignorant. And I think it'll be interesting to see what the Gen Z parents do. I think they're gonna be more protective with technology with their kids because they know technology. So I think they'll be more on it. It's all an evolution, right?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It's an evolution, but I honestly I think we know technology better than they do.
GenX Adulting Podcast: As far as I would agree. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: As far as understand so Gen Z doesn't know what's behind the screen. They know that if I tap it, it does this. But we're the generation that had to code, that had to use HTML, that had to build programs, that learned basic, that learned cobalt, that learned all these. They don't. They just push it. They don't know technology. They use technology. So I honestly think
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: we might have been the last real barrier to tech. I honestly think Gen Z parents are gonna have a hard time keeping technology away from alpha because it's what they grew up with. It'd be like us limiting TV time. We talked about it, we didn't do it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's such a great point. An iPad to watch it in real time while we're eating dinner. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, but you're right. That is such a great point as far as you guys, we all know how it's created technology, but they have no idea. Well it's amplified
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No idea.
GenX Adulting Podcast: too with AI, right? It you make
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It's gonna get worse.
GenX Adulting Podcast: yeah, like it's a year and a half ago I coded our website. Now I tell Claude, Claude, do this, do that, do this.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, we have a curiosity that doesn't exist. Like I was using AI a chat for something, and I inherently will click to see what's behind it. And you can actually force chat to show you its reasoning as it builds the answer through the prompt. My daughter, my twenty two year old, looked at me and said, What is it doing? I go, I'm looking at the source code 'cause that's what we always used to call the information behind the website.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yep.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That language, she's like, I don't know what you're saying.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, you're right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You know, and I showed her. I yeah, on the I right click view source, there's the this the what's behind there or what used to be behind. We under I on I honestly, our parents didn't get tech. I don't think our kids get it. We are again the anomaly.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I totally agree. 'Cause I'll do that too. I'd love to see how it was done. I can't help but do that. I think piece it together. We are the only generation that went from analog to technology as well. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Millennials will claim that, and I'm okay with it, but they're not the first. I mean, honestly, I was born in 70. You were born, you said 71. So at nine years old, I remember Atari becoming a thing. That's you know, Pong becoming a thing. When they
GenX Adulting Podcast: Totally. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: say technology, they inherently mean the internet. We mean
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: no, the advent of technology entering the home as anything but television entertainment. You know, the boomers can lay claim to it and say, well, we were the first ones that went from radio to TV. I'm like, okay. But something different about a game designed to keep you there using all kinds of tips and tricks. I mean, it w it's just different.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. And I remember when it when we got Atari, it was a huge deal. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: How did we get Atari? We're a generation of people whose parents said close enough as as a as a universal motto. Atari was like $500 back then. To this day, I don't understand my how my parents have it must have been like the only Christmas gift for all three of us. Because adjusted
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: for inflation, it's like $1,500.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, no, I know when I got it, that's what I got. It wasn't
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: like there was other things that came with it. And it was like what you said, Pong or whatever that thing was where it bounced Well, that was the first one. Yeah. Yeah,
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, we had com we played combat. We played combat for like six months because there wasn't another game coming. The one that came
GenX Adulting Podcast: totally.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: with it is what we played.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I remember getting the Indy five hundred game with the spinning deal and that was so much fun. We'd spend hours playing that. I don't remember that game. I don't I never had that game. My favorite game. You could go into ice mode and they made it black and white. So then as you're driving, you'd kinda like spin it, spin out type of thing. But the combat was tremendous. A breakout. Yeah. They had the paddle too. Yeah. So my favorite
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I remember breakout. Breakout was the only one I used the paddles for. Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: was Pac Pac Man changed my whole life and missed Pac Man.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So Atari sent me the Pac Man version of the Atari game that they have out now as part of
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: their press kit. and I've been like addicted. My my kids are like
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's amazing.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: every time we walk in the house, we're ban ban ban, just leave me alone.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Pac Man took over our whole world. It was a phenomenon. And arcades, like that whole that whole thing was just magical. There's no question.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Here's what's amazing, though, and I'll never get tired of talking about this. All of these enhancements that we went through one after another, we used as a means of increased socialization. Very rarely did you sit in your room by yourself playing Atari. It almost never happened. I very we become bored with it very quickly. It was a last option. I'd rather do almost anything else. Friends are playing outside, I'd be outside. Someone was either on the second joystick or even in the arcades, people would
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: put quarters up on the screen and huddle behind you watching. And if you were good, that was a very social experience.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. You get to keep playing. Yeah. And everyone and everyone's like, Bring your own.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, and people would keep watching.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, you're so right. It was a social experience for us. At at the diner, did you guys have video games? Like at the in in the interview?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So we had one that they would swap out. So I became king of whatever game that was. I could
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: play Pac-Man on a quarter for a good hour and a half by memorizing the different screen patterns. Asteroids deluxe we had for a while, Centipede, and the guy who did it, we'd get fifty percent of the proceeds. He would swap out the machines. And if I'd marked my quarters with a marker, he'd give them back to me when he ran them
GenX Adulting Podcast: that's cool.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: through.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow. That did you guys have cigarette machine? Yeah. The old pull the lever deal, right? Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We did. Yep. I can steal yeah. Mm my mom smoked Territon one hundred. Everyone's like, I got to go to the store and get cigarettes from my mom with the note. I'm like, I threw the quarters of the machine myself and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Did you ever sneak packs for yourself?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I didn't smoke until college. bartending,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: finally it got me. There was just so much smoke in the bar anyway, that at
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: one point, in a drunken stupor, I just picked up a cigarette and and then that was all she wrote for the next 40 years, 30 years.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so you weren't just a smoke a social smoker, you you smoked. Yeah. Would they s would
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: no, there's no social behind it. I was addicted hardcore, junkie.
GenX Adulting Podcast: they smoke in the diner too though? 'Cause I think that was a thing. Yeah. Well, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: yeah. sure. At some point there'd be a non-smoking section, but it's not like the smoke followed
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the rules.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, no. The non smoking section was always just such an interesting phenomenon to me because it never worked. Yeah. And and then for everything to go non we were part of that. Smoking
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: everywhere, non smoking sections, no smoking anywhere, including bars. And now, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And I hated it. No smoking in the bar. I'm like, if you don't want to smoke in the bar, don't be in a bar. People
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: are drinking and smoking here. That's what we do.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. And that actually hurts tips for service people. Cause if you let people smoke in a bar, they're gonna sta they're gonna tip you better. They're gonna stay there longer, they're gonna enjoy themselves, the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. But people have adjusted to go outside, they have a cigarette, they come back.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. So when you graduated from college so you worked the two jobs and then you bartended
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. Well, and then once my brother's bar was up and running, I still worked at the one so the only gi I'd always work at his place, and then I picked up different things for fun. Like I worked security at Rich Stadium for the Buffalo Bills so I could go to watch Free Bills games on Sundays. Jim Kelly opened up Kelly the Jim Kelly Sports City Grill. So I started serving there just so that I could meet all the Bills players. And then he took a bunch of us kids for You know, the events he would do when we would intern. And then I started bartending at Network and which was his bar. So always something else too. Just because I mean especially bartending and serving meant, you know, Jim Kelly's Sports City Grill and any given shift, there are 20, 21-year-olds working any shift. We'd get done and we didn't have to find the bar that had the people in it. We were the people. We'd
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: show up 20 strong with a pocket full of tip cash. And that was it. That bar made bank that night. Those bartenders crushed it for tips.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome. So I I assume you're a Bills fan. Looks like he's part of Bill's mafia. Have
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Huge.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you talked to Nick Harrison, the professor? Yeah, yeah. He's a big yeah. that's awesome.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Nick's a buddy of mine. He's not from Buffalo. He's a poser when it comes to the Bills, like he is when it comes to Gen X. You know, he's like a 1981 baby or something stupid like that. I'm like, dude, where
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: do you get off number one fronting for the Bills Mafia? And then number two, you're the youngest Xer I've ever met, and yet somehow managed to look older than all of us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. It's awesome. He's eighty. He's eighty.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: He looks eighty.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. But he's only thirty. He's nineteen eighty. Yeah, he's nineteen eighty. Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dude looks like he survived all four of those Super Bowl losses.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We had him on. He's the last one. He's the youngest, I think, we've had on. That
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: sure.
GenX Adulting Podcast: had to have been cool though, that whole Jim Kelly back then, right? The the Bills were good. They kept losing, which was a shame. They never got over the line, but they were good teams.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, do you do you see the bla d do you do you see what you just said there? It it wasn't it cool, isn't the word I would use. It was fun to be part of a dynasty of losers, let's put it that way. Not exactly New England level status, but
GenX Adulting Podcast: But there was always hope. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it was it was it was something.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Okay, so when you grab
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It was kind of like being Gen X. The Bills, if there's a Gen X of the NFL, it would be the Buffalo Bills.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. That's a great way to sum them up. I love that. Yeah, it's such a shame. They never got over the hump. When you graduated college, where did you go next?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: kept working with my brother. He'd opened a second place at that point. I had this idea that there was no hurry. So you gotta remember when we graduated, I graduated in the early 90s. There was nothing waiting for us. That was like one of many major recessions, one following another. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: when Gen Z talks all the time about how tough it is for them, I get it. I can do the math. I understand that, you know, we've never seen certain things like housing costs are at an all-time high. I get it. But it wasn't exactly easy for us either. The boomers were clinging to their jobs. Their four one Ks just got trashed. We came into a period of time where McJobs were the only thing available. I couldn't get a job that didn't necessitate putting on a name tag. So I was in no hurry. I'm like, what's the point of this? I'm not gonna go work for the geek squad. I'll continue to get drunk every night and hooking up with girls and bartending and having a good time. So, you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: know, twenty three, twenty-four, twenty-five, that's kinda where I stayed.
GenX Adulting Podcast: In Buffalo?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Until, you know, I met my wife, I think I was 29. We got married when I was 30, and then I got into banking. I finally grew up and started working for Chase, first as a platform banker, and then as a branch manager, and then I moved on to an area manager for a different and then stayed in that field.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: But even then I was bartending every weekend because my wife was stay at home and we did the math. I'm like, listen, if I bartend two nights a week, minus taxes, minus daycare, minus that's what you would be bringing in. So you wanna stay home, I'll just bartend on the weekends.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So during your twenties, were you doing all that in Buffalo? Did you stay in Buffalo?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Mm-hmm. I had the best time ever.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So you so your twenties so your college and twenties were in Buffalo.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And how did you meet your wife?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: arranged, so to speak. I met friends who were like, All right, you're 29. You having a good time? That's good. That's about to end. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: there's a Greek festival coming up, and my one friend's wife is like, Okay, so there's four girls you need to meet. They'll be meeting you at the festival. And I'm like, what the hell does that mean? Like, no pressure. We're just gonna introduce you to some people. And I'm like, you're out of your ever-loving mind if you think this is gonna work. So I I I met my wife and I that was honestly that was it. Done. Finished over. Instant.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That was it.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Like that. and then my friend still put it over, you weren't ready to settle down and then ten minutes later, done. But it's the truth. Ten minutes later I was done. That's
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's how it goes though.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: how it goes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's how it goes. It's almost it sounds almost like a Greek dating game at the festival and and you
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You're only allowed to be single for so long in the Greek community. I mean it it'd be otherwise they're just like, Okay, what's wrong? Are you gay? Find a nice boy. Why for you not get married?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah. What's your problem? Now, was it always expected of you to marry someone Greek?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, my brothers didn't. It just worked
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: out. And you know, I tell my kids all the time, I get that sometimes opposites attract and it's not here's the thing though, I go, life gets really difficult. Life is gonna be hard. Life is going to suck. Life is gonna try to pull you away from your partner, even if it's not their fault. So the more things that you have, areas that touch and connect. and commonality. So your faith is the same and your upbringing is the same. And by the way, your parents still speak the same native language. So I can go to dinner with her folks and speak to them in Greek. And she can do the same with mine. It's it helps. It's just one the more you connect in that web, the more things that hold that web together, the more it's going to be able to take what life throws at you.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's so true. That's such great advice. So when you guys got how long did you date before you got married?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So we dated maybe three months before we knew we were going to get married. We probably got married a year and a half after our first date.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And was she from Buffalo?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: From Rochester, so one town over.
