Full Transcript
Um, let me just label those always quick. I’m sorry. You took a big breath like you’re about to start talking. And I totally interrupt. It’s like when somebody interrupts a yawn and you’re like, motherfucker. And this is gay trick. So, as you know, from last week’s episode, um, my daughter has had a medical um situation in her bathing suit area. And so it has involved um antibiotic, like um for oral antibiotics and then also a cream for her nether regions. And I was just thinking about like the shit that comes out of your mouth as a parent that in the moment is so normal and real and actual, and there’s nothing funny about it. But then you just pretend like you’ve walked by the house and listen. This morning, my husband walked upstairs. And I uh I oh no, I’m sorry, I was upstairs and my husband was downstairs, and I had written on our calendar a little star, which was to designate the end of putting this cream on her vagina. And I’m upstairs and my husband yells, What does the asterisk mean on the calendar? And I’m screaming from the other room, it’s the last day of the vagina cream. And he goes, What? I said, Vagina cream. He said, What? It’s the last day of Hannah’s vagina cream. And so we’re screaming at each other about her vagina cream. And I just kept thinking, if anybody’s walking by this house and they hear two gay men yelling at each other from either floor, so today is the last day that I have to do this. Soward to that.
Gavin:
Fantastic. And everything is cleared up and everything, and she’s not in discomfort. Totally fine. And yes. That is something. Well, speaking of torturing our children or actually making their lives better, you’re welcome very much. Um, I have no real updates on the saga of Gavin getting his soon-to-be high schooler back into music. She still hates music. She hates it. Of course. So I have now for I have now outlawed singing in our house.
David:
I have outlawed singing. Reverend Shaw Moore is foot loose. You’re like, oh.
Gavin:
Listen, if you don’t, if you hate music and you don’t want to continue your music education, then I don’t want to hear it around the house. I’ve gone super DEF COM 6 negativity. Last night at dinner, listen, I’ve, as you know, as from last week, and listener knows from last week that um I we’ve tried to bribe. We’re not getting a puppy to assuage, but we have tried to bribe with positivity. And last night, as I casually, I just sensed that maybe he we had crossed a corner turned a corner and that she was gonna be like, okay, I’ll do it. Um, she was like, Oh, absolutely not. And I said, Okay, then I’m taking away we you will have serious limits on your phone time, which that only turned into utter pushback, and that’s not fair. No, you won’t. Like, it wasn’t it’s like she’s in pre-denial that I can be an asshole. And I’m like, oh girl, oh girl, I am going to win this saga to rust me. And I’m not alone. My partner feels the same way. So it’s just that I’m the one who choose these battles.
David:
I thought you were gonna take a step back and let her come to you. Be like, you don’t need to go and let her find the joy of music instead of lighting pianos on fire in your house.
Gavin:
Yep. I the pianos are still on fire. They are will be smoldering until that I get that. But listen, we’re under a deadline. We gotta make these choices sooner. We’re already past the deadline, frankly. So I gotta fix this problem. And um the problem is in you.
David:
I’m holding up a mirror. I’m holding up a mirror. The problem is you let it go for an entire year. Say you no music for you, we don’t have to do it. Give her the year to be her own self and to stick it to you and to piss off her dad and let her find, let the music find her.
Gavin:
David, I I I know that I I would in under normal circumstances, I would say, do not record me saying this, but I know that you are correct.
David:
Oh, that is gonna be our new promo video. It’s just you saying that over and over again. However, I will not be following that advice. You know what? I appreciate it. I appreciate somebody who knows the right move and chooses not to go down that path. Oh man. Um, this is a random thing, but I put it on the list because I have never experienced this before, and I know you have. It’s my first time. I have a five and a half-year-old boy who the the teacher, the after-school teacher called me and said, Your son’s not feeling well. He’s asking if he could go home. Do you want to talk to him on the phone? I said, sure, put him on the phone. And I immediately realized I’ve never talked to my son on the phone before. I’ve had FaceTimes with him when I’m out of town working. I’ve never had an audio hold the phone up to your ear, and your your kid is on the other end of the phone.
