Good Day Google+ - Life and The Pursuit of Happiness

Hey there, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Good Day Google+. As I love to say, it's always a good day on Google+ when I can share time with my friends and hang out with all you and just have some fun today. It's a light, airy day. Well, it's not light and airy down in Florida, it's hot, but thankfully it is a little airy. There's a nice breeze and there's not a lot of humidity, so it's feeling pretty good. We're not feeling the heat of summer yet, but I know pretty soon it's going to be here. I'll be turning that air way up. So, but I work here today with some guests and a special guest for a little while. We're missing Lisa Hovnanian, but she will be in to join us shortly. So I'm just gonna run down real quick and introduce who is here, and then we'll get on with our special guests and let her make her announcement, Carolyn, and we'll go from there. So I don't know how you see it, but on my left I have Sue Aston. Hey Sue, how you doing?

I'm fine. Hi, Chef Dennis. How you doing?

Great. Glad to see you from across the pond here.

I know, it's not such a big pond really, is it?

No, it's not.

You know, it's getting smaller and smaller, and we've spent enough time on together now that it seems just normal for us to be chatting.

Yes, it does.

You come from the coast of Cornwall?

That's right. Yeah, quite remote down here, but it's lovely.

I bet it is lovely, you know. Then we're going up to my friend from Georgia, Stan Bush. How you doing, Stan?

I'm doing great, man. It's a good thing I can see in the film strip you've got me and Mark separated, just like they would have done in the school classroom. The teacher would have us because we were a little bit of troublemakers there. I did notice too that she's not from Georgia. I could tell by the accent.

No, she's not from Georgia.

I was really surprised by this. She's like from UK, is that right? Alabama.

Alabama, okay.

Must be LA, Lower Alabama.

Lower Alabama, down by the coast. But we're glad to have you here, and on my screen you're right next to Mark, so I don't want you guys to be going, "Don't touch me, stop touching me, he's touching me." I noticed in the green room you didn't have any deodorant, so it might be a little scary. Let the games begin.

Let's move over then to Mark for his rebuttal. Yes. Mark, how you doing?

Tampa, so you're in the same state, not very far from me.

Not yet, not very far at all. I just want to thank Stan for also coming from his favorite sushi place, because clearly that's where he is with that backdrop.

It's a geisha house, it's a geisha house.

In that case, we might want to join.

So why didn't you come with the full makeup and the dress on?

Because I didn't want to wear it. I thought I'd be wearing the same thing you would.

There we go. Dooley kaboom, Leslie. That's good. Well, I'm glad we're off to a good start. Before the merriment gets too far, Carolyn Capernaan, let her talk about the reason she's here and what she wants to share with us today.

Hey Dennis, thanks for letting me stop by again for a real quick second, and I won't take too long before I let you get back to the Good Day Google+ Comedy Hour. I wanted to stop by and invite everyone in the audience and all of you on the panel, of course, to come help us get some charities onto Google+. I've teamed up with Greg Truppio and Dennis Littley to work on a project with a local charity here in Central Florida this time, Harbor House of Central Florida. They're new to Google+ and we've been helping them out for a while now. You may remember the video that circulated of Greg jumping around and dancing around in a rather staggeringly large pair of high heels. And so he's, he walked a mile in those as well, and he's decided to auction them off, hopefully try and get a little bit more than we paid for them to benefit Harbor House, donate back to them. And Dennis has decided to join him in the challenge.

That's Dennis Littley, not me, okay.

Not you.

I was going to ask you if you wanted to join in the fun. But Dennis Dennis Littley is actually going to be taking the walk a mile in her shoes challenge. He's going to be doing it live during an HOA on Wednesday night, and he's going to be walking around, I think, the bar where Bandwidth is held normally. And so we're going to do that, and we're going to auction the shoes off on a special show on Sunday at the end of the week. So we're hoping to get some people to join us. We really want to use this kind of structure as a tool to encourage nonprofits to use Google+ for all they can to— I'm coming to you from my cell phone and it's falling all over the place. We want to use it to encourage nonprofits to step onto Google+ to bring their message to a broader community than the ones they might normally reach. And just use it to get some dialogue going and do some good. So I won't take any more time, but thanks so much.

Great.

And we will— Harbor House is a really great charity too, if you want to enlighten everyone a little bit about them. It's a place where families can go with their pets because so many are reluctant to leave home in dangerous situations because they're afraid they'll leave their pets there.

Exactly. Harbor House is one of the largest domestic violence nonprofits in Central Florida. They actually are the only— I think they're the only domestic violence shelter in Florida that has both a licensed daycare and a licensed kennel on-site. So the entire family can go there if needed. They take both men and women, homosexual, heterosexual, doesn't matter. They're very, very wonderful people, do some great work, and they educate the community. They actually created an app called the R3 app—Recognize, Respond, and Refer— Respond and Refer, to educate people on how to recognize those circumstances and react appropriately, as opposed to in a way that might actually trigger the survivor to be more likely to stay, to do what was right for them and empowering to them. So it's a remarkable organization. We've had a great time working with them.

Well, good. Good to know. If you want to drop the link into the comment bar so everyone can see it, we'd appreciate that. Will do.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome, and I will see you soon.

See you tonight. Mark, see you tonight, Dennis. Good night, guys.

Good luck. Bye. Bye.

Yeah, that is a really good cause down here, and, you know, they do a lot of good work, and we have some great people in the area working on charity. So, you know, it's always important to remember, you know, to help where you can and when you can. So let's get started. We're still waiting for Lisa to join us. Hopefully she'll be able to, not having too many problems, but I'm going to get started talking to Sue. So Sue, why don't you, before the boys get carried away, talk to me for a while.

Before the boys start scrapping again.

So you know, you play the violin and I've heard some of your music and I listen to the one that has, what is it, a million point-some hits.

Oh yes, yes, the Homecoming, yeah.

Homecoming, oh yeah. Great. How did you get started in music, and was violin your first instrument?