GenX Adulting Podcast: But you guys didn't know each other growing up?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She spent the night in my house when I was like 11.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Really?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Her first cousin, my mother baptized. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: my wife's first cousin is my godsister. We didn't know each other though. We didn't really go to the same. We looked at pictures. I'm like, how could we not have been at the same birthday parties? She's like, because my cousins did family party first, then friend party second, and we were never invited to both. But one time she came with my stepsister Alex to visit. And I met her when I was eleven and she didn't give me the time of day. Nothing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So, did you guys go to the same church?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We went to the same church, but again, we moved forty five minutes outside of the city of Rochester. So we were CEO kind of church people, Christmas Easter only.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it and plus the restaurant was always open on Sundays and we figured God understood.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, of course. And then you said your mom baptized her first cousin. Did your mom volunteer in the church?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It was forty five no, my mom volunteered at the restaurant.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So how does she because I'm Catholic, so in order to baptize someone, you have to be Phili. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Have money.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You have to pay the church. Member in good standing, up to date on your gifting.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Your tithing. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Okay. What a trip though that she spent the night at your house when you were eleven.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow. Okay. So you guys get married and then did you stay in Buffalo?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I moved to Rochester.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. What's the time difference there? How long how far away is it?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Forty five an hour maybe. We would so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, okay. that's not bad at all.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: we would set up a date. I would meet her at her sister's house. So in Gree for from for a lot of Greek families, you don't leave the house, especially if you're a girl until you get married. So even though my wife was in her twenties, she was still living at home. Now, when I would pick her up for a date, I wouldn't pick her up at her parents' house. I would pick her up at her sister's house. So she would go to her mare older sister's house, who was married, and we'd meet there, and then supposedly Go to our date. We never ended up going to the date. Her sister n I let me make a pot of coffee, then you guys can go. We would be just talking, laughing till three in the morning. I'd get on the throughway to go back to Buffalo. I'd shower and go to work. Rinse and repeat over and over again. It's like I said, sleep is overrated.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You know what though? That's effort and that's standards. And I think that's what's missing, unfortunately, for a lot of Gen Z young women, is they're not they're young men aren't doing that's connection too. Well yeah, but I mean that effort Yeah, yeah. That's effort. And I know that there are young men that do that, but that's not necessarily I think technology has also removed effort. We worked for things. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dude, d dude, do you remember being in a bar, seeing a girl? And I'm I'm not gonna speak to your motives. We're not gonna get into that, but for whatever reason you deemed it worth the risk to cross that long floor, break the circle of friends she's with, because they traveled in packs, and try to to do whatever it took to peel her away from the flock. Nine times out of ten, you walked back d's done. the whole world witnessing. your level of rejection. Because not only did you have to have that girl's interest, you had the one friend that didn't want to let her go for whatever reason and was like, no, if if you're leaving, I'm leaving. So I mean that that the bouncer had to be met. kids don't do that today. It's swipe
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: left or swipe right, but to face to face in public? No.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, and I think it's a rite of passage, especially for young men. And I think it's such a disservice to them. They don't get that opportunity. 'Cause I do think they would rise to the occasion, but things have been made too easy for them.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: They there's never been say I I and I make a lot of videos. If you see my content, I've got what I call a lot of different verticals. It's almost like the Carol Burnett showed part skit, part this, part that. One of the things that I keep going back to is reacting to the younger generations. They'll put something up and I'll react to it. No matter what else may be true of them, this is the most anxiety ridden generation in the history of of the world. Medicaid and I again, I'm making no judgment. Maybe we've all been anxiety ridden. We just weren't allowed to feel it. Maybe we all needed therapy and medication. We weren't allowed to take it. but all of that aside, dude, they can't, there's they can't talk to people. To tell them to go up to a stranger, especially an adult. I told my daughter, well, you realize every time I had to call your mom, I had to talk to her father first. At eight
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: years old, 10 years old, 15 years old, I didn't snap them. I called their house phone and spoke to their mom or their dad and asked permission to speak with them. Give my intentions. Hello, Mr. Campbell. This is Johnny Katriti's calling. I was wondering if it was okay for me to speak with Rachelle. I had some questions about homework. There was a speech, or you didn't get through. You called at
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the wrong time, you didn't get through. You called during dinner, you didn't get through.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, I remember that being a big thing. You don't call during dinner. Like that was a societal thing. You do not call during dinner.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No. And it and when you did, you got snapped at. Please don't call during dinner again. Click.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. And that was even true, like for a girl just calling another friend's house. Like you would speak to their parents and you'd say, Hi, Mrs. Smith.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: They don't speak to us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's and you'd say it's it's Nicole. Can I is Tracy home?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. Your kids' friends maybe if they were coming over for something, but otherwise they bypassed us entirely. They called
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: their phone, they snap, they text. We're not involved.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, and it it is. It's a whole it's such a huge shift. And I don't think any of that's for the better because I think you're right. And then thrown COVID, right? And depending on what state you were in, the lockdown could have been way more extreme than you know, like Florida. yeah. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We're in South Carolina now, so we we're just south of Charlotte. My brother's experience in New York versus ours in South Carolina, night and day. He saw a Facebook post
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. We were just through there last week. We were.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I did in October of twenty nineteen or twenty twenty. My nine year old's trick-or-treating. We're on a big we we ha took a truck in our neighborhood, put a hay ride behind it, and he called me, he's like, What are all those kids doing trick-or-treating together? My only answer was twofold. I'm like, well, we're in South Carolina. And two, to be fair, they are wearing masks. They're just gas for masks.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. It's true. That's funny. Well, we're in Florida, so you can imagine. We were even worse than South Carolina. So during that time. Will you go square dancing? And then like junior high, the dances. Right. So we we started that stuff at a young age. They don't do it at all.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. And we had a lot more dances. My daughter might have two.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We had one almost every month because drama club would sponsor what we called a record hop. A V Club would sponsor it, whomever, and you would pay two dollars to get in, and that money would go to the club. So we had these little dances constantly, and even though they were informal, it was never a dance if there wasn't a group of girls by the girl by by the girls' bathroom consoling one of the girls who was crying her eyes out because something had happened. I mean
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We talk about Dallas and Dynasty and Knotts Landing. Middle school dances had drama all over any of those.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's so true. It's so true. But you're right, even in middle school, there's like no dances. I I was shocked. My kids didn't go through that. We had so many dances, so many dances in high school. They tried it once, right? 'Cause the covet shit or something. They tried it, but that they shouldn't be trying to
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: This and they also do stupid things like they would have the dance on one side and then they would open the gym up on the other so the boys could go throw basketballs. If
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: you have a fourteen year old boy and you say, Be rejected by a girl or go shoot basketball, what do you think is gonna happen?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Exactly. And I know exactly what you're talking about. My kids went to Catholic school and they did that. And all the boys yeah, all the boys are playing basketball. All the girls who
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Don't do that. Yeah, no.
GenX Adulting Podcast: took all that time to get themselves all pretty and they were all excited are just standing there in circles talking to each other, wishing. No.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yep. No, don't do that. That doesn't happen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I agree. Okay. So when you guys moved to Rochester, your wife's a stay at home mom. How many kids did you guys have?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So we had my oldest daughter in 2003.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We'd been married just about a year, even, no problem. she was even late. I think my oldest daughter was like three weeks post
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: delivery date. She just wouldn't come out.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and then my wife's job for the next eight years was to get pregnant. She got pregnant eight times in eight years, but we only have one other daughter. So Something happened during the delivery of my oldest daughter that compromised my wife's cervix and we couldn't get past 20 weeks. We would deliver the baby at 20 weeks, 21 weeks, she would lose it at 18. They and every time would be just different enough that they're like, well, this was premature rupture of membranes. This was a stillbirth. This was a premature delivery. Every doctor, so we never were able to say, hold on a second. This is the same thing happening all the time. Can we get insurance to pay for a surgical stitch, a cervical stitch, a circlage. Can we get help here? And they're like, well, these things happen. So finally with Cleo, they put in a circlage, stitched my wife's cervix shut, which got us five more weeks. She was delivered at 25 weeks, one pound 12 ounces, three and a half months early.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: But it was enough. She's no evidence of prematurity, doing remarkably well. She was a Rock star in the NICU, she came off the ventilator that first night. They told us it'd be six weeks on a ventilator. She was on it for a day.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: we we know that she was twins at when she was first conceived. We we knew there were twins coming. And then at about 12 weeks, the one Cleo ate her twin. The other one disappeared. And I'm You're such a bitch, you ate your own twin. You were like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: This one of us is not gonna make it out of here. It's gonna be me. And they literally
GenX Adulting Podcast: Gotta survive.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: say your wife was putting out. two times worth of everything and your daughter basically took it. Cause there was no
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: other twin there at that point in time. and we honestly think it propelled her forward just enough that that she wasn't as young as she appeared.
GenX Adulting Podcast: To go off the ventilator the first night's insane.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. It was insane. We had one nurse that came up to us the first night and she had been with us a little while and she knew my wife's history. And she goes, I just want you to know you're gonna have you have nothing to worry about. You will have no worries, no issues, and this will just sail by. And I remember being so angry, I go to my wife and go, She she can't say that. You know, I'm pragmatic, I'm Gen X. I'm like, she doesn't know what's coming. Where does she get off saying that? And we didn't see her again after that. And I'll be damned we had almost no issues all the way through. I don't know who that angel was. I don't know what she knew that we didn't know. And even though at the time I was a little angry, I it helped.
GenX Adulting Podcast: How long was she in the NICU total?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So she was born January twenty fourth, she was due May fourth, and she came home in April, so about a month before her due date. She was in there for ninety-two days.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So you guys were going back and forth every day?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Every day.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So eight years and you're saying eight lost pregnancies? So and that's not just losing in this first six weeks, seven weeks, eight that's losing
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, no, no. She d we delivered a little boy, we delivered a little girl. just too too little to to survive.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I mean that's trauma. I mean, especially for both you and your wife. Yeah. I mean for
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I guess. I God, I it sounds so cold. We got to a point where gallows humor comes into play, where this dark sense of humor we have comes into play and we'd we'd we'd deliver the child, we'd lose the baby, and you know, the nurses would come in and they'd be like, Do you need to speak to somebody? Do you need to see a therapist? And they'd walk out and we're like, Can we just go home? First of all, we had a daughter to go home to. So we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: weren't going home to an empty nursery. We'd had our miracle already and we were so grateful that we had what so many people struggling never got, which was a kid at home. So that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: was number one. Number two, we believed honestly that each time it was just waiting to g we didn't lose eight kids. It took nine kids to get the one we she was always
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: there, boy, girl, or otherwise, it was always Cleo. It was always going
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: to be Cleo. So we just kept trying until we couldn't try anymore. And if it happened, it happened. If it didn't, it didn't. And I'll be honest, when it happened, we're like, holy shit, we didn't think this would ever actually happen, you know?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Did it take you a long time to trust that she's okay and it this is it and it's actually happening?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Really. We weren't even really as as nervous as we should have been. We n I I I knew a lot. I'd done my research. There were people in the hospital that thought I was a doctor. They would always ask my wife, What kind of medicine does your husband practice? She's like, he doesn't. Please don't ever tell that to his face. we just we believed, we had faith. We
GenX Adulting Podcast: We have an internet.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: believed it would work out. It it is what it is.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Now d d did your older daughter was she old enough to be aware of what was going on? Okay. So that yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It sucked. It sucked for her. It sucked big time. She'd come off the bus. She'd see me home from work early. And I remember one of the losses, I got to the door and she wouldn't come to the door. She was standing by the bus and I'm like, how many county and she's like, No, why are you home? It it sucked for her. No, no two ways about it. Absolutely sucked for her.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So with Cleo, was she just ecstatic?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She was, but she's still an older sister who's eight years older than an annoying little sister. I go, You wanted
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: her so badly, now weeks go by you don't stop by.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I mean So it's normal.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Are they close?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: They love one another a great deal. They're as close as they could be with eight years between them. Fourteen
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, it's hard. We have
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and twenty two, the twenty two year old does things she wants to do.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. So our we have a twenty-nine, twenty-five, and then sixteen. So our twenty-nine and sixteen, there's a thirteen year he was our bonus baby, right? So there's a six thirteen year age gap and then ten year age gap. And it was like that for a long time. You know, they're away at college and he's nine. They're getting closer now. Now I will say that.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: They will.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Now now it's closing, right? And the older he gets, once he can go to bars, we're good. Well now they golf together too. Our older son and him golf too. It's it's a
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Nice.
