Death by Boomer with Jeff Styles! Technology - Without Me! (Powered by Guardian Investment Advisors)

better music, we had better movies, we even had better games.

We had lawn darts for goodness sakes.

The boomers, the second greatest generation to walk,

planet earth, we are misunderstood.

The ex generations, the wild generations,

and yet the millennials, they misunderstand us,

we may think so much better, and yet somehow, so much worse.

The short podcast, trying to bridge the gap

of all the generations from a boomer's perspective,

it's death by boomer with Jeff Stiles right here

on during the break podcast,

powered by Guardian Investment Advisors.

Today is April Fool's Day, 2026, April 1st,

2026.

That is of absolutely no importance.

The only reason to this date is truly important

is because 50 years ago today,

ladies and gentlemen, let me say it again,

50 years ago today,

Apple was launched from a garage,

Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak,

and whoever the third guy was,

nobody ever remembers his name, poor dude,

was launched from a garage literally becoming

in a very short amount of time,

one of the most profitable,

one of the most successful businesses,

startup businesses, tech businesses,

any kind of business that anybody could ever remember.

Let me give you a quick rundown in this death by boomer,

Jeff Stiles with a Y, your host,

every Wednesday here during the break podcast.

Let me give you a quick rundown,

a quick timetable of my reference,

my interface, my history with computers.

It won't take long, I promise you.

In 1984, I was watching the Super Bowl,

done in Wonder Robbins, Georgia,

where I was working there in the Macon area,

and I was with a good friend of mine,

my next one neighbor at the Little Duplex,

I lived in apartment complex,

named Sergeant George Mills,

and we were watching the Super Bowl game,

and in the middle of the game,

I think it was during halftime.

I don't remember the exact timing of the spot,

a rather remarkable commercial came on,

and most of you guys remember it,

at least you've heard of it before,

you know of it,

and it was the 1984 commercial from Apple,

and it was a 60 second spot,

which was very, very rare.

It had no voiceover, no narrator,

no talking, no verbal communication whatsoever.

It took it sweet time,

and basically painting a quick portrait.

It was images taken from the George Orwell book, 1984,

a huge group of people sitting,

watching a screen with big brother yapping at them,

looking very much like Vladimir Linnon,

and here comes this beautiful young woman,

with short blonde crop hair, incredibly athletic,

and she's running down the middle of these drones,

these men and dark gray and black staring at the screen,

and she's carrying an Olympic throw hammer.

What the hell is she gonna do with that?

Well, I'll tell you what she's gonna do with that.

She's gonna get down to the end of this group of folks,

and start whipping the hammer around,

just like Olympians do when they do the hammer throw,

and whips it into the screen.

The screen shatters into a million pieces,

and all of these poor, drabbed dead in their souls,

and dead in their eyes, men,

look up in their mouths open, and they go,

whoa, and that was the beginning of the Apple era,

for the most part, most of us remember that,

and that was when they were launching

their brand new personal computer.

Okay, 1984, I'm still in that same apartment.

I'm still in my buddy, Sergeant George Mills,

with a US Air Force, and one of Robin's Air Force Base,

and he actually owns a computer.

So I ask him, why do you own this computer?

And he tells me, in a few years,

everyone will have one of these in their homes.

And after I get up off the floor

from where I was laughing and holding my sides,

and just rolling around and relicking

as I just totaled away, I would say,

that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Why would anybody need a computer in their house?

Nobody needs a computer?

Well, there you go.

That's my crystal ball,

pretty much a track record for you right there,

across the board.

Listen to me when I talk about the stock market,

it's exactly the opposite, you'll do okay.

So by the time 1990 rolls around,

I actually had what we called a computer in our home.

I was living in Flintstone, George,

and a renovated barn.

My son Lucas had just been born,

and my wife declared we need a computer.

So we went out and we bought a word processor.

We didn't really think there was a difference.

It had a little box that powered it up.

It stored information on a glowing screen.

It had a keyboard.

There was no mouse.

There was no mice.

I hate those meces to pieces.

Back in the day, it was just literally a keyboard

and a storage device, an information data storage device,

and a glowing screen.

It was a computer, right?

And let me give you this little detail too.

It was not an inkjet printer.

It was a flywheel printer,

which was the most high-tech thing

I had ever owned at the time.

It looks like it's a little metallic orb.

It has the Clackety Clack little arms

that actually print in ink the letters

and the numbers that you're typing out on the page.

It actually goes quite, quite, quite,

quite these little arms going.

They actually physically hit the paper.

And it would spin.

It would spin around like something

out of a science fiction movie,

like some sort of death, you know, satellite.

You know, it would spin around, it would just,

like that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

that was the sound it made when it was printing,

which was the sound of technology

as far as I was concerned.

Now, we know now that that's not really a computer,

but that's what we thought it was

and that's what we said it was and nobody argued with us.