Gavin:
And does he know how to do that actually?
David:
I I wasn’t there. So I mean he he talked to the phone normally. Uh-huh. But Gavin, it was the most unsettling thing. I first of all, he didn’t sound like himself. He sounded like this little baby child that I’ve never spoken to. But it was this, I was, it was an out-of-body experience. I was like, I’m having a phone call with my baby, who’s five and a half, right? Right. But like, it was so fucking weird to have this conversation. Is that weird that it was weird?
Gavin:
No, I think that’s a surreal moment for sure, when it’s almost like you’ve disembodied your child, your child from the voice from the body to the presence and everything. Yeah, that seems like a rite of passage. I’m glad you said that. And they’re like older. Yeah. Yeah.
David:
And like they’re they’re like old, like, I can call my son now.
Gavin:
And he’s communicating in a way to verbalize his needs, not just whine about them. Like, this is that’s a big step.
David:
Wow. It is really fucking weird. Anyway, that that there’s no point to that story other than like, I think this is one of those, like we talk about like the the changes in your kids, your kids growing up and becoming different people, doesn’t happen in these big bangs. It happens in these little quiet moments. And that was for sure one where I was like, I just can call my son on the phone and chat about things.
Gavin:
These big bang moments of uh like big growth uh reminds me of this morning, driving my kids to school because we were well, we choose to be late often on Fridays. So anyway, we were chatting. And our cat this morning brought in a mole um up to the doorstep because she loves us, apparently. So, of course, a cat’s love language is killing rodents and bringing them to us. And so we had this whole discussion about, oh, she’s so cute. It was funny. It was, oh, she’s so cute that she’s bringing us dead rodents. Oh, she’s so cute. She’s so and we realized their ages, and our cat is now we had a pandemic cat, so she’s gonna be five soon. Our dog is three, and my daughter’s saying, Oh, little babies just growing up. And I’m like, Oh, you have no idea. And also, please do banned. In fact, you have to do banned. Let it go. So, speaking of not letting things go, oh, here we go. Everything is terrible, right? Um, as we know. But here at America’s Finest News Source, I have nothing but good news to bring, okay? Oh, so two great things are coming out of Congress. I would also mention that it is not coming from people actually trying to stop Donald Trump in his dismantling of uh democracy. But anyway, anyway, keeping it positive, uh, there are two Congress people up in the Northeast, shout out to New England, uh, making change for good. U.S. Representative Becca Balint, who’s from Vermont, has actually introduced a bill that is called the Transgender Health Care Access Act. And it establishes grants to support medical education programs and professional training in um transition-related care and to expand access to such services in rural communities. Now, listener, if you think that I just read that from a copy-paste from an article, I absolutely did, but I didn’t want to get it.
David:
I’m looking at it in the outline right now.
Gavin:
Didn’t want to get it wrong. But like how fantastic that she’s like, you know what? Let’s stop the nonsense. And um She’s trying to turn our kids trans. I get it. Yeah, yeah.
David:
Right. Got it. Okay. Yeah.
Gavin:
So shout out Representative Becca Balint. If you want to come on to Gatriarchs and talk to us about your act, uh, we would love to have you. And then also from neighboring state New Hampshire, there is not only, I knew that there were some gay representatives in the uh U.S. House of Representatives out there, but Chris Papas is an out-gay congressman from New Hampshire, and he is running for the U.S. Senate. So were he to win, um, so Senator Jean Shaheen is actually um, this is her last session, so she he will be running next year. And it’s gonna be a full slate of people, probably, uh including the very popular governor Sununu, is also running. But nevertheless, hey, Chris Papas, come on to Gatriarchs and tell us about your Senate race. And I would say that that makes him, by default, whether or not he has kids, our doof of the week. So he’s cute too. Look up pictures of him.