GenX Adulting Podcast: the younger one gets old enough to do those adult things and then they they find each other again. So that was during your thirties, it sounds like, right? And you're in banking during that time. in Rochester, and your d your wife stayed home as you guys are building this family. You have a question. I do. Did that test you guys at all? Or bring you guys closer?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I can't tell you how many times I've told my daughter, especially the 22-year-old who's had relationships now, you'll rela don't buy into what society tells you. Relationships shouldn't be hard. Marriage doesn't necessarily marriage is hard work. Life is hard work. If on top of it, coming home to what should be safe is also a struggle, you're fucked. You will be tested, you will be tried. Home needs to be safe. I'm not saying you're not gonna argue. I'm not gonna that's irrelevant, but no, it didn't test us because we knew we were in this together. The minute she said I can't do this anymore, it was over. As long as she said I wanna keep trying, we kept trying.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I will never hurt my wife ever. It's inconceivable to me to ever cause this woman, aside from just the stupid things I do, but like
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: to hurt her, to cheat on her, to cause after what she did to give me the family I have, it's there's not a chance in hell that that could happen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: there's nothing important enough to hurt her.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And you guys were love at first sight too. So that probably that connection was intimate. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. But again, it's that connection that you instantly realize it. Sitting at the table having coffee with her and her sister and her brother-in-law at three in the morning on a Tuesday and realizing we grew up the same and our parents embarrassed us the same. And her parents had a diner and mine had a diner, and our parents spoke broken English and and we got i i there's so much commonality that it's easy to relate to one another. It's you know
GenX Adulting Podcast: Would you say?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the butterflies go away. Eventually, it that's normal. what comes next is what's important. Is there enough to sustain you not in the first 20 months, but in the first 25 years?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Agreed. And and you ha when you're choosing your partner, you need to remember you're going to go through things like what you guys went through and you're also gonna lose parents and
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and all kinds of things. You need to make sure is that person gonna be there for you during these times. Would you say
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And you've gotta be prepared to hate your spouse nearly to the point of murdering them in their sleep and choosing not to do it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. You just summed up her life. No, you are so right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Dude, it happens. I tell my kids, they're like, Have you ever really been mad at mom? I go, mad at her? I've hated her guts for moments at a time. And vice versa. I go, I can't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: hate you kids. We're blood relatives, we're strangers that chose to put our lives together. There is a very real difference.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. That is so accurate. How long have you guys been married?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: twenty four years.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, so we're like, I don't even know now, thirty two, thirty-one. Wonderful years. Yeah. So I can't relate to that at all. When I tell you you are so dead on with that. You are so dead on. But okay, let me ask you this though. Is your wife your best friend?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She is my absolute best friend in the world.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. And Brian's my best friend. And I raise my kids that you you need to friendship is the foundation of your marriage because shit is gonna happen. Life is gonna be hard, tragedy is gonna strike. And you guys are gonna argue, but that friendship is gonna stop you from doing something horrific to your partner. Like you said, cheating or something else. There's a line we will never cross because our friends hold us.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No. And and there's consequence if you do, and it's not the consequence you think. My oldest daughter asked my wife at one point, you know, if you found out that dad ever cheated on you, you'd leave him, right? And my wife's answer shocked the hell out of her. She goes, I don't know. It
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: depends. And my daughter's like, What the hell do you mean it depends? And she's like, Well, listen, it's very easy for you at 20 years old to be all judgmental about it, but why? What happened? Was it a one time thing? We have family, we have a house, we have a life we built. What does my life look like without him? Will it be the same? No. Will it ever be the same? No. Will he regret?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I mean, but the answer isn't easy. So my my mom told me, there's a Greek expression, I think, and I've cher I've cherished it. She goes, treat your marriage like the most treasured thing you'll ever have. That if it breaks, you're gluing it back together. But understand if you're careless enough to break it and glue it back together, every time you see it, it's gonna crush you to see all those cracks in it. So be careful with it. Treat it like the fragile thing it is and keep it in a safe place. And, you know, bartending, I would drive home at four in the morning when I was done, no matter what. There was an office upstairs from my brother's bar where I could have crashed for the night. I never did. And I always told my wife, I don't want you thinking, what did he do after the bar closed? I don't want you having coffee with your girlfriends and having them say, John spends the weekends above the bar after closing the bar every weekend. I I don't I didn't want to leave room for doubt. If I was bar if I was working at the bank and a teller had an issue with her car and needed a ride home, I made sure somebody else was in the car with us. So it was never me alone with with another girl. I didn't have female friends and my wife never had male friends that we were one on one with. It's it just and these are the lessons we try to teach our girls and they're like, Well, that's not fair. That's not right. I'm like, I'm not talking fair or right. I'm talking what makes a good twenty-four year marriage for us. And that was treating it carefully and leaving no room for doubt so much as we could.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Such great advice. It's I agree with everything you said. Especially, we've actually done talked about how I don't think if you're married or in a relationship, you should have best friends of the opposite sex.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, you shouldn't.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You shouldn't, and we got so much clap back on that. But
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm sure you did. It's not it's not a conventional wisdom, big thinking, gentle parenting world out there to believe that. It's old fashioned reasoning. But it doesn't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Well because
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: make it not true. No, my wife does not it it would be inappropriate for her to have a male best friend. we always joke and say unless he was gay, and then I'm like, well, maybe not even then.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I agree with you, and I think that's a good word. It's inappropriate. It can happen, but it's not appropriate. It leaves
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. It's not appropriate.
GenX Adulting Podcast: too much room for doubt, like you're saying. Well, and also what are you needing to share with that person you can't share with me? That that's where the relationship breaks, right? Well, no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I guess now that part of it, I know I'm not everything my wife needs. She needs people she can talk to about her feelings and about me and about all kinds of things, but she can find that in another woman. She doesn't need to find it in
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Exactly.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: a guy.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Exactly. Because I'm a big thing about when Harry met Sally where Billy Crystal says invariably all men want to s to sleep with women that they're friend it just is part of it. So with a guy, you just don't know his intention. He can seem like the bestest buddy in the whole wide world, but there could still be that undercurrent. He wants to sleep with your wife. And so it's it part of it's that.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It also comes back to that hate thing. There's going to be a moment where you're going to hate your spouse. Do you really
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: want to be with a very good friend of the opposite sex when that moment hits you? Probably not the best thing you could be doing. And that's when people are like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah. No, it's gosh, that's such great advice.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, I messed up. I well, yeah, but you know what? You know what how you wouldn't have messed up if you weren't alone in a room with a person of the opposite sex while being married, then then you wouldn't have messed up. I know that I'm not infallible, so I remove myself for situation where the temptation could have me fail.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, that's so wise. That's so, so wise. So then as as you went into your forties, were you still in banking and and bartending on the weekends?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yep. Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So when did this content
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: COVID.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. So you're banking and bartending on the weekends. You're still in New York?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: no, we were here at that point. We moved to the Carolinas in twenty sixteen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. And everything shuts down, including the bars, right?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Everything shuts down. Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And had you been in South Carolina? 'Cause we
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: For fifteen days to flatten the curve, I think flattened everything everywhere. some states
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: realize that it went on way longer than that, but everybody stopped
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: for like that two weeks, maybe for a month. You know, that was that was a federal mandate initially, if you remember.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. So did you ever go back to bartending during COVID?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I did go back to bartending. I didn't ever go back to banking again.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So had you been on social media up until twenty sixteen?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Never so
GenX Adulting Podcast: And what w yeah, what was the first platform that like why?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, I COVID happens. first thing that kind of my oldest daughter got hit hard by the pandemic's social restrictions. She was a junior going
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: into her senior year, no junior prom, no senior ball, no real graduation, no dating in the formative years, no going out with her friends, no school dances, no football games. It fucking sucked.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And You know, I don't talk politics ever, but at the time and even now, I'm like, the threat to our kids and my wife and I are not in any way immune-compromised. We don't live with my older mother. We didn't live with my in-laws at the time. We were putting nobody at risk. We talked to our doctor. We're like, you know what? There's really not much risk to our kids at all, and very little risk to us. So we're like, we have to find a way to allow her to have something, because this is killing her. And we reached out to friends of ours in New York. her best friend in the world was a boy that she grew up with, and it's completely platonic relationship, but they were since kids. And I remember talking to to our old neighbors. I'm like, Would you consider having coming down with Jory, spending a week with us? I'll we'll we'll we'll section section ourselves off, we'll isolate beforehand, we'll do whatever you want us to do if you think it'd be possible. And Lynn was like, we don't have to do anything. We'll come down tomorrow. We're not even the least bit concerned about it, you know, whatever. So we formulated this thing where Jory would come down. I told my daughter that her grandmother was sending her a package because she missed her. And when the FedEx guy delivered it, she wanted me to videotape it for her. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Jory came down wearing, of course, a full face mask, a FedEx hat down like this, pulled over his eyes, FedEx shirt, handed her the package and I'm recording it. And when he removes his mask, she starts hugging him and her legs fail. Like she loses all the strength in her legs. She collapses hugging him. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever recorded. And I'm like, wow, this in a moment where everyone is so jaded and separate separated and segregated and fighting one another. And this is a really cool moment. And so I reached out to a couple different outlets and the Today show picked it up. Good Morning America, I think, picked it up. A couple of the videos picked it up. It it got like 41 million views
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and it made a decent amount of money for the kids. So I'm like, wow, you know, this is pretty cool. I didn't realize now I had to find somebody whose account was monetized. So we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: split it with the the platform got 50% and then taxes, and then each of the kids only got 25% of what was left. So it wasn't a lot of money, but it opened up my concept that wait a minute, there could be some money in this. And if you search best friends FedEx, that'll still pop up immediately.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So then COVID hit and my youngest daughter discovered TikTok and my wife didn't want her on it alone. And as you've heard, this is the first time since I was like 10 that I wasn't working two jobs and doing a million things. So I didn't know what to do with myself. So I started doing the stupidest trends and dances and goofy stuff with Cleo. And at one point she got into a discussion with me and asked me why I thought my generation was so much tougher than, you know, why is Gen X so tough? I turned the camera on myself, started talking, and that video went nuts.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And I mean, I just saw it go from like 5,000 to 10 to 100 to 200 to a million. And I enjoyed it and started doing more of it. And I told my wife, I'm like, listen, I'll pay the bills. I'll work double time. I'll work overtime. I'll work every night bartending. I want to keep my days free to see if I can turn this into something. And she's like, Well, you've never not taken care of us. If you need me to do something, I will. She's like, Do what you gotta do. And it it it did.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's amazing. So TikTok was your first platform where you solidified yourself.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yep. Which I think was most Gen Xers. That's where we kind of found a platform. A lot
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: of Gen Xers that I continued, Gina and Nick Harrison and and Sherri a lot of us started on TikTok because it was the new thing and we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: just checked it out.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Everybody was home watching it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, there's nothing else to do. Binge Netflix and go on TikTok.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. So when did you then it branch out into Instagram, YouTube, Facebook?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So I had probably a hundred thousand followers on TikTok and thought it was a big deal and my wife's like, you know, Facebook's for old people. Have you thought about maybe, you know, getting a Facebook page going? And I'm like, I don't know, is Facebook for videos? And she's like, I think they're yeah, I think they're doing a lot of reels, they call them. And then Facebook, because it is for old people, took off three times as fast as TikTok.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Course.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it just went crazy for me. And then YouTube a year or two later, I'm like, let me well, I've been trying YouTube, it just didn't hit until it hit. And then Instagram hit. And now probably a little over two million followers across platforms, but all platforms combined, thirty to fifty million views a month.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's amazing. And this started around twenty twenty then?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: twenty twenty, I didn't really have anyone following to speak of until twenty twenty three.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. So it was kind of building the content up until then. and pr yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yep. And practicing. My early stuff is painful to watch now.
GenX Adulting Podcast: But I think that's true for everyone, right? You start somewhere and then you just you learn as well.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I guess. I don't like to see it. Dude, the scariest moment was getting a call from my older brother. Do you have an older brother? there's it it's different. Getting a call from your older brother
GenX Adulting Podcast: I have an older sister, yeah. Older sister. No, it's sure it is.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and the words out of his mouth are what the fuck are you doing?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well what do you mean? What are you doing? Is that you on those TikToks? I'm like, for the love of Christ. What
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: my heart. I'm like, no.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Ha ha ha ha ha.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Because I mean at that point, what am I gonna say? It's not like I'm earning a living. I'm embarrassing myself for free in the hopes
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: that I could earn a living. And he just did he ap now he goes, you know what? I'm so glad you didn't listen to me. Because he goes, I had no idea. I didn't know what I didn't know. And if you don't have an
GenX Adulting Podcast: No one.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: older brother, you don't know the power of an apology from an older brother. That
GenX Adulting Podcast: Sure.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: is like that's cool.
GenX Adulting Podcast: What is your parents think?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: My dad did at the time didn't really know and he passed not soon thereafter. My mother,
GenX Adulting Podcast: I'm sorry.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: my wife, and my sister-in-law, probably my three biggest keep going, you'll make this work. My mom's like, it'll happen. You'll be on TV someday. Someday. I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: know. And to this day, she'll
GenX Adulting Podcast: Did I
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: come visit and she's like, let's make a video. Ask me how I grew up. Mom, no one cares.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, no, no. Ask me, ask me. I'll tell you my story. Mom, no one cares.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's not true. You no. man.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it's true. You ask a Greek woman how she grew up. How long how long is your regular podcast?
GenX Adulting Podcast: we we can average four to five hours. I'd love to have her on.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah days.
GenX Adulting Podcast: How old is she? What generation? She's silent generation. But
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I can I'm not allowed to say how old she is.
GenX Adulting Podcast: she she's silent generation, I bet. I bet.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She's the the oldest of the boomers, youngest of the silent gen. I have one video where we do
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I think it's on YouTube and we talk for about an hour together and it's it's priceless. But she expects
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's cool.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: virality and I'm like, you're not gonna go viral with a two-hour video. You're gonna go viral where I make fun of your accent. That's it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. That's true. That's true. I am being serious though. If she ever wants to come on, she you she has an open invitation. We would love to have her on. Cause I bet she Okay, I will. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You should check out that video. She is, she's my hero. She's my inspiration. The woman, both my parents, amazing people. Hardworking. Bro, I mean, beat us with a spoon, not spanked, beat us with a spoon, beat us with a slipper, and then cried about it after. I mean, she was
GenX Adulting Podcast: A hundred percent.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: a victim of her upbringing to the extent that she did what everybody else was doing, but broke the mold in that even at the time part of her knew what was wrong.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and is apologized for profusely over the years. I'm like, you nothing to apologize for. Number one, you raised three retarded boys. And I know that word's fallen out of favor, but we were retarded. There's no other word
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: for it. We weren't mentally slow. We were the the word in the worst case use of the word. We broke things every day. We we would rip down curtain rods, pulling them right out of the wall for no reason. We were just animals. And I'm like, we deserved
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's the clinical.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: every beating we got because if we hadn't, you wouldn't have had a house to live in.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right, right. It's a clinical definition of retarded. Yeah. Yeah. We did stupid shit. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, retarded meaning they' slower than was supposed to be normal. We were slow learners. Dude, we did retarded shit. My mother's prized possession, when she came to the States, she was in love with Camelot, the Kennedys. It was like that was what America was. And this woman never bought anything for herself. But she bought a bust of John F. Kennedy and kept it on the mantle and the house that
GenX Adulting Podcast: As well.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: we rented when we were growing up. Well, my older brother and I were watching Batman from the sixties at the time, and the way they accessed the Batcave was to take the head off of a bust and flip a switch.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We shattered it into a million pieces trying to break the head clean off the bust.