Yeah, violin was my first instrument, and my dad used to play the violin, but not professionally, just for fun really. His dad taught him, and I was an only child and quite lonely a lot of the time, but there was always a violin sort of hanging around the house, and I used to just pick it up and play with it really, just as if It was a toy, and that's how I really got started. And then I had violin lessons, but I just used to love doing my own thing and listening to different styles of music, and that's how I became a composer. Excellent.

What is your favorite type of music to play?

Well, that's a good question. I guess I like music that's classically inspired but having a really strong melody. So it's a bit of a crossover, really. I love kind of the passion that you get in classical music, especially the big symphonies and concertos, but I love the beautiful melodies that you get in folk music, and I think that inspires me as a composer as well.

Alright, well, let me— some of my favorite bands in the '70s were bands that had violins in them. ELO. Oh, brilliant!

Oh yeah, fantastic, aren't they?

Kansas. Yeah. Jean-Luc Pont—

was it Jean-Luc, or there was another violinist. Who was that?

Well, it was Charlie Daniels, of course. Double F out of Georgia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Charlie Daniels. But there was another guy. It wasn't Jean-Luc Ponty.

Oh, the Cajun guy.

Yeah, yeah, uh, Kershaw, was it?

Yeah, Doug Kershaw. Not Doug, Doug Kershaw.

I think that's right.

And then there was also a local band, well, it was actually from Boston area called C-Train.

Oh.

Oh yeah, they had an amazing violinist and he went on to do other bands and Seat Train kind of went away. But, you know, do you like playing any kind of rock-inspired violin?

Oh yeah, I absolutely love rock music and I used to listen to a lot of punk rock when I was a teenager. I was a bit of a strange teenager, I think, because I was attending music college, but I loved listening to kind of angry punk music and rock music. I just love music that has a real energy to it. So I think that comes a lot into my writing as well.

What about, you know, when I was in Venice, I started seeing the bands that play, they're dressed up in like the era outfits playing classical music with a twist on the electrical instruments. Have you ever seen any?

Oh yeah, they're great, aren't they? It's great that it reaches such a huge audience as well, isn't it?

Disney even has those down here. They have them playing. I forget what that genre is called, but really fun to listen to. It's always one of my favorites. I did try to play the violin once. Did you really? I did, because I have such fat, short little fingers, it was not— it was not a happy event. I had played the upright bass for a while, but the violin just wasn't happening.

Aww, you obviously need a better teacher, that's what it is!

I don't think it was the teacher as much as it was my fingers.

Well, actually, I have the shortest fingers I think in the world, I have hands like the size of a child. So it doesn't have to be all to do with the length of your fingers. Well, I was using that as an excuse.

You're just making me look bad. I'm sorry. Anyway, we have another musician on, and I'm going to turn it over to him because I saw a guitar in his background. Mark Ensign, how you doing, buddy? Good, how are you doing? I'm good. So what's up and good on Google+ for you today?

What are you doing? Well, I'm doing this talk at 12 o'clock, or 1 o'clock, and I'm here. You're here! So it starts there. Not much, you know, like I said, we were talking earlier, we're in the process of moving, so everything I own is in a box, so anything that wasn't boxed, I put in the background. So it actually looked like I was almost homeless.

So what kind of, since I didn't know that side of you, what kind of music do you like to play?

I mainly play like R&B, rock, funk, that kind of stuff. I used to do a lot of work on Broadway and stuff like that, so that was my genre, what I mostly did. I went to music college as well in Boston and made a great living as a professional musician, had a blast, then just got tired of living on the road and traveling so much. At the end of every gig you're always unemployed. It just gets a little stressful, so I kind of outgrew it a little bit.

I know, I know, it's a rough life. I did that for a while when I was younger, but probably not anywhere to the degree that either you or Sue did. My gigs were all kind of local. It's kind of tiring after a while. I can't imagine doing it your entire life like some of these bands do.

Yeah, I mean, you play the same show 8 times a week for 5, 6, 7 years. I'd find myself just playing, playing, playing, and then all of a sudden I'd look up and I hadn't turned the page in 45 minutes. My body just took over. I just played the whole show without even realizing it. It's like when you're driving home from work and you kind of black out and all of a sudden you're just home. You don't even remember driving there.

I tell you, I've had nights like that. Yeah. There were nights I'd look at myself at the end of the shift and I would be soaked from sweat because it was so hot in the kitchen. I'd look over at the other guy working with me and say, "Are we done?" It's just your body takes over at a point, and that sometimes doesn't become fun anymore, and you have to reevaluate what you're doing.

I hope you weren't dripping in the food because that's pretty nasty.

No, no, no. I never wore a headband in those days. I actually had hair in those days, too, so I'd make sure it was out of everything. It was not a pretty sight back in the kitchen when it was hot. So do you play anything else besides guitar?

Well, I play bass, and that's about it. I mean, I suck at piano. I can play that a little bit. I play a little guitar. I suck at that too. I played a little upright, not very well. So when I first started as a musician, I was in 3rd grade, and I wanted to play something. I wanted to play sax. And they ran out of saxophones, so they gave me a trombone, which is not as cool as you might think it is because nobody liked the trombone player. And so once I got old enough, I switched from trombone to piano, and I was terrible at that. Then I told my parents I want to play guitar, and they bought me a guitar, and I was terrible at that. And when I told them I want to play bass, they said no. And so I went out and got a job, and I saved, and I bought a bass. And like my whole musical career is based on showing my parents up that they were wrong. Like there's a whole mental psychological thing that if they didn't say no, I probably would have sucked at that too, but I didn't have a choice.

So yeah, sometimes whatever works. Yeah, exactly. I always loved playing bass, but I could never get enough courage to make the switch, and I didn't have enough money to have both, to trade everything in. Right. After I got my Les Paul, I was like, I didn't want to trade anything, and I just— that was my baby. Even though I couldn't play it real well, it still looked really good. So, right, right. Sometimes it's better to look marvelous than— yeah, exactly.

You know, hang it up on the wall, it becomes a piece of art.

Oh, now my brother has it. He's— since my carpal tunnel took over, he got my Les Paul and my Ovation. I still have the Martin, but, uh, I haven't seen it in a while, it's sitting in the closet.