David:
He’s very cute. Yeah, he’s the he looks like your college boyfriend that you dumped for like the bad guy, and then you regret dumping him.
Gavin:
Because he’s such a good guy.
David:
He’s he’s the guy you want to have a long-term relationship with, but you dumped him because he was too nice. Yep. Do you know what I mean?
Gavin:
And he had boring hair, probably. So, and let’s he’s got very senatorial hair, that’s for sure. Uh, yeah. Anyway, uh, speaking of nothing.
David:
I thought we were I I was literally in my head going, how do we get into the top three? With hair. Speaking of senatorial, um speaking of dumping your ex. Yeah.
Gavin:
It’s our top three list. Gate three marks. Top three list, three, two, one.
David:
All right, this list is my list, and I painted myself into a fucking corner. This is a tough one. This was so tough because the so the top three lists this week is the top three women. Right? And I purposely chose that as to be really, I wanted it to be difficult. And you’re so clever, and you’re so fetishing. But then as soon as I sat down, I was like, are we talking about my mom? My, you know, these kind of people. Or then I’m thinking, like, are these people who change the world? Are we talking about recurring? Are we talking about like and and I just, yeah, and I literally was like, I don’t know what to fucking do. Just pick a category. Just pick a category. So I, my, my list, my top three list is the top three women who are top in their field. And and and there are a million other fields and a million other women. And I literally have a list of about 20 people long, yeah. Where I was looking at it and I was like, these are all women that I’m obsessed with. I mean, Rashonda that we talked about a couple a couple weeks ago, a couple episodes ago. I was like, oh, oh yeah, she would be a great woman. So without further ado, here are my top three women. Okay. Number three, Michelle Obama. Totes. And I don’t even know what category. She’s not the top three politicians. Absolutely. She’s not the top three woman politician. Mom. She’s just, she’s just, she’s the top. Yeah. She’s the top. She’s the top. And she’s probably the top in that relationship. Uh number two in my kind of singer-songwriter category, Dolly Parton. Oh, again, that’s a gay, that’s a very gay choice. That’s a very gay coded choice. But she is top woman. Yeah. What an incredible woman. Not only, obviously, she’s an incredible musician, but like the the good she does for the community with reading and all of that shit. And I don’t necessarily totally agree with her stance in politics about like, I don’t talk about politics, but I do appreciate that she did that in an effort to allow gay people to still follow her and be a be a fan of her. So number two, Dolly Parton. Um, and number one, again, I there are other great women, but the number one for me, because she’s an actress, but more importantly, she is a comedian who whose work still makes me like gutturally belly laugh. And that is Carol Burnett. Oh, yeah. Carol Burnett, if you watch Annie, the movie, the original movie of Annie, her scenes are so fucking funny. Yeah. To this day, it doesn’t look like old-timey funny. Yeah. It’s like nowadays funny. She sings Little Girls in that movie. She’s I watched it recently because my kids are obsessed with it. And she is walking around this apartment and there’s like low-hanging lights that keep hitting her in the face. It is so fucking funny. So there you go. Number one, Carol Burnett. What about you?
Gavin:
Okay, so I did curse you on this one for sure because um it was so open-ended, as you already made the disclaimer. So I’m gonna go with what are the three names of women that came to mind first, or what what just immediately popped into mind? So I just went with my gut reaction, okay? This is not because I didn’t do this three seconds before getting to it in the script. We’re aware. Yeah. First and foremost, right now, woman in my world, AOC. She is so she’s so brave. She speaks truth. Um, whether or not you agree with her, I do feel like that she is one of the most uh transparent and brave and logical people in our world right now. So AOC comes to mind. Number two, oh god, Madonna, just cuz. Just cuz I hear that. I realize I went one, two, three, which is your hugest uh nightmare with me. But you know what? These are all number one. Let me just rephrase that. These are all number ones for me. The number ones who just come to mind. Number one, I will say, my mom. So I’ll just that’s that’s pretty fucked up.