GenX Adulting Podcast: my God. my God.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yep. She still cries about it. She came home speechless. She's like, Why? The one thing you know I love, why? 'Cause we're stupid.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Have you gotten her a replica?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, she doesn't want a replica. He wants that one.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Show us that one back. Okay, so as far as your well, actually you mentioned your dad passed. When did he pass?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: My dad passed in twenty twenty-one. Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right after COVID started. Was it from COVID?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: N technically, sure. Why not? Everything else was.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and I mean, I'm not saying that as a slight against the medical industry, but it seems like they had no other choice but here's an old person that died in in in, you know, they had him in a in a home at that point in time. He was going through dementia. It only accelerated during COVID. It only got worse because we couldn't see him. He was isolated. New York State was not allowing any visitation
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: at all. And it frustrated me. I'm like, you have workers that are coming in that have access to my dad and then going home to their families. So it's not like he's in some sort of looped off vira, you know, sanitized environment. So strangers can see him and we can't.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That bothered me. So, you know, he died alone.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That happened to my cousin in New York. Same exact thing. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: They're horrible, inexcusable.
GenX Adulting Podcast: They totally screwed it up up there. So was your mom able to see him during that time?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: They they divorced when I was eighteen, stayed friends their whole lives. But my parents
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: was a true arranged marriage. My mom was twenty, my dad was thirty-nine. He was starting to come to the United States to make a better life for himself. my mom's mother died when she was twelve, and there were s six kids total. my fat my my grandfather couldn't raise them. So as they got of age to marry, he just found someone to take them. And so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: my mom was arranged to to marry my dad and A year after they married she came over here and they stayed until we were older. But it was never a traditional husband wife relationship, so they divorced when I was eighteen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Did they continue to own the diner together even after they divorced
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: For a long time, yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and they kept working together?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. Dude, it wouldn't be unusual to look out the window of our house and there's my dad mowing the lawn. I'd have friends over, they're like, Who's that mowing the lawn? I'm like, My dad. I thought your parents were divorced. They are. But eventually
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Okay. So it sounds like
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: my mother remarried and that ended that, but it took that to do it. I always joke
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. How long
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: that my parents got divorced and somebody forgot to tell my father.
GenX Adulting Podcast: How long from when they got divorced did she remarry?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Six years maybe, five, six years.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. And is she still married to? Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: He passed on, but she was married to him longer than to my dad for you know, so for a very long time.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. All right. So your dad then in the nursing home was really alone then because it
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Alone. Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: wasn't like your mom it was they were still married or anything. Were you guys able to go to his funeral? Okay. So they didn't bar you from that. Because I know there was right,
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, yeah. That was it. Yeah, no, no, once once the person's dead it was okay to visit.
GenX Adulting Podcast: right. But they didn't have funerals right away either, though. Did you have to wait six months or like a year? Okay, cool, cool.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: The Greek Orthodox Church pushed back pretty hard as a as a as a group. They leaned in very hard too, because they were trying to stop churches from doing things like communion
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and and I understand people's logic. I understand somebody saying, listen, science is science, and you can't do this when there's an infectious plague going around. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the church and believers are between a rock and a hard place. You either believe that there's a God who can do these things or you don't. And if it's beyond God to make sure you don't get COVID from a wafer, then what's the point of going to church in the first place? Just call it a day and be done. So, you know, my faith is my own. I don't talk about it a lot, but regardless of what I believe, I absolutely understand why people of faith acted the way they sometimes did and said, you know what? No, we're we're still going to go to service. And when people slight them for that, I'm like, how do you blame them? They either believe
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: or they don't. You don't get to have it both ways. You can't say
GenX Adulting Podcast: So true.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: that God created the heaven and earth and yet can't keep you safe from COVID. Doesn't work like that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, that's so, so true. That's such a great point. So does your mom live down near you guys or is she still up in New York?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She's in Florida. My older brother, she was thinking about moving up here with us. she's in Venice right now. but my
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: brother just bought I call him Raymond now because he bought the house next to hers down there. And they spent a lot of time down there with her. And I mean, it's it's an hour and a half light for us. So we fly
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: down regularly. We fly her up to be with us regularly. She has a friend that they're together. So she's she's good.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome. And now is that your older brother or younger brother down in
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Older.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Florida? So what's your younger brother? Where does he live? Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: He lives in Rochester, married, three kids.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. So as far as your content, was it did it evolve into the Gen X niche or did you
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, I'd say so. I mean I remember talking on that, but it it's it's never one thing. Like Gina always jokes me. She's like 90% of what Gina does, very, very well, by the way, is react to other people.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That's the crux of hers. I probably could reach into a bag and pull out 20 different things that I do regularly. You know,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I've got a a a series called Questions about classic television where I've pulled all in the family or the Brady bunch and I add one every week and I'll be doing that forever because there's enough television to do it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I have a deep dive in every year that we experience as Gen Xers from like 65, probably, I'll take it through 99, because those were the formative years for most Gen Xers. I do reactions to Gen Z. I talk about, I always say that it's. I talk about Gen X era nostalgia, a Gen X era life, or about things today from a Gen X era perspective.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So all of my content is Gen X, but only because that's what I am. It doesn't mean
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: that everything I talk about is necessarily Gen X, but I can't talk about anything without incorporating why I feel that way. And I feel that way more often than not because of the way I grew up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. It's it's so it's more of from a gen X perspective it's many different topics from a Gen X perspective. If you really think about it, I love I I'm sorry, you were gonna say I don't want to interrupt. No, I'm just curious. You are you I think you have to be one of the most dialed in people I've seen in understanding and capturing Gen X perspective. And I and I
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Thank you.
GenX Adulting Podcast: if you've evolved into that, do you research it? How the hell did you get there? 'Cause you're just
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: There's no research.
GenX Adulting Podcast: dialed in because he grew up watching No, I know but all of the T V shows The things you talk about, I'm like, my god, I forgot about that. Yes. my God, I forgot about that too. Yeah. You're dialed in. It's amazing. You got us.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I I don't know, man. Maybe it's because I'm first generation Gen X. I got to experience it completely. I always joke and say that my life is a Disney movie because there were no parents around. You know, I'm Dora the Explorer, over the woods,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: through the bridge, what nobody's around. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: at the same time, my parents weren't they they weren't bad parents. They they gave us everything we needed. where they needed to step in, they did. I don't know. It's a really weird juxtaposition to be like, no one was watching me and yet we grew up in a small town, so everybody was watching me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I can totally relate to that. And that's what I mean. It's like I grew up in the northeast. I grew up in in in New Jersey, small town. Same exact thing. It's wild. You just capture it. It's it's wild to me. I really love what the TV shows when you talk about because there's things I've forgotten, but when you talk about it, you bring me right back to that feeling of watching those shows. I I am literally that inner child of me. It's that comfort that. So I have a visual reaction and I don't always when I'm scrolling and I come across Gen X stuff, but your stuff, a lot of your stuff really does bring those emotions back in a really good way. And I almost feel like that feeling of, my God, watching Love Boat or that excitement before chip starts and the music and all that.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I for me it's the it's the CBS logo, the special, the word special spinning with that drumbeat
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes, yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and that feeling inside of us. I just did a video saying that I don't think kids have that specific joy anymore. Being outside playing and having somebody's mother say, Hey kids, come in, Wizard of Oz is on today. And we didn't
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: expect it to be. We didn't know that it was going to be. We didn't know the schedule. We couldn't watch it on demand or stream it. We had life just kind of come at us. And when it did, we had to react in real time. And so you'd run inside the house, get the jiffy pop going, sit down in front of the TV, and you knew that you caught it. And if you didn't, you were gonna be the kid at school tomorrow that missed it and would have to wait another year. That's special. That's amazing. And and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. 'Cause it was once a year. It is special. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: you know, it's not just wait another year, lose the opportunity to see it as a nine-year-old. Because it's different seeing it as a 10 or an 11 year old. There's a different magic that happens when you watch Rudolph at seven versus watching it at
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, a hundred percent.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: eight. You've missed something, you've lost something. And our kids today
GenX Adulting Podcast: And then frosty comes on.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: can watch it anytime they want, but because they can, they never end up watching it at all.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You're right. You're right. They don't like the Christmas specials were a once a year thing, Frosty, Rudolph, all that. That was it. And
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You didn't miss it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you didn't miss it. And you're so right, because it's accessible, they don't watch they don't even watch it. It it's it's
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You don't watch it tomorrow.
GenX Adulting Podcast: the craziest thing. The whole experience has been removed from pulp culture in so many ways because it's just literally replaced by something else, but maybe not as you don't think that's what I mean. I
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, it hasn't. It hasn't. What could it be replaced by? A viral TikTok? Not
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, I don't know.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the same shared experience because it's not
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: happening at the same time. Kids watch Stranger Things, right? It was it was not in the numbers, still not in the numbers that people watched The Last MASH or you know,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: but it did hit a Wide range of people, but it didn't happen at the same time. One person watched it on Tuesday, somebody else saw it on Thursday. Their conversation is: Did you watch the Stranger Things yesterday? No, because we had to go to my grandmother's house. We're gonna try to watch it this weekend. There was no try to watch it. You watched it or you weren't going to watch it. That's it. So in mass,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And and then they they
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: we got to come into the cafeteria and talk about V. Did you see Robin had the babies? my God, when the lizard tongue came out, or when Diana ate the hamster. We watched it at the same time and talked about it the next day. Which is why
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. And that was
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: 40 years later, when I talk about it, you see Diana's jaw unhinge and then the hamster go down and that little kid inside of you wakes up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, that's what it is. You're it's that inner child wakes up. You you yeah, because it because we've been grinding through adulthood, right? So we forget that we had those moments and then I come across one of your videos and it's like, my God. And it is a a way of feeling seen. You know, it's like 'cause you back then we had those shared experiences without really even understanding how important that was that we were having that shared experience. Well, we didn't even know what was happening. No, it was just all we knew. Yeah. We didn't know it was happening till we talked about it now. Yeah. No.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And think about how rare it was. Our parents didn't have it. Because if you had silent gen or older boomer parents, television still had not yet become what we got. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: they didn't have it, and now our kids don't have it. I relate it to music the same way. We're the only generation that sees music. If I say thriller, if I say girls just wanna have fun, if I say like a prayer, going through your mind instantly are those videos. If I say dire straits. you see though that animated refrigerator mover guy move we see music. Our parents didn't have MTV, our kids no longer have it, people aren't making videos like they did for us. It is only a Gen X thing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You're so right. You are so right. That's what I mean. You're dialed in. You got this. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I do have the my memory is a very strange thing. Not idylic, not I can remember where I was on July 4th, 1973, not photographic, but when it comes to things and life experiences and and television shows and books I've read and I forget nothing. Like almost
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: literally nothing. I remember not just moments on a TV show, I remember entire seasons right down to the dialogue, the lines, it it's very my memory is probably my my number one resource when it comes to why I can do what I do.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Do you think some of that comes from those formative years of sitting with your mom and interpreting those shows for her? That it became it was so ingrained.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Maybe it was just such a cool moment in time for all of us. Family, family time was forced in a way. If we wanted to watch TV, well, then we had to watch it with our parents and our siblings all together. Because for a lot of us growing up, there was really only one television, you know, and there was really only three networks, and we were gonna watch what our parents decided was going to be watched. Sometimes it was what we wanted, often it wasn't. But we all went through it together in one shared space. It wasn't Johnny's in his room, Sally's in hers, mom's in the kitchen, dad's in the den. We all did it together. And I think
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I keep reinforcing those memories because it was a really special time. And the older I get, the more I realize how special it was.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. I'm wondering how if there's any way that the younger generation generations can recreate that at all. I don't it would
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We can
GenX Adulting Podcast: be s so much effort would have to be put into that because every kid has a phone.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I mean, when's the last time you got all your kids to sit and watch something together with you guys?
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's usually an event. It's like either my birthday or it's like a holiday or Christmas, Thanksgiving. We watch Christmas movies. It's a holiday event. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's exactly it.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And for us, it was a Tuesday, it was a Wednesday, it was a Thursday. And when it was over, even as kids, we didn't want that time to end. Not because we enjoyed hanging out with our parents, we didn't want to go to bed. So being
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: awake meant hanging out with our parents. Anything. I'll watch MASH.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. You'll watch anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You loved MASH. I love Mash.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I didn't as a kid.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So well, on the note of all of that, and and I I'd like to ask guests this question. So I'll be really interested how you answer this because your knowledge is so vast and your memory is so accurate. What would you say is your favorite movie from our our Gen X childhood?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So for me, like favorite movie always has to be one that in some way changed me, influenced me, stays with me. I mean, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I love that movie. It was entertaining, it was fun, you know, but that was it. Favorite movies have to, in some way, stick with me. And, you know, Brian asking Claire. If they'd be friends on Monday morning, the way they were in Saturday detention stuck with me as a kid. Because I had events that I attended outside of school, whether it was, you know, hanging out with somebody at their I was Greek Orthodox, but we didn't have a church that was Greek Orthodox in town. So one of my friends was part of a Presbyterian youth group. I went with them because it was an event. And all of a sudden at that group, I hung out with kids I normally wouldn't. And they were cooler than me. And I was really excited about that. And then come Monday morning, we weren't friends anymore. That moment in that movie shook me in a really weird way. I'm like, wow. Because I was Brian. And then as high school progressed, I became Andy. There was this shift. I I I could grow a mustache, facial hair happened, I developed. I don't know. stand by me. stuck with me, these kids, Chris dying, life changing. even though it was in the fifties, it felt very seventies to me about this group of kids that one was, you know, the the kids were all so different and yet they were friends and I had those friends that my parents probably wouldn't have wanted me to have been friends with. You know, and if they found out I was hanging out with them, they're like tried to put an end to it. So, you know, you had to tell the kid I can't hang out anymore. Why? Because my parents think you're trouble. You didn't say that, but you know, that kind of thing. Chris Chambers That stuck with me. I loved Stand By Me. I loved The Outsiders. I I absolutely loved The Breakfast Club. Those were the movies that made a difference to me growing up. And I to your point, a word I hate, I felt seen.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes, I would
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I always joke, other genera our parents were seen and not heard. We were neither seen nor heard. Go outside. Get out of here. So to be
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's so true.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: seen was weird. And those are the movies that made a difference.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Well, especially that moment in Breakfast Club. That that's what was
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That was huge.