Right, yeah, I have a '69 Jazz Bass that's sitting in the closet that I just, I don't, it doesn't feel right to me, like I don't play it very well, like, you know, because I'm used to a 5-string, it's just an old bass, but it's such a great instrument, you know, I don't play it but I can't get rid of it.

No, no, you don't want to ever get rid of that, not unless, you know, it comes to a time where you just want to sell it to get rid of the memories and say how much money it's worth. That's a pre-CBS, or is it?

Yeah, yeah, CBS was in the, you know, like, I think the changeover was around '70.

Yeah, yeah, because we had a Jazzmaster, only because the store didn't have any Stratocasters when my mom picked it up and she didn't know. So, right, pretty cool guitar.

Nice. Yeah, gotta love it.

Ah, the old days. Yeah. All right, Stan, you've been nice and quiet through this, so now I'm going to give you your turn for the rebuttal. No, I'm not. What are you doing? So what's with Georgia today?

Well, behind this little geisha— where the geisha girls are, they're changing back there— but behind this screen, I have a guitar too. Really? Oh, cool. I play guitar. I started the saxophone in like the— I think it's third grade I started playing saxophone because all the cool guys play saxophone. Yeah, there were trombone guys, right? I mean, everybody hung out with the trombone and the saxophone guys.

But I wanted to play the saxophone when I was younger, but they wouldn't give me that. They said you have to start with a clarinet, and I went, oh, I wouldn't do that.

Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't. Yeah, I would have never picked up music at that point. But, you know, I played the saxophone a little while, and I remember, by the way, the band that had the violins was— and the reason I was having a problem remembering it a while ago is because I actually saw them. It was that long ago. It was a band called It's a Beautiful Day, and they had a song called "White Bird." I don't know if you've ever heard that.

I don't know. I'll have to Google it later.

I still listen to that song, you know, like whenever I can. It's a really, really nice, nice song.

Well, you know, I love listening to the music of the '60s now, and I say, boy, they sold us such a load of crap. This was our music. This was, you know, we were revolting and we were listening to our— and you listen to it, it's like, oh, there's strings, there's horns behind it. You know, it's like Tony Bennett could have sang the same song and it wouldn't have mattered. You know, it was just the long-haired guy singing it made it our anthem, you know.

Yeah, it was pretty tough coming up in the age group that I'm in, because we had to go listen to bands like the Rolling Stones before, a long time ago.

Not to mention having to duck away from all those dinosaurs.

Yeah, that's very true. The dinosaurs were a problem. But how's Kanye West working out for your generation?

Yeah, we'll take French fries over Kanye West.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They took— yeah, they said that Kanye's mother told him that, you know, he would— he could never be a musician. And I thought, well, she was kind of right, but I'm not a big fan of his at all. But, you know, he does have actually some very good music. I just have never heard him yet.

I thought he was a better oboe player. Tells you what I know.

You thought he was what? Basketball player. Kanye West? That tells you what I know, huh?

I have XM in my car and I just listen to the '60s and the '70s pretty much.

Yeah, that's my wife. We have XM and she listens to a station called Love, you know, and it's, well, it's very different. It's not the station that I would have listened to, you know, but she is my wife and I have been married to her now for 31 years.

Mine likes to listen to talk radio, and I firmly believe that radio was meant for music, not for talk, so it does not make sense to me. Yeah, she was—

but you do what you gotta do.

My wife just loves the sound of my voice, so she just loves to hear me talk.

I can listen to it. It's very melodic, soothing. I remember at dinner, she was laughing.

Just don't tell her I said that if you can.

Yeah, yeah, your wife must be a saint, man. That's all I can say.

You know, at dinner she did have a little halo over her head. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You are so over-married. I've never met her. Like, in the line— I know that my life, I mean, I'm way over-married. In the line, you know, they're like the hookup line, you know, before you come to earth. And like, I don't know, maybe Lizzie Borden stepped out for a minute or something and me and Cheryl hooked up. But if it wouldn't have been for that little thing, I would have not had a good thing, you know, because I'm not the most, you know, lovable guy sometimes. Why?

Really? You could have fooled us. You know, I'm the same way too, but then again, medication does a lot to help. That's always my claim to fame now. I've calmed down quite a bit since my chef days too. So, you know, that— just getting out of the kitchen made me a little more mellow. Now I'm back to having fun in the kitchen again, so it's a good thing. So Sue, what else do you play besides violin? Do you play anything else? Yes, I do.

I play the piano as well. I had to sort of learn the piano in order to get into music college. It was like one of the requirements. But this is where having small hands wasn't a good thing because I find it quite hard, you know, getting all the chords and everything. So it wasn't really my natural instrument, but it's very good actually sort of working as a composer and a music arranger because it gives you a good sense of harmony. So it's very useful, and I do write a lot of music on the piano, but I wouldn't perform it live.

Do you, when you write, do you see the notes? You know, I've always— a serious composer, I've never had a conversation with a serious composer. And I did take some classes when I was in my youth, and I thought I was going to be a musician. Yeah, yeah. Turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it was, so I went back to business. But I mean, I know someone would say, you know, they could actually— I could never quite see the notes and know where they were or what they were, you know.

Oh, right, yes. Yeah, we did have to do a lot of studying with that, and it was a bit tedious at the time but well worth it in the end, really. Yeah.

How long does it take you to write? Do you write freehand now when you're writing music?

Yeah, I do actually. I usually, I like sort of curling up. I'm the sort of person that likes curling up with a real book rather than a Kindle, so I'm the kind of person that likes curling up with a piece of real manuscript paper. And yeah, I get it done really quickly. I find that the ideas just come all in a rush really, and yeah, I work really quickly. Deadlines are good as well.

Do you write instrumental? Pardon? You write only instrumental or have you written any vocal?

Yeah, I've written vocal stuff as well. I have a friend, she's a classically trained mezzo-soprano, but she sings a lot of jazz as well. She's a bit like me, she does lots of different styles of music and we've worked quite a lot together. And I wrote some stuff for her on my album Between Worlds. And I've got another friend who's a singer and she sings like a choirboy. She's got like a really high-pitched beautiful clear voice. So I've got both of them singing on my Between Worlds album, and it's the first time I'd really worked with singers. But yeah, loved it.

