Friends of Dave #435: 🐨 shooting koalas from helicopters 🚁
End of April Observations
This is the last FoD of April and next week, in the immortal words of the legendary boy band N’Sync, it’s gonna be May.
So why not a few rants and observations? It’s been a while.
The Baby Boomers have Bob Dylan, the Beatles and George Carlin….Millennials have Lena Dunham and Taylor Swift…Gen Z has Billie Eilish and Zendaya. Gen Alpha has the Rizzler. For a while, it was largely believed that the voice of Generation X was Kurt Cobain or maybe even John Hughes. Nope — I am here to set you all straight. After watching his latest comedy special on Hulu (and recently catching him live on Broadway in the recent revival of Glengarry Glen Ross), I resoundingly believe that the true voice of Gen X is none other than Bill Burr. Watch the special and prove me wrong.
Perhaps my cynicism is showing just a wee bit here (or I am drinking too much Bill Burr Kool Aid), but…the older I get and the more frequently I visit medical professionals, I truly believe we are all now viewed by the medical community more as walking and breathing ATMs than patients needing care. Optometrists and dentists FOR SURE, but anyone else notice the upselling they get from their primary care physicians and the other specialists to whom we are referred? Prescribing statins and aspirin to manage blood pressure? It keeps you in the system. Extra measures of care is only suggested when it could benefit the practice — when the odds or numbers don’t favor the practice (aka there isn’t a code to get it approved by insurance), the measures are deemed not necessary.
You wonder why the cost of living is so high? Everything comes with a subscription fee (everything but this newsletter, btw….we keep it old school here 😜).
Tried and true words of wisdom to live by:
A stitch in time saves nine.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
You can’t always get what you want.
All you need is love.
No means no.
Don't ever talk to a girl/boy who says she/he just has ‘a friend.’
Never trust a big butt and a smile.
Coffee is for closers.
There is no instance where it is ever appropriate to say anything with a “hard ‘R’.”
Regarding the last one, this came out of a conversation I recently had with one of my kids. Remember, we live outside of Boston, where it is almost comically mandatory for locals to drop “Rs” from words — you know, like “pahk” or “cah” or “lobstah” or “wintah” or even “hahd ah”….so I was talking about this with one of my sons after exiting a local store and wondered aloud “You know, what makes some people around here use a ‘hard ‘R’ and some not?” And my Gen Z aged son, horrified, responded, “Uh….Dad….you know that is kind of inappropriate what you just said.” Truly perplexed (and a little worried I had deeply offended one of the local townsfolk), I was like, “What was inappropriate?” And my 24 year old offspring, in a grave, condescending tone akin to if he was schooling someone born in the 1920s Deep South, “Dad, you said the phrase ‘hard ‘R’……it’s 2025…let’s👏 be 👏clear 👏….there is NO INSTANCE where it is EVER appropriate to say ANYTHING with a ‘hard ‘R’….including the phrase itself….”…..okay then…the more you know…
I have to say, going to a modern professional baseball game is like going to the bathroom: I sometimes wonder how did we ever do it without a smartphone…
There are humans already born that will not know how to “Google” something or drive a car just like my kids can’t figure out how to dial a rotary phone or operate a stick shift.
Speaking of baseball, we went to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park earlier this week. Beautiful, early spring evening to be outside — maybe one of the nicest nights we have had this year. My wife, my teenaged son and I had the pleasure of sitting a row in front of 3 women in their mid to late 20s who I’m pretty sure knew nothing about baseball and openly chatted with each other while nursing Truly Hard Seltzers the entire game.
Here’s just a few excerpts of what we overheard over the course of 9 innings:
Girl #1: “So I met this guy online and he was nothing like his profile picture. He, like, used an AI filter like 40 times to enhance his picture…..so weird.”
Girl #1: “I met this other guy online and only went out with him on a first date because I thought he was gay. But turns out he wasn’t gay….even though I think he really is gay. He’s going to Miami this weekend and I am going to NYC and we are going to go out again when I get back.”
Girl #2: “Yeah, I met this guy online and it was like the first time I gave out my work email to someone…..I’m pretty sure he ended up catfishing me because he sounded so different in the email.”
Girl #3: “Wait, who’s winning this game? Are the Red Sox like any good? Baseball is low key so boring.”
Girl #3: “We got so freaking drunk at this bar and walked home and bought a huge tub of Cheetohs…..yeah….we like low key finished the whole thing…. My friend was so drunk she ended up puking orange sh!t all over the apartment….I didn’t know what to do so I just got the little garbage pail from the bathroom and was like ‘Here you go’.”
Girl #1: “I brought this one guy home a few weeks ago and….no no, ew, not the AI Guy…..no no not the Gay Guy….it was this OTHER guy who took me to dinner and was sweet and like wanted to just come in and cuddle…..I was okay with that because I had…you know…my Monthly Visitor….and like, nothing else was going to happen. I might see him in a few weeks after my brother’s graduation and after I see the Gay Guy again after I come back from NY and he comes back from Miami….”
Girl #2: “Wait, show me the AI guy’s profile picture again…..I didn’t know you could do that…I should totally try that.”
Girl #3: “What inning is it? I just want to do the Stretch thing and then Sweet Caroline and then I think we should go.”
Just as they were leaving, my wife turned to them and said with a smile and a wave, “Ladies, for what it is worth, we really think you should give the AI Guy another chance…You never know…..and stay away from the Cheetohs on the way home!”
I knew there was a reason I married that woman…..❤️
XOXO
Dave
And now a few things to make you smarter…
In times of economic uncertainty, cash is king. But where do Americans have the most cash in the bank?
SmartAsset analyzed median bank deposit data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The latest government figures are from 2022, and a 6.34% inflation rate was applied to convert those figures into 2024 dollars.
In times of change and pressure, a set of skills known as ‘psychological flexibility’ can help you and your team to thrive.
The koala is a national icon of Australia. And in some parts of the country, these marsupials — known for their fluffy ears, adorable clingy babies, and diet of eucalyptus leaves — are endangered. In the last two decades, their population size in some areas has dropped by half. It may seem odd, then, that the government is shooting them out of trees. From helicopters. In a national park.
This feels like the hardest round yet.
Born between 1965 and 1980, Gen X came of age with punk rock and Reaganomics, learned to code in BASIC, and entered the workforce only to be met by a near-continuous series of economic disruptions: the 1990–91 recession, the dot-com bust, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID crash. Now in their mid-40s to late-50s, they’re navigating careers — and retirement prospects — shaped by technologies and economic shocks they never saw coming.