GenX Adulting Podcast: happening is you were feeling seen when Brian asked Claire that. And it's f there's something about Breakfast Club. I I
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And then I flipped. Before I forget, I will say I was clear. By by the end of high school, it flipped. I was the more popular kid and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: would hang out with some kid outside of school that I wouldn't give the time a day to come Monday morning. So we the Breakfast Club
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think we all
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: was right. We were all of those kids.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We were all of those kids. Did you evolve knowing you were the kid that wouldn't get hung out with? Would you hang out with the that kid? Did you learn from it, I guess?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, because that's that's my point. I started
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: as Brian, I turned into Claire. Once you
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: become popular, you pull the ladder up behind you. I mean, that's what happens a lot for fear of being pulled back down again. The the drowning
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: victim will pull anybody down with him. When I was the unpopular kid, I would have dragged them all down with me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. It's so true. It's and especially in our generation, it was as you climbed that ladder, you kept going. But I don't know
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You kept going, don't look back.
GenX Adulting Podcast: if the younger generations are like that. I don't know if they have the hierarchy. Well, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, because they all get to be special in their own way. Now, I mean, I have a 14 year old girl. I still get the popularity thing is still there. She talks
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: about popular girls, and I'm like, what makes them popular? I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: go, do they know more people? Do more people know them? She's like, no, dad, that's not what popular means. I'm like, actually, it's literally what popular means, but okay. No, she
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: just means the people that they look up to, and they're almost always mean people. Very rarely
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Well, especially girls.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: are popular kids good kids.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, especially girls. There's mean girls and there is mean girls in every generation and that will never change. but I wonder how much technology plays into it is I think are if they're more popular, if they get more views, if they have more followers, all that stuff. I think they have that.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Sure. But even the unpopular kid ends up going to karate, ends up going to dance class, ends up going to music class, ends up going to voice lessons, ends up going kids today have so many interests and parents are running
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: around like lunatics. My mom and dad, first of all, didn't have the time, but if I'm being honest, nor did they have the inclination to drive us all over the damn place for soccer or for anything else. Figure it out. You can go. Don't figure it out, I'm paying the mortgage. You do what you gotta do.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. yeah. No now it's
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So they get to feel special no matter what. We were told early and often there's always someone smarter, faster, stronger, better. Nothing special about you.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Could you imagine like saying that any to our kids? Like none of us said that to our kids. It's
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No.
GenX Adulting Podcast: we none of us would have ever said that to our kids. That's better.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: My mother told me she could take me out tomorrow and make one that looked reasonably like me in about nine months. It's okay.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Well, I mean, and that doesn't even take into account travel sports and the phenomenon of that. I mean, pe you know,
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Never would have happened.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and the to sacrifice the time and the money that people do for travel sports, that
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: The money I'm about to spend for my daughter on travel volleyball. My parent my mom to this day. But then our parents turned into these. You remember in soap operas when somebody else would play the part of somebody for whatever reason and you'd hear this
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: this like disembodied voice being like, The part of
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Luke Spencer will be played by. I hear that voice every time my mother walks into the room and talks to my kids. That's not my mother. The woman playing this part is not the woman that played it when I was living it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'll complain about the money for travel this or that. She's like, well, what are you gonna do with it? It's okay. Really? Need I remind you, I'm still waiting for those paychecks that you put in a safe place.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. That's so true. Okay, same question. is there a T V show you could pick?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Six million dollar man when I was little. I ran in slow motion all over my neighborhood making that din and a sound.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: greatest American hero, Dukes of Hazard, Batman on reruns in the 60s. I didn't even know it was cheesy. I I I Dude,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. None of us did. We ate that up.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: in that show was the first lesson. That and Sea Monkeys are probably the first lesson I ever got in real disappointment. Because the Batman show ended every episode in a cliffhanger, but because we watched it in syndication, Tuesday didn't necessarily follow Monday. So you'd
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: always get up the next day to find out what happened, then almost never would you know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, that's so true. I never thought about that. You're so right. You're so right. my gosh. Okay, what
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You couldn't even Google it. I'm like, how the hell did Batman get out of that? well be okay
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: not knowing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. You just left there. That's fucking hilarious. What about music for you back then?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: God, Phil Collins was huge. You know what's funny? When it comes to music when we were growing up, there's the cool answer of the music I'd like to pretend I listened to, and then there's the real answer of the music I actually listened to. The
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: cool answer I'd be like, you know, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Judas Priest. The real answer is Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Phil Collins.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yes. Yes. I always thought like people who answered the cure were very cool. But I'm like I
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That's what I mean, but
GenX Adulting Podcast: like the cure, but I never listened to the cure, but they were really cool. Yeah. Hell yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I listened to what was on the radio, Casey Kaesom's top 40. And no matter how cool people try to pretend they were, they were all listening it too. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been on Casey Kaysem's top 40. We
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: can all pretend all we want. We never heard Kenny Rogers singing Islands in the stream with Dolly Parton. We still know every goddarn word. It's just
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it was on, we listened to it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's such a great point. So through through your content creation, I mean in addition addition to obviously brand opportunities, but have there been other opportunities come your way that you've been surprised by that you weren't expecting?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Been moments like I did a video talking about how Night Ranger and Starship was my first concert. And I've got the ticket stubbed $12.50 to see Night Ranger at 15 years old. And Night Ranger liked the video and started following me. That was a cool moment. I did a video on Little House on the Prairie. Actually, I did a video on the top 10 villains we grew up watching in pop culture, and Nellie Olsen was number two, right behind J.R. Ewing. And so Allison, who who played the part of Start commenting now she follows me. It's the people that we watched growing up that now that there's a sort of weird connection, that's amazing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I go to different conventions now. I'll be going to Orlando in a couple weeks. and I'll be able to interview Larry Wilcox and Eric Estrada, Robert Pine from Chips.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow. Yeah. Cool.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I've met the Happy Days cast, I'll be interviewing Too Close for Comfort, Melrose Place Reunion. So being on stage, you know, with those people is incredible. You know, I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Absolutely.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: interviewed Todd Bridges and Christopher Atkins. And one of the questions I asked Todd Bridges, well, both of them, was, you know, we talked to fishermen about the one that got away. Has there ever been a role that ever got away from you? And Tod Bridges mentioned how John Hughes had a meet with his people. And ultimately he talked to the writers about getting. A part on the Breakfast Club. And it didn't work out because, as Todd Bridges says it, the guy walks around him a few times and says, I don't think we can do it because I don't know how to write for black people.
GenX Adulting Podcast: my gosh.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And so he didn't get the role. Well, People Magazine, People.com picked up that. I don't know how. I don't know if there was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: somebody in the audience, but all of a sudden I'm getting sent a blurb from People Magazine with my name asking him the question. Chris Atkins answered that he was originally the guy for Footloose before. He it was supposed to be his. But he went out
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the night before and completely screwed up the audition. And you know, my comment to him was we all could have been playing six degrees of Christopher Atkins instead of you know, and he's like, Yeah, you know, so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: those moments are kind of surreal for me. I'm like, I is this really
GenX Adulting Podcast: Cool.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: happening?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, I'm sure. I can't even imagine. So when you're are you up on stage, like
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: how and then there's an audience, right? So
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. And I'm moderating the panel.
GenX Adulting Podcast: you're moderate so you're asking them questions, but then the audience is also asking them questions.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'll go out into the audience if we have time and get some questions for them. I did I I didn't do Debbie Gibson. I moderated a panel for Debbie
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Gibson. and then like she was so sweet. A week later I'm home having dinner with my older brother who was visiting his wife and my wife, and I get an Instagram notification that I got a voicemail from Instagram. And it was Debbie Gibson just thanking me for doing such a nice job on her panel, and she really appreciated. And I'm just like, I just got a voicemail from Debbie Gibson.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's amazing.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm like and they you know, the sixteen year old boy inside of me is like, dude
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's amazing and she looks great. She is.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She's phenomenal, sweet, kind, humble, grateful. 95% of these celebrities that we grew up watching, if they're acting, they're still acting. I I mean, I honestly don't know. All I can say is that my interactions with them on stage and behind stage, 95% of the time, these are people that are grateful, that are so humbled by the fact that something they did 30 or 40 years ago still resonates with people. I think it's amazing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It absolutely is. Were you gonna ask he answered my question? I was gonna say I I was curious if they're humble, nice people. They all seem like it. Like Eric Estrada, he seems like a hell of a guy. Is he right? Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'll let you know. I I get to meet him for the first time in a couple of weeks.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So how do you prepare? I mean, are you told what you can ask ahead of time? Are you you have
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Some well, there are a few, very few instances with very few celebrities where they're like, We need you to clear the questions through our, you know, our people or whatever. But usually I'll have just broad guidelines. But listen, doing what I do, it's I I almost wing everything all the time. It's just I know what I w I let the eight year old inside me ask the questions and that's enough.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome because you really are representing all of us who grew up watching them and are still fans. And so for all of us kids, you're kind of representing all of us. I think it's it's amazing.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And then the other half of it is asking them about what they think about a nine or a ten season, ten episode season versus what they did. You
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: know, they they they did five seasons on a show. Today that would be a lifetime of twenty-five episodes a season. That's a hundred and fifty. It's rid and they and they speak to that. And you know, some say provides opportunities, others not so much. It's you know, streaming things, binging things. I've binge watch series. And then all of a sudden my wife and I will be into like the second episode of a new series we're watching. We're like, we've watched this. But because we binged it in like two days, we didn't retain
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it the way we retain being forced to talk about it for a week and anticipating it for a week and having to force it into our memories over a summer so that when it plays in the fall, we're still equally vested. We we forget that we're watching something in real time. My wife and I Our favorite conversation on the couch is what are we watching again? We were watching
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: something. Didn't we start something on Netflix and then we start hunting? Was it Hulu? Don't know what it was, don't know where it was. It's not the same.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, it isn't. It absolutely isn't the same. How did you get involved with that? Did they reach out to you?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, this is one thing. I'll talk about luck. This wasn't luck. I had a plan. Started paying my own way to the conventions. Started getting a hotel close by. I would go to buy my own ticket and I would tell fans and followers of mine that I'm gonna be there. They would meet up with me. I'd take pictures. I always made sure to take pictures somewhere near somebody I wanted to meet. So invariably they would be like, Who the hell are you? And why, you know, why are people taking your picture? I would make content while at the convention, hoping that. Somebody that wasn't we like, wow, this guy's here giving us free press. And slowly it turned into, okay, now they're sending me press passes. Now they're giving me access to be able to film. Now they're paying for my room in my hotel. Now they're letting me interview on stage. So it was just a very concerted effort to know what I wanted to do. And I just put steps in place to try to get there. Doesn't mean like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: you know, sometimes I still go on my own. It you know, if I can't get. Some b and then I'm like, I'll work towards getting that to happen too, but that's why I do what I do, so that I can go.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It has to be so surreal at times when you're sitting there interviewing some of these people and thinking, I cannot believe the inner child in you must be freaking out.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It doesn't hit me while I'm up there with Part part of it is we feel like we know them. They were such a huge part of our childhood that that I feel like I know them. Like I'm up on stage finally get reconnecting with somebody that I grew up with. it's really weird. There's no nerves involved. I thought there would be, but I I don't get nervous much anyway. I'm blessed. I I'm ridiculously fortunate. It took to be fifty five years old to to to do something in my life that I love for a living, but it was never a prerequisite growing up. I tell that to my kids. It's not a pr loving what you do for a living is not a prerequisite. Loving what you do for a life
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, most people don't.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: is.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, most people don't like what they do. You are you are lucky, yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: today that's changing. Kids today don't buy into that and I disagree with them, you know, because that means they will be miserable forever then. Because they're like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm only doing this 'til I find something I love. Good luck with that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. But don't you think you finding this midlife is pretty consistent for a lot of Gen X? A lot of Gen Xers are finally going for their quote unquote dreams or something for themselves midlife after grinding up to this point and giving themselves permission to take the chance to chase that dream.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We've always statistically been more than normal levels of entrepreneurship. Gen X is a huge spike in either a side hustle or owns their own business. It's and it's always been that way. It's the multiple job mentality. It's I I I had to pick, you know, put together three Mick jobs in order to eat after college. One job wouldn't do it. It's the boomers never retired for their own reasons. 40K was never secure enough. Whatever. They didn't leave.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You know, and when they started leaving, all of a sudden we were a lot cheaper to let go in order to give the job to the millennial behind us, because they had an appropriate amount of experience to get the job done without having to pay them as much to do it. It's very common to be 55 years old as Gen X, need to work to eat and not be able to find a job. That's a thing right now. Very overqualified for a lot of things. People don't want to hire us thinking we're not gonna stick around. So I think we just find a way. But To say that we're finding what we love midlife, honestly, I think we just are more of a generation that finds love in what we do, not necessarily love what we do. If I don't love my job, at least I'll find people at work that I like being with. If I don't like the people at work, at least I'll try to find some semblance of joy in the work. We find a way to make it work.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We adapt.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We adapt.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think that's accurate. In e in every situation. And and and
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: In every situation.