Right now you don't sing though?

No, I do impressions of Kate Bush, but only when I'm on my own in the car. Nobody else wants to hear it. I don't know. I can't think why. Does Phil play anything? Yeah, Phil's a guitarist. He used to be a guitarist in a rock band. Used to have very long hair, and he actually wrote music for a film with Lindsay Wagner. Remember Lindsay Wagner, who's the Bionic Woman? Absolutely. Yeah, it was called This Child Is Mine, and Phil wrote one of the rock songs, sort of like when the troubled character sort of entered the movie. That's when his thrashy rock song would come on. So yeah, he's a musician too.

I kind of thought he was. I love, you know, I guess we all used to have more hair than we do now. If I could find the picture of me in fringe with the hair and those big muttonchop sideburns.

Oh wow, you've got to find that out. We have to see that.

Yeah, I'll have to dig that out from somewhere. Definitely. Go back Thursday, it'll be quite amusing. So guys, well, you know, we got you all here. I guess Lisa's not coming in, so Anything you're working on? Any projects anybody's doing? Anything you'd like to talk about?

Nah, nah, nothing. That's good.

We'll just sit here and look at each other for a second.

Actually, I listened to her talk and that's just— woohoo! I just love that talk. What's that? I just love her accent. I really do. I mean, that's one of the fun parts about about the Hangouts on Air. You know, I mean, obviously I talk, but when I get in these situations and I'm listening, and I'm listening to accents and watching them, I used to not really understand as much. Like Mia Voss would talk about the accents of David Ammerland and those guys and the way they talk, and it was, you know, I just didn't see how, yeah, what's so I'm worrying about that, but I mean, I was just looking at her going, wow, that is really— I just love the accent.

Stan's turning into a creepy old man.

What do you mean? What do you mean turn in? That's right. What do you mean turn into?

Well, I know I made my wife crazy. I downloaded an Irish voice for my Maps GPS, an Irish female voice, so instead of the one that comes with it. It just makes her insane that I use that, she's not real happy because she does sound really good with that accent. Except none of them can pronounce the roads right, even the American ones. We have some fun with that. Let me shout out some people that are here. Scott Scowcroft is here, he's loving to meet the panel, you see people in HOAs but get to know them on Good Day Google+. That's why we're here to talk. Luc Jauois is tuning in, if that's how you pronounce it, from Corsica. He's saying hello to everybody. Tony Rose is here and he was a child of the '60s just like me and he loves '60s music. I'm telling you, I was working one day and I said something and one of my favorite things was, "It's not like the old days." And I was at a summer camp and this kid that was there turned to me and he goes, "When were the old days?" I went, "The '60s." And he looked at me with all sincerity and went, "I read about those." Oh no! Oh Lord, I have really gotten old. That's bad. I know, I know. So anyway, David Leopold is in the house and he's interesting to listen to your music. Music era definition, Stan Bush. We've had interesting times, haven't we? That we have, or at least we think we have. What we remember. Kristen Drysdale, Kanye West, and Stan Bush.

She's in love with that. Well, you know, I saw, I mean, my generation, right, less than 5 miles from my house was the Atlanta Pop Festival, what it was called. It was actually You know, like the Woodstock of the era. It was the second Woodstock. There were 200,000 people here, and people like Jimi Hendrix played there. It was really, really neat. This area was where Capricorn Studios was, and Capricorn Studios was the Allman Brothers and, you know, Wet Willie and Leonard Skinner and all these guys. Well, a lot came in and played through here. So I really, really am proud that I had an opportunity to listen to that music. How about the Georgia boys REM? Oh yeah, yeah, yep, yeah, they were actually a little bit behind me, but they were really, they're really pretty good too. I mean, you know, pretty good as far as bands go. Yeah, they don't know what they're doing. They were from Georgia.

I just, I found out.

Yeah, they were out of Athens is where they are. Athens, there's quite a few bands come out of Athens, including the B-52s used to play up there, and, you know, bands like that. So they were an interesting group. I think the Talking Heads were from, some of them were from Athens too. Wow, I love that.

Must have been something in the water down there.

I don't think it was the water. Something else. I'm pretty sure nobody I knew drank water back then.

Not anybody. Oh, and Mark, we have a message for you from Kristen. Go to the corner.

All right. Let me just clear the air here. Stan is one of my favorite, favorite people online. Granted, I only know about 4 or 5 people online, but he's definitely in the top 3 of those 4 people. I love Stan. He plays it off like he's really cool and a tough guy, and he beats me up a little bit, but he is about as soft as they come. Last month, this is very funny, last month he emailed me and said, I need you to go to this ice cream place and give them the password Google+. And meanwhile it's April 1st, so I was just like, ah, nice try, no way, it's not going to happen, I'm not going to do it. And so a couple days go by and he reaches out and he's like, did you go? Nope, I know it's a joke, I'm not going. He's like, I'm serious, go. Go to this place down the street from my house and give them the password for Google+. So I was like, fine. He wouldn't let it go. So a week later I go with the kids and I walk up to the window and I'm like, Google+? I don't know. And the girl comes, she's like, we've been waiting for you. And she comes up and she hands me an envelope and in the envelope is a card. That said enjoy, and it was with a gift card for the kids for ice cream. So that was awesome. So, you know, it's like, I love— and he's one of the few people that I just love bantering back and forth with because he hits me 10 times harder than I can hit him. So it just makes it that much more fun.

Yeah, he is a lot of fun. Out of all the people on the internet that I know, Mark's one of them. Really do. So actually, let me tell you how I met Mark. This is a true story. Do you know how I met him? I had a client that called me because I do some networking stuff, you know. I had a client that said, hey, the network's broken. And I said, well, hold on a second. I logged in. I said, I'm logged in and I'm looking at your machine right now. The network's not broken. I said, well, show me what you're trying to do. He was going to Mark's website. And I said, well, yeah, hold on a minute, let me look this up. And I go, you know, we got a language filter on your network. And it's like, I was reading it, I was going, what the— we got this language filter, dude, you're not going to be able to go to his site. So that's how I actually That's really funny.