David:
Sorry, mom, that Gabin took the mom slot, and I don’t I don’t get to say mom, mom, my mom is number one.
Gavin:
And then, but I also want to give a um uh honorable mention to Betsy and Amy, our listener, who pride themselves on being our listener. And I think that we do have lots of women listening to our podcast, absolutely. Yeah, because you don’t know, you want to create a community and you don’t know what’s out there, but we’re just following our instincts, and we are so proud to you’re all gatriarchs out there. So um shout out to all the women who are listeners.
David:
We we love our listener because we are obsessed with women and you know, going with your AOC, like one of the things I I I I I couldn’t do that AOC does perfectly is people like the the right fucking hate. Hate her hate and the fact that she continues to do the things in the way she does, the transparency, all that stuff. It’s why Hillary Clinton was on my list because I was like, that woman, people fucking hate Hillary Clinton, but she still fucking plugs on and fights and does her work and does for the good. And I just like I I am not mature enough to do that. If people come for me, I would spend all day being mean to clapping back. They don’t. They’re like, listen, I’m not clapping back. I have a live to do to talk about the new policy and I so so appreciate it. So, women listener, we love you and respect you. What is next week’s top three list? I knew it. I fucking knew it. No, no, no. He just took a big lean back and he’s thinking about all I have told him a hundred times, listener, to create a little document that’s all your ideas for top three lists that you can pull from in any time. I have that, but I don’t know where it is.
Gavin:
Um the thought that I have been mulling for a very, very long time now is that we are coming up to Easter, and whether or not you are a believer or an atheist or just whatever in this holiday, which has been, of course, co-opted by Hallmark and capitalism. What are your top three favorite Easter traditions? Our next guest is a Texan, presumably, proudly, so who came to New York City and has radically altered its landscape and the culture of an entire neighborhood, or three. Uh he’s into movements, creating them, crafting them, fostering them, and occasionally probably flushing them. And as a gay dad of two kids, one of his favorite movements is talking gays out of having kids. Please welcome to Gatriarch, the Highline guy, aka Robbie Hammond. Robbie, welcome. Thank you. Welcome.
David:
Thanks for having me. What an intro. Gavin usually flounders with the intros. That’s a solid intro. That’s a good one.
Gavin:
So, Robbie, we always want to know how have your kids already driven you bonkers today.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, today was good. My husband and I share who gets up with the kids. And I he had he offered to trade with me. I’d take him to school if he got up with them. So I was like, that’s a great trade. And so they were super easy for me today.
Gavin:
Well, that’s good that you have that complete balance of uh the duties. That’s a good thing. But you still took them to school, right? I still took one.
SPEAKER_01:
One was like, I my cough is giving me a cough. I can’t go to school, my three-year-old. And he thinks he has shingles.
David:
Oh.
Gavin:
Ooh, oh, that’s a hypochondriac at age three?
David:
Although at this point, the likelihood is getting more and more that he could have some weird old school plaguey disease. Yes, yeah. He’s like, I have scurvy, and you’re like, we might have to get you tested for scurvy, honestly.
Gavin:
No doubt about it. No doubt about it. Well, so how did you and your husband become fathers?
SPEAKER_01:
Uh through surrogacy. Um, but it was sort of a convoluted path in that we were one of those couples that had broken up like three times over the course of like five years.
Gavin:
And so but showing longevity, so all right.
SPEAKER_01:
And then I was like, I want to get back together. And he was like, You’re fucking crazy. Like, there is no way. I mean, he was embarrassed to even tell his friends he was having dinner with me. Um, I told him, I’m in love with you again, and this time it’s gonna work, you know. But he agreed to have dinner with me once a week. Um and then during that like re-courtship, I also said, Oh, I want to have kids. And he was like, I don’t, and we’re not even dating. I’m feeling very hopeful about the future of this relationship.
Gavin:
I’m saying this is a Billy Eichner movie in the making.