GenX Adulting Podcast: it's the Gen X hustle is what you're talking about. So adapting and hustling.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And our parents had a hustle, but there was no joy in it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We seemed to, and then our kids arguably have no hustle, but try to find joy in anything that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: we found a way to make it work and found not to hate it. The mentality of the miserable dad coming home from work, sitting on his couch, opening the beer, nobody talked to me. For a lot of us, that didn't happen. The dads changed diapers, got involved with the kids. Took the the the carpool rides sometimes. W you know, we there was a change. We found a way to find joy in it both at home and at work that was different.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, and I think if that's another way Gen X parents changed how we parented, espe especially for the men. Like I think Gen X dads are a hundred percent more hands on than their own depending on the father. Not
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Of course.
GenX Adulting Podcast: but than their own dads were just culturally you guys made that shift. Not all Gen X dads, but I think and then I I do think millennial dads are even more involved and more, you know.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: involved.
GenX Adulting Podcast: But I think
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I've got millennial friends, and we'll be sitting there having dinner, and somehow somebody will come up where, I want to redo the living room. And then the guy starts talking about curtains and disagrees with the wife. And I turn him and I go, What are you doing? He's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: like, What do you mean? I go, You have no say in this. Leave it alone. She buys the curtain she wants. And he's like, Well, dude,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: that's not right. It's my house, too. I'm like, no, it's not.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, that's not where they should be stepping in. No, they need to let that go. I mean helping. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: But they don't because again, there's been this morphing, there's no gender roles necessarily. My wife and I are very old school and it works for us. She
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: never mowed the lawn a day in her life. I rarely have ever washed a dish. I take out the garbage. I fix the broken thing. I move the furniture. She co it's just and it works for us. And it's almost like a dance. If I see the lid is up on the garbage, I know I need to take it out. I don't ask. That's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right, right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: but I will get up like I changed my share of diapers. I spent plenty of nights where I was the one that stayed up. Even though I was the one that went to work in the morning, I'm like, she's like, well, honey, you have to work in the morning. I'll stay up. I'm like, what, you don't have to work in the morning? Once I leave, it's not like you sleep all day. So no, I can be tired at work just like you can be tired at home. I took my shifts. It it's the way it is. We we found a balance again.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's rare though. Yeah, but the first part of what you said, that's very traditional. But to the fact that you also stepped in, even though you had to work the next day and helped her and recognized that she is working her ass off during the day, that's rare for your generation, I think. You don't
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I don't think it is. I think most of my friends that I I don't know. I
GenX Adulting Podcast: I don't know.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: think there's been a pivot to that. Plus, I mean, I've made videos where I talk about where the also women, Gen X women are the Anjolie generation. If you remember the commercial, I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yep.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you're a man. You women were sold this lie that equality meant doing more. No, no, no, you don't get to be equal. You get to have the same job, get paid less, and then still do everything you did before you had a job. That's bullshit. And I'm like, I don't know how you guys got it's being intelligent women being sold that line of horseshit amazes me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We were watching it from the time we were little though. Remember, we're nine
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I guess.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and ten. We grew up being told to be a complete successful woman, you need to have a clean home, raise your children, work all day, look beautiful, be thin, you know, there was no break for us and that's success.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. I mean you're also the generation that it was okay in a commercial for a guy to come up behind his wife and pinch her side to let
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: her know it's time to start eating special K. Dude,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I would have been bringing back a bloody stump if I tried to pinch my wife's side.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. It's so true. It's so true. And I do think that's maybe where I think maybe I the millennial generation has adjusted in that I think the men help more at home. Like I think that there is that domestic labor is shared more. But as far as having an opinion on the curtains, it's gone too far. It has to stop there. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, that's what I mean though. So women taking on the man's role meant they never got rid of the traditional female role, right?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Correct.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Where I'm seeing the issue today, and again, just my humble opinion, men are taking on those traditionally non-male roles, but they're abandoning theirs. My
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: biggest problem is when I don't see And again, it's outdated. I get it. It's old fashioned. I get it. But if there's a bullet coming through the door, it's gonna hit me before it touches my wife or my kids every day of the week and twice on Sunday. There is no chance that I'm not the one ultimately responsible to provide for my family. Period. My wife helps.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: If she wants, she's she ended up working for a friend's restaurant right now. She works two or three days a week, gets out of the house. She can quit tomorrow. And if social media goes by the wayside, I'll dig a ditch. It's my responsibility. And and I know it's wrong. I know it's outdated. But I miss that a little bit. And I know women don't need me to take care of them, but I still want to.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, I don't think it's outdated. The way we've raised our sons is you need to make enough money that if your wife chooses to stay home, you can support her. But if she would like to work, you support her. But you need to be able to support your family. And I so I think there's a way to do it where you're actually supporting women. You are lifting them up, but you're they can choose either way. And I yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And that's how it was in our house. And we knew that before we got married. We had that conversation. My
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: wife said, I want to raise our kids. I don't want a stranger raising our kids. I don't want even my parents raising our kids. I don't see the point. She had friends that would drop the kids off at daycare at six in the morning, pick them up at seven at night, and put them to bed at eight. What's the point? Why? Why, why, why? And the cost.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Plus it costs and the cost, the cost so no, it's it and we actually had that conversation too. And I we've done an episode on some of this, but I say to young people, have that conversation first. How do you see your roles? Make sure you both see eye to eye before you even step into this because that's a huge foundation of your marriage and how family life is gonna go. And they're th that that has to be communicated. And I don't think enough people talk about that before they get married. And then I think there's friction. No.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And it doesn't have to look the same for everybody, but allow for it to look different for everybody. Like I will get pushback
GenX Adulting Podcast: One hundred percent.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: sometimes, like, well, you guys are really old fashioned. I'm like, it works for us, for both of us. So it's so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Exactly. Yes. But I think
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it's okay.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. But I think it just works. It's we say old fashioned, but it works. That's a recipe
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: For us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: for success. But if I think a lot of people followed that too, it would probably bring a little sanity
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Maybe.
GenX Adulting Podcast: back.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I never one thing I do on my content is I try to stay away from things that are polarizing or divisive. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: whenever I do touch on a topic that could possibly divide people, I say, listen, this is the only reason I believe what I believe is that I've lived my life, not yours. If you were born into my world and spent every minute experiencing what I experienced, then you'd be me. But you didn't, so you're not. And it's okay that you're not. th we don't disagree for the benefit of disagreement. We disagree because we've had different life experiences.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Absolutely. And and your and your whole platform is your perspective. It's your Gen X perspective on all these different topics. Now, do you get do you remember the first time you were recognized by a follower?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I think the first time it happened in a crazy amount, like sometimes it would happen offsh. Do you, you know, you look familiar, and then we, maybe that's where we went to Disney as a family in 2023, maybe. And you know how they rope sections off, and you're not supposed to, but that's the shortest ways to go under the rope. That's me. So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm doing just that, breaking the rules. My wife is behind me, and she hears somebody yell, hey! And my wife goes, I'm mortified. In that moment, I'm like, we're getting kicked out of Disney because my asshole husband won't walk around the rope. It was a Disney cast member, and she's like, I follow you. And she's like, Can I get a picture? And I'm telling you, from that moment, posting that picture let other people know I was there, I guess. And it just snowballed. And it was just crazy. and it happens at every con I go to, I'm like, you know, is it gonna be me walking around and feeling awkward and nobody coming up to me? And that's always the the fear and it's never the realization.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Do you get recognized? Can you just go to the grocery store and you're fine?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Not here. There is a hole in Charlotte for some very I mean I'm glad.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I went to get my Verizon bill taken care of and the girl that the the woman that waited on me recognized me. Sometimes I'll be out and someone will hear my voice and they'll just it's usually the voice that gets them.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: you know, but not so much here. I I think it's people don't recognize you unless they expect to see you too, though. If I'm at a con
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and I'm wearing my stuff. You I'm wearing a shirt that's Gen X, then they're like, Okay, I get it. If
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm in a polo shirt and I'm then not so much. I don't know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Do you ever get uncomfortable with the attention? So it doesn't matter how many people are approaching you, you're good with all the energy that's coming at you. Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Awesome. Give me a hug. Let's take a picture. It's all I'm so blessed. I get almost no trolls, almost no negativity. I get every day showered with positivity and affection, and people telling me that I'm unlocking memories. I've had people tell me that my videos have helped get them through chemotherapy sessions or sitting with their parents during hospice or They've had traumatic brain injuries, and it helps them retain or or bring back memories. Or just thank you for letting me know that it wasn't just me. A lot of Gen Xers think that we're unique in the way we were raised and whole. I've had people tell me my mom didn't hate me. I grew up thinking my mother must have hated me for the spankings, for the disdain, for not being the main character of the story of my life. I just grew up thinking that, you know, I had a bad relationship. And now the things that set me into trauma, I'm watching you make fun of and laugh. And then reading comments of other people growing up the same way, also finding a way to be okay with it. They're like, you're you're helping me r reenvision I I first I I'm the one that went through it, but you're making me see it in different way. It wasn't my mom, it was every mom. It's just what they knew.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. It's it's like you're helping them rewire their subconscious a little bit, you know.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I guess. No, I people I'll get a message, my God, I saw you walking at the convention, but you were talking to somebody, didn't want to bother you. I'm like, always bother me. I'm there to be bothered. You know, if I'm at the hospital and there's something going on, then maybe not then. You know, I'm showering in the gym. Maybe not that moment.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right, right, right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: At the urinal in the bathroom, wait till we're done. But in general, there there's there's no barrier, there's no wall, there's no I I love every part of it. It's amazing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: How do your daughters feel about it? They're
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: They hate it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: embarrassed.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Like poison. The 22-year-old is better with it since you know it pays for all the bills. The 14-year-old
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: is in constant fear that her teachers will figure it out and make the connection. In which case the kids will figure it out. But Cleo jumps on my Sunday Night Lives constantly. She's done a few videos with me, so it's just kids being
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's awesome. I mean I'm sure
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: kids. There's no such thing as a cool dad.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, no. And I don't think that age, because our s my sixteen year old, our sixteen year old doesn't know any who any of the Gen X personalities are. So I think on their social media, they don't see any of the Gen X stuff.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Wha so mine crosses over just because of the the zoomers that I put onto my page. You know, when
GenX Adulting Podcast: okay, okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: they're sitting at home crying about putting in a double shift and I realize
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: that their version of double is six hours.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yes. Yeah. Not sixteen. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'm gonna call them out on it. That's not a double, that's a short day.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It is so true. No, and that's actually smart because that is one thing I've noticed with him and his friends, because they'll say, who are you having on? And I'll say, and I'll totally expect them to be like, that's so cool. And they're like, who? I do think it'd be cool if Gen Xers can figure out how to cross over more with Gen Z and get out there. And that's a great way to do it, is duetting them in that way.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: say listen if if there's an exceptionally challenged individual who can't you know if I've done videos where I took a clock into the the bar that I used to work in an analog clock it's hanging here I've taken the face off it so I can move the hands with my figures fingers and I'll tell the kids can you can you put it to quarter to eight
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and they'll be 725 825 I'll put it and there's no numbers on the clock purposely. It's just a big clock with hash marks, no numbers, because I'm an asshole.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: but you know, it's in good fun though. Or I'll
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: ask them, like I would write out Sade Siouxsie and the Banshees, Lynard Skynard all these bands that were just
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. There's no way.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: messed up, and I'm having them read it, and they're like, say inks
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: in excess inks.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm-hmm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And then sometimes I'll get some people in the comments like, well, how do you expect them to know it? I go, I don't know. How did I know who Bob Hope was? Why could I do who's on first at the age of eight? Why did I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: know Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Father Knows Best? Well without the l a a internet. We still knew how. Why did I know
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yep. Yeah. And I think it's
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: what a telegraph was, but kids don't know what a rotary phone is? No, no, they don't get off so easily. They should know. They should care.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah. I agree. I agree one hundred I don't know how that happened, that disconnect. I'm not sure. Maybe maybe they got so far into their world because of their phones.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Because they get to watch their stuff, not ours. We watched the
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Bob Hope Christmas special. We watched Lawrence Welk and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and all that stuff because we had to. And now I'm
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. And they don't
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: so glad we did.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, I agree one hundred percent. Before I ask my last question, do you have anything? I always have to ask him 'cause afterwards he'll say, I wanted to ask one more thing. No, I think my big curiosity was just how you got so dialed in. I'm blown away because you you do unlock those
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Is there anything we can talk about more authoritatively than our own life?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That's all it is. I'm just talking about my life and my experience. I don't need prep and research for that. Yeah. I mean,
GenX Adulting Podcast: And your perspective, you know.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: deep dives, I'm very selective. There's things I don't touch, and people ask why. I never see you do anything on WWE, WWF. It wasn't a thing for me. I never really
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: see you dive deep into, you know, the basketball, or you know, you don't talk about Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, by wasn't my thing. I was
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: a dork. I was a geek. So I'm only an auth I'm only authoritative on the things that I experienced and loved. And people will call
GenX Adulting Podcast: You're
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: me out sometimes. I'm like, well, not my thing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I think you answered my question though, because we all grew up you touch on a lot of stuff we all grew up on, but I was into Jordan and Larry Bird, right? I was into that stuff and more sports and but everything you've touched on, it's like, boy, that's in my head somewhere. So y it's unlocking. I do think it's cool that you're touching people who might be in the hospital or having brain trauma, right? That's cool stuff. That's really cool.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I've got this one woman. I was in Rhode Island for a Comic Con and she's like, I'd really love to come see you. You're right down the road. I haven't left my house in eight or nine months. She goes, I was a caregiver for my mom. When my mother died, something broke. I just can't leave the house. And I said to her, Come early. I'll meet you wherever you want me to meet you. I'll make sure that it's quiet, that it's safe, that whatever it takes. She came. And she'll be meeting me in Orlando again for the next con. And, you know, she's like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: My kids were amazed that I did it. She goes, but I didn't want to have you be right down the road and have me not there. I don't know that I could have forgiven myself. And she's like, Thank you for being, you know, that person that that could help me get there. That's incredible. You know how privileged I am to have that kind of moment in my life? That's amazing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Absolutely. It's cool you recognize it though and and put your own energy
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: How could anybody not?