Yeah, because I have a potty mouth.

All right, well, I don't know, man, the potty mouth, that's the— yeah, maybe. But it's, you know, it's really, it's a, it's really good writing. I like the way he writes it. You know, anytime that I— Mark, turn your earphones off for a minute. Uh, anytime I like am not feeling just kind of, you know, not happy or whatever, I go to his site and I read it, you know, because he's really— he's a really good writer and he's funny and I enjoy it. And I think— I look at it and I think to myself, you know, if this guy can make it— it just is like, man, this guy's really, really— he's a good guy. You can— it's like the relationship between he and I, I know that He's really a good guy, you know, regardless of what he goes out there and says and does. He says, you know, plays tough and all that kind of stuff. He's just a good guy. I never heard that story.

That's a great story.

Yeah, well, that's the truth. It was like, I got a language filter on y'all's network, man. You can't get to that.

That's too funny. The porn sites were safe, but he couldn't go to that.

I got a big thing, my dad doesn't understand social media at all, he just does not get it, he's on Facebook but he doesn't understand how it works, so like, so what he does is he posts replies to like what you post on his wall, so my sister and I have this great time looking at his wall like every couple days to see like, you know, I think this one's for you, and like we start laughing. We don't tell them. We just sit back and watch. So one day I got a text message from him. And then I didn't respond. And then he posted on his wall and tagged me on it that he said, I read your tweeter today, and I think you need to start watching your language. So I was like, what? So I figured he, you know, Twitter meant blog. I see how he can confuse those two. And I have to watch my language, and so I had responded, go home, Dad, you're drunk. At which point, on his wall on Facebook, he proceeded to just write an entire story about how I need to watch what I say. You know I don't drink. You know I got to do this. All of a sudden, I was 13 again, and it was so funny. My sister and I were just crying. My sister's responding to him and egging him on. It was just so much fun. Aww.

It was great. That commercial where the woman is posting pictures to her physical wall, she's posting them up, and she's going, "I have this on my wall," and she's telling the person. That's not how you do it. She goes, "I unfriend you." I know, that's kind of like— I'm amazed that I figured any of this out, actually. I'm quite a bit of a dinosaur myself here, but social media is really changing things. Did you guys see someone posted— was it yesterday? My wife was playing it, and then I saw a post on it about how the internet is disconnecting us and how these social media media is really making us so disconnected from each other.

I don't agree with that at all.

I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.

It was about— oh, you're too funny. Bazinga. I thought the same thing. I thought it was pretty much the guy was just some sour grapes or something, or maybe he isn't using Google+. And then someone else wrote, oh yeah, Google Google+ isn't the answer, you know, social media is destroying us. And sometimes I think I see some kids that really don't seem to want to engage in any kind of a real kind of talk, or it's all texting and all that. But I think for the most part it's starting to really bring us together more, at least for me it is.

Yeah, I think so. It makes the world a much smaller place, doesn't it, when you can speak to people all around the world. It's amazing.

I think it's a great thing. See, I kind of agree in a lot of ways with that. I mean, or maybe disagree with you guys, or agree with the fact that it's actually hurting us a little bit. Because I mean, it opens up the doors to so much opportunity. But aside from small pockets like meeting you guys and— you know, little pockets of people that you see on Twitter, little pockets of people that you find on Instagram and different places. You know, everybody is running around screaming their message with their fingers in their ears, not listening to anybody. And so what we do is we start tuning each other out, like, because I have something to say and I have to get it out to you, and I'm going to barf it up all over you, and then I'm going to run away because I got somebody else to talk to.. And it's the digital equivalent of that guy that goes to a networking event and has 150 cards and has 5 minutes to get them out before he can get in the car and go to the next one. He doesn't make any relationships, he doesn't meet anybody of any value, doesn't create anything that he's going to go home with, but he accomplished his goal of getting those cards out. And you know, it's become more and more like that, and you know, and so Folks like what we're doing and Mia Voss and all these other folks that are out there really engaging and really connecting and really building relationships, like that's got to expand. We have to start infecting everybody else because wait until our generation, the generation that my kids, they're growing up in, where my daughter, I don't think she's ever dialed anybody on her phone. She always just texts everybody, and she always Instagrams everybody. And it's just like, that's just how you communicate. Everything's a hashtag. So it's true in a sense, and I think it's something that we have to be mindful of.

Well, mindful of it is one thing, but The facts are that's just the way it's going to be. So you might as well kind of figure out how you're going to fit into that. I don't use 90% of what most of the social guys do as far as tools to take that data and figure it out, figure out this and that and stuff like that. It's just not what I do. But there's a real value for it. When I see guys that are talking about that stuff, I pay attention to them because I know that I can take that information in and figure out what I need to do for me personally from a social standpoint. As far as having society making us more separated, I don't think so. I think we're getting more connected than we ever have been. Have been, and that that is the thing you're going to have to deal with, not separation. Because you couldn't take— like, what's in that— well, I'm going to drop a name here. Anyway, I was in a Hangout the other day with Guy Kawasaki, right? And with Guy Kawasaki, right? Anyway, Kawasaki, who was that? Yeah, it's that That's that Apple motorcycle guy. But anyway, the way that he was describing the way that people do, I would have never had an opportunity to meet him. I would never have an opportunity to talk to him at all, or to talk with Mark, or to talk with Sue, or to talk with anybody had it not been for this connectivity. So that connectivity is going to change. It's just going to change, that's all. I don't think it's making them separate. I don't think it's making us separate. I think it's bringing us closer together for those that want to. Where would I have met a guy like Mark that could take those kind of hits?

That's true. Here we go again. No, no, no. I'm waiting for it.

They have a lot of those clubs down here in Florida.

I've been So are y'all getting together tonight? Is that what I heard? We're what? Are y'all getting together? Did I hear Carolyn say—

Well, actually, Carolyn and I and Greg are going out to dinner. We're going to a place called The Coop. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so I do want to get to Tampa though. If we can find a restaurant, I'd love to do a show from one of the restaurants in Tampa. I was thinking we needed to get Hulk Hogan's place. That would be a perfect one to do. I've reached out, but he doesn't answer my email.