I remember my wife actually sat down

and she left in her little folder

the very first thing she ever wrote on a computer

and it was, oh my God, I love it already.

So that was kind of a sign of things to come.

I did not love it, but I tolerated it

and I did use it inside the home.

Now, the splash forward just a little bit to 1991.

I've been an advertising agency business

for quite some time.

And the people who actually had computers,

the designer and the guy that ran the business

in my ad agency literally would not let me sit down

in their chairs at their workstations, at their desks

because it was already well known.

It was an obvious observable fat,

incontrovertible fat that my very presence

near a computer would cause the computer to mess up.

Talk to Margie Cobus who is still with us.

You could talk to Scott Sullivan who is not,

maybe you could reach him in a science

or maybe even talk to his kids, they might remember this.

They literally did not want my presence, my aura,

my personal EMP, electromagnetic pulse,

could be anywhere near the computer

because it would mess up.

So I had never had laid a hands on a computer,

never had laid a hands on a computer mouse.

The only keyboard I'd ever worked at

was at an electric typewriter or the word processor.

And the situation in my life, the scenario changed around me,

I had to leave China to go move the Knoxville.

And I moved to an ad agency as their head copywriter.

And they sat me down behind a computer with a mouse.

After they'd already hired me,

I had pretty much already moved up to,

I was living in an apartment,

but we were soon to buy a house.

And I said, I have never used one of these things before.

And the receptionist for the ad agency

had to come show me how to use the mouse and move it around

and make it do the things that I wanted it to do.

I was so confused, I was so lost.

The receptionist was rolling her eyes and shrugging

and had that WTF, what am I gonna do with this guy look?

And I have a feeling that at that moment,

my very first day at the job, they probably realized

we have made a terrible hire.

This was a bad move.

This guy has so far behind the A-Bull.

He's so far behind the flow of society and technology

that he's never gonna be able to catch up

and we've really screwed up here.

Now I struggled with it and I learned how to use a mouse

and I learned how to write down

my thoughts on a computer with the glowing screen

and print them out with an inkjet printer and life went on.

But since then, I've owned a couple of computers.

I've worked at a bunch of them.

As I've right now, I do not own one.

I do not own a computer.

You're saying, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff,

how can you live in this day and age

and not own a computer?

That's impossible.

Flashback to 1984 and I said,

they would be the dumbest thing I could ever possibly imagine.

The only computer I own is in my hand right now.

It is my phone and it checks my email.

It sends and takes text.

It lets me surf the web.

It lets me, you know, surf for music.

And have I become more tech savvy?

Well, yeah, because I had to.

Now, because I wanted to, now my wife has two laptops

and a huge monitor, the size of a Volkswagen

in the corner of our kitchen, which serves as her office.

Again, I have never sat down at that desk

and never touched that computer,

either one of our laptops,

or done anything with the monitor, none whatsoever.

I live computer free with the exception of this phone

and I'm very comfortable with it.

I've learned how to spot AI videos and AI stories.

It's not very hard.

Unfortunately, most of the people around me have not.

In my circle of peers and family and friends,

I'm constantly being, you know, people are sharing with me,

AI generated videos, movie trailers are the worst.

You know, music, I can spot it a mile away.

A movie trailer looks so real.

It looks so real and I tap into it and I realize

this is not even close to being correct.

There's nothing true about this.

But stories, headlines, actually sometimes,

masquerading as a real story from a real news outlet.

I've gotten pretty good at detecting those.

I wish those around me had done the same

to be honest with you.

But no, I'm doing just fine.

You know, when somebody says,

well, you need to go check the website.

You know, I've talked about this before.

My chart, the new abomination

that the urlanger healthcare system

is leading on so heavily, I despise it.

I was at the doctor yesterday and I said

that stupid dumbass, my chart thing,

that abomination and the eyes of the Lord

that horrific, satanic thing that you force us to go to.

And literally everybody was laughing in the little area

out there where the nurses and the staffers,

you know, all sit and occupy space at the doctor's office.

Half of them were looking at me like,

they couldn't believe I was saying this out loud.

This was anathema, this was sacrilege.

This was, you know, just this cannot be done.

The others were nodding up and down fiercely.

And yes, you could see the age divide very, very clearly.

So I am forced to use it.

And that is when I will use it,

it being the world of computers.

And what will happen from this point forward,

what will happen in the next 50 years,

the next, you know, 50 months,

the next five weeks, the next five days,

I have no idea, it'll be a lot

and it will happen without me.

That's a 100% guarantee.

Join us every Wednesday for death by Boomer with Jeff Stiles.

And don't miss us every Monday

for the up front wrap up and every Friday

for the weekend windup with Jeff Stiles.

And if you're on Apple,

leave us a review and rating.

It just goes to hardcast.

See you later, everybody.