GenX Adulting Podcast: into it. A lot of people wouldn't A lot of people wouldn't but you
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I don't think so. I think some people wouldn't and the very small some people that wouldn't happen to be loud and we we hear of them. They're not the majority. The majority of
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: us do.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, no, I think you're right. So you do you ever get imposter syndrome?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I don't think so. Because I'm just being me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. I think because your entire platform is auth is based on your own authentic experience. It's positive.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: People I mean, I I'll meet people and like, My God, you're exactly like you are on your videos. Or I'll do these
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: interviews and you know, you can fake something for fifteen, twenty minutes, right? But after a while I would think the veneer comes off and they're like, You're exactly the same. I'm like, Well, but I'm lucky, I don't have to pret I'm not acting when I do my stuff. It's just me. So it's me there and it's me here, and it'll be me if you if you know, if if you guys go to the fanboy expo in Orlando, it's just that that's it. It's me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You're being authentic. That's the key. It's it's exactly who you are. So I think and I think that is definitely a huge ingredient of your success. 'Cause that resonates with people. So I think that's awesome.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I just don't know where it goes. Like I'm I'll I'll get imposter syndrome when I finally become a success doing this to the level that I see as being a success. But I just remember being a kid and doing so much. Like I told you, I met Ronald Reagan. I'm one of twenty-five kids to to go over to to to Amsterdam for a model UN. Achieved so much, was really a good student, did very well in school. And you know, we grew up in a generation where, okay, that's expected. You did your best, that's your best. And What do you want? A trophy?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And I think I've still got that in me where, you know, it's not a big deal. And I want it to be. I want to get big enough that I say to myself, okay, that's cool. I did something amazing. I'm just not there yet.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Do you know what how to define that for yourself?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I'll know it when I see it. My wife says you'll never see it. I don't know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Thank you.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I just I like people are always like, what is the end all be all? For some people, it's to become an actor and be featured on something. For other people, it's for me, it's to be a talking head. Like I envision CNN or Fox or MSNBC or The Today Show doing a segment on Gen X and having me be the person they call for that segment. And that it's always like we have with us again John Kotrides he's an expert on. That I think would be, I just I would love the opportunity to represent our generation in a way that is more tangible. To be seen,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, that'd be awesome.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I guess. I guess that's that's being seen, right? Back to that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It is. It is. It is. It's being seen. But but it's also by you being seen in that capacity, w we would all be being seen because you're
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: such a great representation of all of us. So and that's the key, right? Is that we were not seen. We were ignored. So I think that would be a great way for us to be seen is through someone like you.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Except again by each other in what I love is that most of the time it works the way it's supposed to. I've got people behind the scenes for whatever reason that send me highly political things from the deep left and from the deep right, and both of them assume that I'm of the same persuasion. Like they're like locked in that I must agree with and that's what it should be. Because how I feel politically. Is listen, as long as I'm not hurting anybody, as long as your choices aren't causing damage to people, what you do when you pull that curtain is on you and it never used to matter. I would like to get back to a place where we can do that. But the problem is each side says, Well, we can't do that because the other side isn't disagreeing, they're evil. But when both sides think the other is evil, then there can't be any road to it being better. You have to put that down. They're not evil in most cases, they're just different. And if we focus on the fact that 95% of what we all find important in our lives is the same, then we bring back what we all miss about a time that we don't think exists anymore.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I could not agree with you more. And I think so much of it too is being online chronically. And if most people just went out into their world more and interacted with the people in their world, they would see we're all kind of the same. And you don't know how that person feels or votes. You still are just treating each other the same.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. But we're also a gen we've turned into people who can't invite family to dinner in real time because they voted one way or the other. So that's not the answer either. The answer social media is not
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. That's wild. That's a wild thing.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: bad. The internet's not bad. It's how we use it. I use
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it every day to connect with millions of people and it's the best thing that I could have ever hoped for. How do we use it? What do we let in? We used to change the channel. Gen X was the remote control. When we wanted to watch something, we changed the channel. It was a forced, it was a force of will. Today we're allowing an algorithm to change the channel for us. We're only watching the next video because it rule it's the next one to come up. You need to go and watch. People need to go back to changing the channel. If you love Gina, if you love you need to go to their pages directly and spend time on that page. You need to change the channel and stop letting it be changed for you. That's the first step. We're angry because it's intentional that we're kept angry.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Hundred percent. Yeah. I agree oneho you you just summed it up. I agree one hundred percent. 'Cause I do think that has a lot to do with it. And if you especially if you have someone who is having issues or is depressed or is alone, they're so vulnerable to that, you know? And that's where it really gets dangerous.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: My wife will fall down. She's like, Did you see what happened to this kid? And so I go, no. I go, and do you know why you keep seeing it?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Because you keep seeing it. Horrible things happen. Stop! Stop. Yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, yes. Yes. Yeah. Stop. Don't like. Don't the best is when someone will comment that they don't like something that we put up. But I'm like, you're gonna see Yes. This is great for us.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yes, Gina does it to people all the time. Gina's favorite thing is stop commenting on things you hate. You're gonna keep seeing me. And I'm not changing. This is me.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, it's like thank you for the engagement. Now you're gonna see more of me. Just scroll. Just keep going. So did you have I did have one other question. Well, one comment too. I remember we literally had to change the channel, get up and change it. Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yes, that's what I mean. I had pliers. We broke the handle.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right, we had we had a little slider we had to do at one point. Yeah, yeah. I totally, yeah. have you ever met one of your heroes in
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Met so many. I mean, that they were all are the chips is gonna be a big one. Because I played chips as a kid. I was I was John, my younger brother was Ponch. The closest thing we ever had to helmets growing up on our bikes were the chips helmets. They were three millimeters of plastic that offered no protection, but it was just play helmets.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah. With the little spike inside that hurt your head. Remember those? Yeah, totally.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You fell on that, it shattered. that's gonna be a very cool moment, I think. listen, I met I got to hang out with Gina when I went to Dallas, and we played like kids. That was a surreal moment. I do a podcast every Monday with two friends that I've never met in person, but we've been doing this now for two years, and it just isn't it's the the whole I love our generation, and I just think we're all friends that haven't met yet.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I love that. Yeah. I love that. What's the name of your podcast?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the three view mirror.
GenX Adulting Podcast: The three view mirror. Okay, cool.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So basically it's three guest three hosts talking about three topics from three decades. And then at the end of the hour, you have to guess what connects those three deck, those three topics. Is it an actor in common, movie in common? What there's something hidden between those three topics that the host brought, and the other two have to guess it. And the reason we tied it into a rear view mirror, but a three view mirror is we when you're driving down the road. You're moving forward but looking back, and that's the concept. We're still moving forward. We're still in 2026. We're just looking back to gain perspective on how we got here.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I love that. That's so creative and original. That how did you who is it?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: You can thank Shell for that one. I think it was Rachelle. She came up with a concept. I think I came up with a name.
GenX Adulting Podcast: What are the names of your co hosts?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Rachelle Oblack and Chris Clews Rachelle's another Gen X era creator. And Chris
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: is an author that talks about he's an author and keynote speaker that talks about lessons that corporate America can learn from eighties music, movies, and pop culture.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's so cool. So how did you guys even come up with that?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Chris sent me his book. I read his book, started talking through email. We talked about putting a podcast together. Shell and I had collaborated on a couple of videos in the past, and we just thought the dynamic of a couple guys and and a woman would work really well. Just, you know, the two of us play it off well, and then Shell is the voice of sanity that that comes in the middle.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And you guys are you live every Monday or you record every Monday?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We do it in front of a virtually live studio audience. We bring up Riverside. I post it over to YouTube and I allow people to comment while we film live every week. Because most
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow, that is so cool. And I know you
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: of the shows we grew up watching were in front of a studio audience. So we
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: do it live in front of a studio audience and then they'll comment on the side and I'll splash it along the the bottom of the screen so that they're part of the experience as well. And then whoever's hosting. asks the other hosts and the studio audience any idea what the connection is.
GenX Adulting Podcast: What time do you guys go on?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Seven PM Eastern time every Monday.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That is so cool. And I know you do I don't you do a Sunday night Facebook live?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I do Sunday night, eight o'clock, wonderful world of generation X, which is just a show that I do. And then on Tuesdays at seven, I do a live Gen X era trivia at a bar. And while I'm live, I just turn YouTube on and I call it our AOL chat room. I've got a group of people now that just come in on their own and chat while I'm doing the trivia. I'm not even engaging through most of it. They just moderate and talk themselves as if they walked into a chat room.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow. That now do they
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And now that group has created a what is that thing called? I can never remember. Discord page. So now
GenX Adulting Podcast: yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: they've created a Discord page and they all talk in there. And now one of the couples that met there is actually getting married.
GenX Adulting Podcast: my gosh. And then did you start the the the Generation X page on Facebook? I feel like you might have invited me, us. Yeah,
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yes. So me and Je Jeff and I started one. Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: 'cause I think I got the invitation from you and we're part of that now. So you guys when did
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And and and that's see, what's cool about that too is that's allowing other people to join the conversation. It's not just us talking. And
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and that's awesome. It gives everybody a voice. You wanna post? Here's eighty thousand people waiting to hear what you have to say.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And when did you guys start that page?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Four months ago, five months ago.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's grown.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, and again I'm inviting through my page with a million followers, so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes. Yes. But still. Okay. Are you have any other questions? I do appreciate a great conversation. Really appreciate your time. Yeah. Boca Raton Yeah, South.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That was easy. What part of Florida are you guys in? Okay. I'll be in Orlando in August and then West Palm Beach for UltraCon in September.
GenX Adulting Podcast: okay. yeah, let us know the dates. Will you email or text me or do you have them? Actually, say it out for anyone listening. When are you in Orlando?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: August hold on. You'd think I would know, huh?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay, yeah. We are in August.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So it's Fanboy Expo in Orlando. Amazing guest list, by the way. It's incredible, the people that are gonna be there. that one is August twenty eighth through the thirtieth.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and like I said, the people there that I'm gonna get a chance to interview just boggles my mind. That's these things started as comic-cons and then evolved to the point that now they're just nostalgicons.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And they also bring younger people in because they'll do current actors. But like for this one, there's the Hobbit Reunion, a bunch of the guys from the Hobbit, Randy Quaid Beverly D'Angelo from Vacation are gonna be there. Highlander movie people are gonna be there. Kate Mulgrew is gonna be there from Orange is the New Black and Star Trek Voyager, Patrick Warburton, who played putty on Seinfeld, Delta Burke, Cliff Claven, John Ratzenberger is gonna be there, Todd Bridges, Kate Jackson, Lorenzo Lamas, Yellowstone
GenX Adulting Podcast: Wow.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Reunion, Henry Danger Reunion, Melrose Place Reunion, Warriors. reunion. So and then Chips cast, of course. So that's I mean, that's really cool.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Amazing. It's so cool. That is so, so cool. We've been watching chips. We haven't watched it in about a month, but we started watching all the shows on Amazon.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Amazon, Pluto, Me TV. and let's see. So UltraCon is at the South Florida Expo Center,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and that's September 18th through 20th. And the main guest, a little smaller, the main guest there I'll be able to interview are from 90210, Brian Austin
GenX Adulting Podcast: No way.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Green and Tori Spelling. Yeah. You can. Rick's are still available,
GenX Adulting Podcast: No way. Okay. What if you can still get tickets? C yeah, can you still get you can't okay.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it's not. Like I said, September eighteenth through the twentieth. And I'll be there.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And you'll be there for all three of those days? All right. That's like thirty minutes from us. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Nice.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. So we'll look I'll look into that one for sure. The I don't know if we can do the Orlando one would be co we'll have to look to see if we can do I think we have a guest.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It's just so accessible and like listen, selfies and autographs and all that, they're expensive. I get it. We're on a budget.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: but even when I was paying for them, now I'm behind stage and can ask for a free picture. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: I see.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: when I was a normal plebe, you know, one
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: of the the the peasants and had to pay, listen, William Shatner, I'll pay 50 bucks for a picture with William Shatner. That was amazing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: so but you can go to all of the panels, which now I get to sit on for free. And listen to them talk and be within spitting distance of these people that we only watched on a twenty two inch magnavox as a kid.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What an amazing experience. Wow. I'm stoked that you're gonna be down this way.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It's just cool. And as I said, for the most part, they won't let you down. For the most part, these are very cool people.