I'm unfortunately not allowed to eat any solid food until the 15th. I got 6 more days on this stupid diet, then I'm good. Are you on the vodka diet? No, I'm on the I'm on the Mark has a stupid idea and really needs to talk to his wife before he does something diet.

He's on the I'll pay $1,000 to get this done diet. Right. You didn't see that post?

What happened was I went to an event about a month ago, a couple weeks ago, and we had dinner at like 11 o'clock at night and I woke up the next morning feeling awful. I was like, I just got to unload some of this weight. I was just 15-20 pounds overweight, so I decided I was going to have my social media friends hold me accountable. So I started writing a post about it, like I'm going to tell you how I'm doing and you guys are going to bug me and that's going to be the end of that. Then I found myself writing that, and if I don't make it by May 15th, I'm going to write a check for $1,000 to the Westboro Baptist Church. And it just kind of fell out of my mouth, and then I was like, oh, wow, that was a really stupid idea. Because they're the most horrifying people in the world. It just goes against everything I believe in, and I couldn't live with myself if I wrote a check to these people that just hate everybody. And so I was like, well, that'll get me going. And I posted the check on my refrigerator, and then a lot of people lashed out at me saying that I was really obnoxious for doing that and very hurtful and all this other kind of stuff. But you know, I—

Who were they? Who were they?

I'm not going to start naming names.

Point them towards me, man.

Just send me a message. All right. But it was the incentive that I needed. I mean, you know, May 15th is the deadline, which is next week, and I started out at 186, and today I was 181. Great. I have 1 more pound to lose. The fun part about it was I actually did it really, really healthy. I didn't starve myself. I started drinking shakes for breakfast that are kale, spinach, and apple, and stuff like that. I eat more vegetables and fruits and stuff. I eat all day fruits, nuts, vegetables. Lots of protein. I cut out carbs. I cut out sugar. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I made a deal with myself that I'm allowed to have a cheat day, or I could have ice cream or whatever I want any time there's a holiday or a full moon. It sounds ridiculous, but it was one of those things that allowing myself the holiday meant I didn't have to miss my son's birthday cake. The full moon was worst-case scenario. At least once a month, I was going to be able to cheat a little bit. I always had something to look forward to. I have the full moon app on my phone, and it warns me when there's a full moon coming. You're not out on the back porch howling when it—

I feel great.

I've never been healthier. I've been exercising like crazy and just feeling really good. That's great. In fact, I'm not even— I know I'm going to nail it. I only have a pound to go, but I plan on keeping going with it. I don't want to go back to the old— I don't want to gain it back. I don't want to go back to that old person. I want to keep going.

Definitely. Let me tell you, too, it gets harder the older you get to take anything off. Tell me about it. Yeah. I tried those shakes for breakfast, but I kept going through more ice cream than I could keep in the house.

It was, the first week, I was like, "Oh, man. This stuff tastes like mud." It was disgusting. Then I found, I don't know, I guess your palate changes after a while. After a couple weeks, 2 weeks or 3 weeks, I really look forward to it. I was like, "Ooh, I get to have ground up kale today. Yummy." It's actually pretty good.

I think the worst diet I was ever on, I got to eat all the tofu I wanted pretty much, which wasn't a lot of tofu. Because I really didn't like it. But someone had tried to have me make that into a milkshake, and that was the worst thing. That doesn't sound good.

No. I've had oatmeal shakes.

They're nowhere near as bad, but that tofu shake was not a happy thing.

Yeah, I don't think I could do that.

Now here, Kristen Drysdale saying, "Fruits, nuts, and ancient grains, the king's diet." What are ancient grains?

Just like old stuff?

Yeah, stuff that you've had in the cupboard.

Ancient grains meaning like Cheerios that are 4 months old with the box left open?

That's the ones. See, you know.

You know, Tony the Tiger passed this last night.

He did?

Yep, the guy that did Tony the Tiger just passed last night, I think. Yeah, so I just thought I'd bring up a downer point.

You do know that it's taken everything in my power not to be insensitive and come up with a good "they're great" joke. You know that, right?

Yeah, I know you are. But I would be willing to listen to it. I hope Snap, Crackle, and Pop don't go.

That would be the end. That would be too much. So here we have— where was it now? I saw something. Oh, Scott, here we go. You just know you even make your diet goal, you still have to donate the $1,000, just saying. Not to them. Dan, do we know any place where he can donate it a dollar at a time?

To the Stan Bush Foundation?

Well, actually wasn't what I was thinking, but it's close enough. So, alright, let's move on from there. Looking for any other comments. Dawn Swick is in the house, finally made it. She's saying hi to Kim Boltman. Kim Boltman's here, glad to see her too. And here is Vivek Tiwari. Stan Bush, you look like my ex-boss George from Michigan. You're not from Michigan, are you, Stan?

No, but I have— I spent a whole week there one night. A whole week there one night?

Well, I spent a night in Detroit that I never want to repeat again.

That was— That's exactly where I was there.

Yeah. Sounds interesting.

I did not see that part of the city, but still. We moved in—

went to the wrong neighborhood, I guess. I mean, well, actually, I don't guess, I'm sure. We moved in the wrong neighborhood, and they threw a brick through the window the night we moved in.

Didn't have welcome around the brick, did it?

No, no, it didn't have welcome. It said something about going home.

Sorry about that. I was just having a bad day.

I completely I complied with him. I wasn't there very long. I complied.

That was probably a good thing. Kristen Drysdale put up what she was talking about: spelt, kamut, quinoa, and aramanth.

What's aramanth? I have some of that. Oh, what is it?

I've not heard of that. Some yellow stuff.

As a matter of fact, I bought some dates for it the the other day to put into it. Mark, it's a different date that I bought it.

I was holding back. I was just trying to be nicey nice, and I was keeping it to myself.

Gotta love it, huh?

Yeah. But that stuff I haven't had yet. I would like the recipe.

