Welcome to the first episode of the new HARD OUT subseries "Fast Friends" a 60-minute ticking time bomb of a podcast in which we have one of our random social media “friends” on to get to know one another better—or, you know, AT ALL—and become *actual* (or better) friends. This is an attempt to beat the algorithms that so readily siphon us into echo chambers or verbal arenas and to put a person to the profile picture, utilizing social media to actually bring us together as opposed to sowing division as it so often does. In this initial installment we talk to Jay’s fascinating and huge-hearted Facebook friends Brett Saladino and Doug Johnson, covering a wide range of topics from Covid vaccines (Brett works in the field) to the concept of free will and even a candid discussion on suicide (Doug is a survivor). We gotta say, these two set the bar *S ...