GenX Adulting Podcast: How many do y w do you say you do a year?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it's ongoing. I mean, I really just started moderating this year, so I'm gonna be doing four this year. in talks with a few others to start doing more. I wanna I wanna keep doing more. Number one, it allows me to make great content. Number
GenX Adulting Podcast: Mm.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: two, it puts me in cities where I'm close to followers, so I get to meet the friends that I haven't met yet. And then number three, I get to meet the icons that I grew up watching while they're still here because we're losing some every single day, and that's the nature. Of us growing up that the generation that came before us that we looked up to are passing on. We take their place. Constantly. Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Well and do appreciate you acknowledge that on your page every time we lose someone and I do appreciate that 'cause there's times I wouldn't have known if you hadn't have put that up there.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. It's it's important. And you know, sometimes I'll have people say, Well, they're boomers. I'm like, Well, yeah, boomers are who we watched when we were kids. By definition, you would watch somebody older than you. That's how they get on TV. Yeah. Yeah. And you know,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. It's Yeah, yeah. It's also the musicians we listen to. People don't realize that. So I mean
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: but we we so we do it both ways. We have a special connection to gen peop our peer group, the Debbie Gibbsons, and you know, so that's one connection. The other
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: is who was I idolizing as a kid? You know.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I had a crush on Cheryl Ladd as a kid, inappropriately enough, but that's
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: the way it was. You were eight, crushing on a thirty year old, so
GenX Adulting Podcast: Absolutely. I mean Farrah Fawcett. We were allowed to hang her
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yes.
GenX Adulting Podcast: poster. That was the poster, right guys? I mean, come on. Although I I love Cheryl Ladd You liked Jaclyn Smith though. I think You were more of a Jaclyn Smith.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I was a Jaclyn I was a Farrah sh but now the older I got, the more I appreciated brunettes in my life. So blondes were the shiny object
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: from when I was young. But as I matured, I started to really appreciate the brunettes in the world. Personal opinion, that's all.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I like the way you sum that up. I like that. I can totally agree.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No offense to the blondes in the world at all.
GenX Adulting Podcast: How does your wife handle all this?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She looked up one day my name on Google and saw that the you know how they always say people also search for? So
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: when you search my name or Gen X Jono and then go down in Google, it'll say people also search for John Kotrides wife. She lost three days of sleep over that.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's just part of the game. That's just part of the game. Yeah, she's like, Leave me out of it. Are you do
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: She doesn't want anything to do with it. She's leave me out of it. Never done a video, couple pictures, but that's it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That's hilarious. Now, are you going on the Gen X cruise?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, not my thing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Okay. Yeah, that's I'm trying to talk him into it, but he's like he he's the cruises aren't his thing either, so
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Not my thing. It's a little rich for my blood, too. I'm still in that space in my life where we don't take vacations for ourselves yet. It'll come, but to
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: spend money on me or me, my wife and me, and I know some people do it differently, but for now, at least, with a 14 year old and a 22 year old, the small amount of time and money we have available to do something is gonna benefit all four of us, not
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: one or two of us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. Okay, you done I just think that's a special perspective. kudos to you. You've got the whole family you've got your priorities right. No,
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We work so hard for it, dude.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I know, but and and we all do and it's just I just find that remarkable. You acknowledge it, you acknowledge your how blessed you are, how fortunate you are. You've worked your ass off, I guarantee you that. I know that. But I I just think it's cool your perspective. and the journey that you went on. that you and your wife went on to get your second daughter. I mean, there's something to be said for that. And so I'm sure Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: But we're so lucky. Like I said, we never for a minute allowed ourselves to dwell in woe is me because we're so lucky that we had the one without issue. So we got to go
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: home and heal with her in our lap. With her, I mean, her I feel bad for her. She didn't ask for any of that crap. But for us, we were lucky. But again,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: our kids, our kids are the main story of our lives. Whereas we weren't. I remember
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: having full-blown birthday parties. Where none of the invitees were mine.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I remember a sixth birthday where it was all my parents' friends, and then the kids of those friends, maybe, but it was all about them inviting their friends over. It just wasn't about us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Our and well and our kids are our legacy. Yeah. No matter how much success we have, how big our names get, whatever is going on in everyone's life, who you leave behind is your legacy, you know.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: But it's so sad that our it no contact with the p with parents is exploding right now. And I
GenX Adulting Podcast: It is. It is.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: just find the irony thick that a generation that tried to give voice to their kids, and I'm not I don't know, each individu it may be f fully warranted, but to see the the the the the the the the the explosion of it bothers me in the sense that a generation that gave their kids voices, those voices are now being raised against those parents. Or even worse, silenced to the parents. Gotta be a better
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. It is
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: answer.
GenX Adulting Podcast: it is an epidemic that's app I I wanna get someone on to talk about it that specializes in I know there's some creators out there that their platform is all about this and I'm gonna try to do I want us to do an episode on it because you're right, it's only amplifying, it's multiplying every year. I feel like it's becoming normalized so much, and that's very concerning. And it is ironic.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, I hear it from my kids' friends, you know, that they're trying to end the generational toxicity. And I'm like, dude, you're never gonna end it. Just accept it. It's okay. You know,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: it it's okay. You can set you can set responsible, healthy boundaries without cutting it's not it's not a malignant tumor, it's a parent. Set a proper
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: boundary. I mean, our God, I hate saying it, but if the your parents did to you what our parents did to us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: no. That they never in a million years could they handle it. No, and I think it's communication and boundaries, but it is it's definitely something that needs to be discussed and talked about more because the normalization of it is it's very concerning for sure. So anything else?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah. We tried.
GenX Adulting Podcast: No, up good, up good. Okay. My last question is always, where do you see yourself in five years?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Wherever I end up. No plans, no preconceived notions, with my family happy, healthy, and I you know, hopefully with my wife by my side still healthy and happy, and my kids healthy and happy. And if I'm doing this at a high level or bartending 80 hours a week to pay the mortgage, as long as my family is here, my friends are here and we're healthy, it's it's all good.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I love that answer. That's that's perfect. Well, John, we can't thank you enough for coming on, spending this time. We know you're a busy guy. And
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No worries. I enjoyed it a great deal.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I'm glad. I know your fans are gonna love this long-form access to you. And also for any listeners who maybe are just discovering you, this is a great opportunity for them. And for listeners, we will put everywhere you can find John in the show notes. I have to say I love your shirt. I watched that movie. I probably fifty I'm not kidding, fifty times. I I was obsessed with that movie and I don't think that movie's talked about enough.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: One of my favorite shirts, zoomers love it, but the older
GenX Adulting Podcast: Really?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Gen Z and the younger millennials always mistake it for soft.
GenX Adulting Podcast: yes they do that yes they would but that's not it. That's not
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Do you wanna play a game? They're like, dude, I love Saw. I'm like, I'm glad it's not Saw
GenX Adulting Podcast: it. Do you know what movie we're talking about? War games, right? Or yeah. Did you watch with Matt
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Shall we play a game on the computer?
GenX Adulting Podcast: Matthew Broderick? At least twenty times. Yeah, that's what it would say. Shall we play the game?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah, this so I pulled I pulled the image right from the video of the movie and then overlaid it for my merch.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Now I can read it. That's brilliant. I was gonna explode and zoom in, but now I see it now. Yeah, and so we play a game. You've worn that in a couple at least a couple of your clips I've seen. And I've I kept meaning to meaning to comment how much I haven't seen anyone do anything related to that movie. And I was obsessed.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I just actually I just did a video on the day after and I and
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes, I saw that.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I mentioned war games even in that because I mean obviously listen, the Cold War, we grew up in the shadow of it
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: and people always think it's a boomer thing to dive under a desk. No, we were the end of it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That was us. And I'm sorry, how weird is it that we all watch the day after? And I know you just did a clip on it and you talked about that. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: It was homework. My teacher said we had to watch it. And I God
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: bless my parents. The first time in their lives, about an hour and a half into the movie, something clicked and they're like, This might not be the smartest thing we've done, letting me watch it. And they're like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: you know, we're gonna finish it. Why don't you go to bed? Okay, I had a 13-inch black and white Emerson in my room. I
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: turned it on because I wanted credit. So I watched the
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: rest of it alone and then didn't sleep for a week.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. No, it was the weirdest movie. And I remember there's a scene where the priest and a woman kiss. And I remember saying to my mom, Why are they kissing?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Are you sure you're not thinking of the thornbirds?
GenX Adulting Podcast: No. It was like cause everyone d my mom's like, Well, everyone's dead
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Everyone dies.
GenX Adulting Podcast: and they're the only human content. But still I'm like, Why are they making out? Like I don't understand. Why are we but I I get it kind of now, but still it's like, why were we all watching this freaking crazy movie?
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: 'Cause that's what was on. And if we didn't watch it then we were in our rooms and there was nothing to do there.
GenX Adulting Podcast: I know but Is that the one with like Patrick Swayze or they were No, that's Red Dawn. Red Dawn. Red Dawn. Red Dawn. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: No, you're thinking I also referenced that. That's Red Dawn.
GenX Adulting Podcast: That was sort of damaging too. Yeah, but not in the same way. No, I know.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: The the day after was this huge hyped ABC mini movie event where they
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: showed what would happen and they had like real people and and had scientists if the worst thing happened. And it shows the mushroom cloud in Kansas and people being vaporized, nuclear
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: winter, radiation poisoning, and along the bottom they're like, This is a fictitious representation because they didn't want people jumping out of buildings thinking they had just watched the news report. That the Russians nuked us.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It was almost one of the first movies where it was made where you could think this is real, like this is news footage in a way in a weird way.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So parts of it were the parts of it were like, okay, it's a it's a movie. But
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: then they'd have the scene where they're showing the reporters, and during those scenes they ran the disclaimer because if you walked in at the wrong time, you're like,
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: We're breaking into your television coverage to announce that the Soviet Union has just launched four missiles towards the United States. And that
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: portion of it they had to put the disclaimer because they could still remember War of the World's radio broadcast from thirty years earlier. Where people jumped out of the windows thinking that we were being attacked by Martians.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Right. And and it was happening literally during our childhood where we were being taught that this could actually happen. And if it does
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I thought it I remember as a kid crying more nights I a lot. I remember being afraid that we were gonna die. You know, and listen, kids have their challenges today. I get it. I'm not an idiot.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I said I dropped my daughter off at school. As a parent's brain, you think about the worst that can happen. But what kids don't understand is we didn't imagine our classroom being taken out. We truly believe the world would have been t I mean, not a classroom, not a school. We're talking all of civilization gone tomorrow.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes. And then we were
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And we thought that that was a possibility.
GenX Adulting Podcast: And we were told, but get under your desk because you might be okay. Yes. I was in Birmingham a few years ago with my older son and a friend of his and we're walking along and there was a nuclear, what was it? Like the the fallout shelter
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Move fallout shelter.
GenX Adulting Podcast: below. So I stopped and took a picture. And they're like, What are you doing? I was like, This is something from our childhood. They have no concept. No concept. No concept at all. So But they worry about school shooting.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Well, and we and so now our parents, if you had parents that grew up in the fifties and sixties, they had fallouts but the some of them had built bomb shelters. 'Cause they grew up during that era of it.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it that whole thing. I'm so glad you did a clip of it short on that because I think you're the only one I've seen that's even talked about that movie. And that was one of those moments where I'm like, I'm not the only one because I still remember thinking this is weird. This is not normal.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And then you read the comments, you're like, I watched it in school. My teacher made us watch
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah, yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: this in school. I'm like, your teacher's fucked up.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Well I mean and then that brings us to Challenger. We all watched
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: that in school, right? And then we the explosion and then we just went to the next period. Like no one discussed what happened in that moment.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: I was taking PSATs, my sophomore year of high school, and you know how those are heavily regulated proctored exams. A teacher
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yes.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: started breaking down, so they cut into the test, which they never do, and they're like, All right, we're just gonna let you know what happened. Obviously, you know something's going on. They told us, and then we went back to finish the PSATs.
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah. Yeah. Good luck. Hope this didn't affect your score. There was no benefit for the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: And yeah, teachers would leave the room crying and yet we're still like, All right, an animal is to a dog
GenX Adulting Podcast: Hope that didn't hurt your score. No, I was in like, I don't know, geo not geography class, whatever they called it back then. And then they they wheeled in the TV. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: see I didn't have to watch it thankfully 'cause we were testing.
GenX Adulting Podcast: We watch it and then I'm looking around, like, I don't know, was that supposed to happen? And then our some kid laughed because he was uncomfortable. It wasn't that he thought it was funny. We're young in middle school. And the teacher freaked out on him and yelled at him and said, People just died. And then we
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Yeah.
GenX Adulting Podcast: were like, my God, people just died. We didn't know people just died. And then they wheeled it out and the bell rang and we went to our next period. That's my whole experience with that. It's crazy.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: So the laughing because we didn't know people had died thing loses its empathetic reach when you realize we're also the kids that went to school the next day asking what does NASA stand for? How many astronauts can you fit in a Volkswagen bug? What color were Christy
GenX Adulting Podcast: Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: McCullough's eyes? How do you know Christy McCullough had dandruff? every we
GenX Adulting Podcast: yeah. Yeah.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: had jokes pegged the very next day.
GenX Adulting Podcast: It's true. It's true. But that's copy mechanisms.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: That's why. When you're forced to to go to math after seeing it, your brain has to do something. Yep.
GenX Adulting Podcast: So this is what you get. But again, we can talk about all this stuff forever. But again, thank you, John, for joining us. We loved having you.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: Thank you. I appreciate you guys taking the time. I apologize I was a little late. I'm glad
GenX Adulting Podcast: No.
John "GenX Jono" Kotrides: we made it work.
GenX Adulting Podcast: You're fine. I'm so glad that we were able to connect. And again, for our listeners and for John's fan, well, John's fans already know where to find him, but for any listeners that don't, it'll be in the show notes. And John, leave any comments or questions. John will see them. And we always love to hear from you. So please leave us any comments or questions. And again, thank you again, John. And we will see you next time. Bye.