Oh, from where? From Kristen?

Well, yeah, that amaranth, is that right? I mean, the thing— the only one I know is like— Aramith, is that how you pronounce it?

Yeah, it's just one of the— I think there's another name for it, too. I can't remember, but aramith is actually pretty good. Amaranth, or however you say it and spell it, I've had. Quinoa I've never gotten real, real attached to. It's okay. Also, the first time I was in a Whole Foods, and I could never find quinoa anywhere. I would ask people for it, and they would just look at me funny. I finally asked someone at Whole Foods how to pronounce that, and it was "keen-wah." Quinoa, no. Quinoa.

I bought some teff. Teff? You ever heard of that?

What is it?

Teff. Teff. Tefflon? I had never heard of that either. We'll have to ask Kristen.

You got anything on teff for us? Right.

Well, it's an Ethiopian grain. That much I know. Okay.

Well, considering how little food they have, I don't know if that's a good thing or not then. Yeah, yeah.

The grain is really, really small.

Might be good for your diet then. Yeah, yeah.

I just haven't figured out a way to cook that yet.

Sounds good. Elizabeth is here. She's saying, "I'm all for living foods. Great alternatives to all the toxins in our standard food chain." I've actually started looking at that, too, myself, since I came to the realization I had to do something about my diet. I've been buying— I actually picked up some chia seeds, some organic chia seeds. They're a thickener, and they're good to add into to anything else, baked goods and things. I'm going to have some fun experimenting with them. I got some coconut sugar because that's very low glycemic.

The challenge with all this stuff is when you go out to eat and trying to find something that's not terribly bland like, "Oh, I'll have the plain grilled chicken and broccoli," but actually have something that's interesting and tastes good but follows all these different rules that you set up for yourself, or you're trying to eat healthy. That's been my biggest challenge. We'll go out and very slim as far as what's not loaded with fat and fried and everything else.

I had someone tell me, he says, "Just because I make almost everything at home from scratch," he goes, "right there, it's a good thing because you're not buying all this prepackaged stuff." all these extra ingredients you don't need. That was a big point in my favor. We really don't get out to eat very much, so I figure the times that we do, if you're going to eat some crap or junk every now and then, at least right now— I guess if I start feeling better about myself and about the diet, then I won't want to eat it. At this point, I'm not worried about it too much. I just bought a bunch of really good root vegetables. I'm going to roast them up. Someone was asking me about making a vegetarian pie. Paella. I did have a recipe for it. I just never got around to it. That kind of encouraged me to do it. I know my wife won't eat most of it because she's— well, she does like a lot of vegetables. Root vegetables aren't her favorite. We'll have to probably throw some chicken on the grill or some shrimp on the grill to make up for that. That's the good thing about living in Florida is you can really grill all year round. You can eat a lot better that way with grilled foods. Mia Voss put up a cute little thing. Our food and booze was yesterday, our first one, and she said, "I'm going to use it in this sentence. I spelt quinoa all over myself yesterday on the food and booze." Love all those grains. He's too funny.

I got a big garden to kill. What's that? I got a big garden of kale.

Oh, yeah? They did a lot with kale yesterday, and actually someone asked, "Did you massage the kale?" What? Right. I've never done that. The chef, on the other hand, first he didn't have a clue, then all of a sudden it hit him. It was about all the fibers, how you have to break them up. Oh, no, we use baby kale, so we really You really don't need to do that, but he says, "Yeah, when they have the big stems in them, you have to take them out." Just like you would with spinach, almost. Sometimes you have to get those big ribs that are in the spinach out if you're going to cook them so they're not tough. Kale has a little more fiber to it, so you want to break those up.

When they said massage the kale, it was— I just blended it. There you go. Pretty sure it was massaged when I was done. It was done being blended.

You put stems and everything in it? Yeah.

I don't know if you're supposed to or not, but I did.

I've been thinking about it. I mean, I have a—

Is that more? No, I said, does the kale liquefy pretty much in the blender?

Yeah. I put kale, spinach, cucumber, and pineapple, and then put— 2 cups of water, and then just blend it up. You need a big straw, or you just need to drink. It's a little gritty. It's not going to liquefy to the point where consistency of water or juice or anything like that, but you get everything with it. If you juice it, you get half as much or a quarter of as much because you just get the juice, but you miss out on all the fiber and everything else. You just get the juice, so this way you get everything. It's just much healthier that way. It's much more filling, too. If you juice all this stuff, 5 minutes later you're hungry again.

It's an acquired taste. I just bought a Ninja.

Dennis apparently turned into RoboCop.

That was a little—

broke up on us a little bit there. I thought it was me. That was me?

I think it was Anthony Robbins that said, "Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels." That's been my mantra for the past couple weeks, just going through this whole thing. It does get addicting. When you start feeling good, you wake up and you're not like, pulling your ass out of bed, like, you know, all lethargic, and you know, you're jumping out of bed, you know, excited to get on the bike and go for a ride and stuff like that. You know, it definitely makes a big difference.

So you have a lot more energy then, would you say?

Definitely. Well, I mean, you know, I'm figuring I'm carrying around like 15 less pounds, like, and I'm eating a lot healthier, and, you know, doing about 20 miles on a bike every day. Oh, wow. So, so yeah, I mean, I You know, at the end of the day, I pass out by 11, 12 o'clock, but throughout the day, I'm just full of energy.

Apparently beetroot is very good for energy levels, isn't it? I've heard.

What's that? The beet?

Beetroot, yeah, if you drink the juice. Oh, really? Before you exercise, it gives you lots more energy than if you don't have it, apparently. You'll have to try that one.

I don't know. Beet juice looks like it's probably gross.

All I know is a friend of mine— and your shakes aren't?

Yeah, but I've gotten used to it.

He was told to be careful how much beet juice he ingested. Oh. Take it slow and to build up because it would affect his insides a little bit. He didn't listen and was on the toilet most of the time.

Oh no! Yeah.

I think that falls under oversharing.

Speaking of oversharing, Mia Voss said something else about it. We were talking about massaging the kale, and then it got dirty. After you massage the kale, if it got a happy end.

She is great. I'm going to try that kale. I'm going to try that blending kale.

Yeah, it's great. I love it.

Now, the chef yesterday—

I did it one time, but I don't think I blended it up enough.

If you want, you can also put an avocado in there. It's really good. It makes it more of a shake and adds a lot of good stuff to it.

So you're having a lot of raw food, aren't you, in your diet? Do you think raw food is the key to giving you the energy?

I don't know.

I'm not going to even pretend like I know what I'm talking about.

You can just say it. Thank you.

Yeah, I think about 2 meals a day I'm having raw food, but then at night for dinner I'll have grilled chicken or something like that with vegetables. We go out to dinner, I'll get something like salmon with— I don't know what he's laughing at. What are you laughing at, Stan?

I was listening to her, and I love And I thought she said roofies. I was like, roofies? Hey, my kind of date. No, I'm just kidding. That's what I thought she said, roofies. I was like, never had anybody ask for them before.

But you know. That's a good excuse.

Raw food, I can't say. Raw food.

Raw food, definitely, yeah. Not roofies. Raw food.

Raw food. Yes. I guess so. I don't know how sustainable it is. At some point, I'll probably go back to a little bit more meal stuff like that. Definitely for snacks and everything, I'll grab a handful of carrots instead of potato chips. That alone, I probably lost 10 pounds from. Just eating stuff like that, you know, when snack time rolls around.

So you're not drinking either? You're not having wine or anything like that?

Well, no, I'm still drinking wine. Those are great.

Of course they are.

There are limits to this thing, you know.

My wife is a big fan of having a glass of wine with dinner, like sitting out by the pool with a glass of wine. You know, whenever I'm around, she seems to want to have a drink in her hand. Sounds good to me. I'm sure there's a reason for it. I'm sure Stan—

I'm not going to touch that, ma'am. But I'm listening to it because I lost like 75 pounds a couple of years ago, and I gained back 40. And so I'm really kind of struggling, and I'm listening to you guys talking about how you're doing that. I was really interested in listening to— I'm trying to think of who the guest was. Stephen's wife, what's her name, Liz? Lisa. Lisa. I was kind of wanting to hear what she had to say today.

I think you should write a check. Let's put a check on your fridge.

Let's do this. She does that Beachbody thing, right?

Right.

Yeah, well, maybe not. Not me. I had a Beachbody, but my wife made me send it back. You know, so I couldn't keep it. But I did want to talk to her because that seemed like a real— you know, I've kind of seen their program, and they have that morning shake and that kind of stuff. And I thought I might ask her a little bit about this. I ran 6.5 miles this morning. Yeah, when the show is over, I'm training for a half marathon. When the show is over, I'm actually running to a network job that's about 4.5 miles away from here. I got a shirt on, there's shorts on the bottom, man. You know, and so that's— I mean, it's— I exercise. I probably run 25 to 30 miles a week. Every week.

That's pretty good, actually. I can't run. I'm a terrible runner.

I can't run at all. Yeah, I was good at it. I do run.

I guess it helps to have somebody chasing you. Yeah, yeah, it does.

It does.

Or to have something to run towards too, but the ice cream truck gets tired of running with me when I used to run, so they don't want to do that anymore. Anyway, all right guys, well, we've hit our hour mark and we've had a wonderful time talking and getting to know each other. And I thank you so much for being here today. And gonna run through the panel real quick and see if you have anything you'd like to leave us with, any, any projects, anything coming up. Sue, anything new? You have shows coming up?

Yeah, have a show at the end of the month with Christine DeGraaff. I'm doing the My Music Hangout, doing it with myself son Dan, and all of our family are going to be taking part in the music because everyone's musical. So that should be a really great event. We're a bit like, you know, the Partridge Family, that sort of thing. So yeah, and I'll be also having my own show in a couple of weeks and interviewing a special guest, so that'll be fun. Looking forward to it. Yeah, thank you. You got your wine there and you're starting?

Yeah, it's wine time. Fine time.

Great. I just got my greens. I finished my green stuff. Oh, very good.

Alright, Stan, any shows coming up? Any topics? Anything you'd like to share with us?

Yeah, there's a lot of shows coming up. There's a lot of things that we're doing. The Plus Your Business team is where a lot of my focus is going right now with Martin Shervington and that group over there, which is really a lot of fun. And Christine Drysdale, I'm working with her on some things. She's a VA for us. I see her comment about no roofies allowed on dates. I get it. But you know, I've got projects going on. I mean, one of the things I think I have to— you know, what do I do? Somebody asked me what I do. What I do is I do what I love. You know, so if I get up in the morning and I feel like going and working on a network, that's what I do. And if I feel like going somewhere and working on a website, I do that. And if it's something to do with, you know, music, I go do that. There's a big group of us over here that get together and play music. And so that's why I work, and that's what makes me happy, is to be able to help you. So if anybody's got anything out there that they need help with, just, you know, ask Mark to write me a check. Just send me a message or something, and I'll be glad to help anybody with anything because that's really what I love. It's what makes me happy. Sounds good.

Thanks for sharing that. Mark, anything you'd like to leave us with?

Any projects, any shows? No, not really. I don't want to— I have the normal stuff going on, and hopefully I'll run into If anything, I'd love to just meet more people like you guys. So I'm not here to really pitch anything. Not like Stan, who is constantly pitching all the crap that he's doing. Well, you're kidding. No, you know what? I haven't done one of these in a little while. And every time I do, it reminds me why the people on Google+ are always so great and why I need to spend more time here. So if I was to pitch anything, it was just to come out and reach out and say hi, because I'd love to just meet more people and just connect with more people and build more relationships.

Sounds good. That's really what we do here on Good Day Google+. It's to help network and build relationships and meet like-minded people. And it's just a great way for other people to see you in a different light than just posting all the time. So I'm glad you guys could be here today with us and share the afternoon. And thank you so much for being here. And I hope you have a great rest of the day and a wonderful weekend. And thank you all for coming to Good Day Google+.

We'll see you soon. Thank you. Awesome. Bye-bye. Thanks, guys.

Bye. Cheers.