SPEAKER_01:
I’ve always wanted to write a book called From Crazy to Credible, and it seems like it’s about the Highline, but really it’s about our relationship. Yeah, um uh so and he was super nut into that, or he just was like, what the fuck? You know, we’re like we’re barely dating, like you were so unreliable. You were like, you know, in the idea of having a kid with you, I don’t really want a kid right now. And so, but I lured him in enough, and we started going to couples therapy, and then I got a surrogate, and he was sort of coming along, like sort, you know, it’s like but and then we were dating, and we went out, and when the baby was born, he was like, and he was so annoying to people because everybody said, Oh, when the baby’s come, you’ll love it, and which is so annoying because yeah, what if you don’t?
Gavin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
Not everybody does.
Gavin:
Yeah, that’s the beginning of the unsolicited advice from people that you don’t want to hear for sure.
SPEAKER_01:
And literally everyone gave it to him, which makes it more annoying. And so, but then it happened, which is also really annoying when it actually comes true, because then people can say, I told you so. So we had a kid, or I had a kid, and then he fell in love with it. He adopted it, he adopted him, and then we decided to have another one. He really wanted to do it again. So, and now the The running joke is like we have three embryos and we really don’t want to do it again. I pretend because I have the embryo, so I pretend I could find a surrogate on my own and have the baby and just bring it home one day and be like, we have another baby, you know, and you wouldn’t know until it came home.
David:
Yeah. I mean, I think the lesson here is have a baby to fix broken relationships. I mean, that is the soul. If you’re having relationship traumas, just have a baby on the side.
SPEAKER_01:
It’s really bizarre. It did make our relationship, I think this is not true for most people. Like I think it makes the relationship harder, you know, and it did improve, it weirdly help. I mean, yeah.
David:
I think it could I what I think it could do is it can it can force you to push the bullshit aside and only be able to focus on the real stuff. And often, as we know, the the the hard parts of relationships are fake and made up and stupid and not real. And then you’re like, oh, we have to we have to make this thing alive or we get in trouble by the state. So let’s let’s join together and we’re like, oh, we don’t need to argue about all that stuff. Yeah.
Gavin:
It does make you it makes you grow up, no matter what age you are. It makes you grow up and focus on what’s really matter, what really matters, and certainly in the gay dating pool, so often, so very little is anything but trite.
SPEAKER_01:
So yeah, you look complicated in it in that he was the founder of or co-founder of the low line. Oh okay, so not only rhyme that we were dating, because it was annoying. People were like, low line, high line, top, bottom, like annoying.
Gavin:
The jokes.
SPEAKER_01:
Billy Eichner, if you’re out there, you can option the book. And then everyone was acting acted like they were the first ones to say, like, oh my god, hi. Like when we got married, the Times did one of those like marriage stories, and it was like from the highs and lows.
Gavin:
Of course. Oh yeah. Even oh yeah. The New York Times was not immune to doing so. Not immune.
David:
I will say I’m also guilty of this when I will go to Marshall’s and you’ll see the sign that says active tops, and I always take a picture of it. I send it every time I send it to the same five people, and I and they’re all so tired and annoyed, but it’s still every time I’m like active tops, it’s endlessly entertaining for sure.
Gavin:
Well, okay, so speaking of highs and lows, then can you tell us a little about your kids? What are their what what are they into?
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, um, we have a three-year-old and a seven-year-old. Um the three-year-old is into breakdowns. Uh-huh. Um lying on the floor, screaming like a flopping, like a fish. And then if you try to touch him or comfort him or say anything to him, it gets louder. And sometimes he like moves, you know, like flopping. Or sometimes he’s in his bedroom and he’ll run into another room and then throw himself on the floor and flop around. Um, so that’s super popular, right?
Gavin:
And he gets that from your husband, obviously, not from you, right? That seems very low line to me. The very low line.
SPEAKER_01:
No, no, it’s probably more me. Uh and the other one is just super sweet right now. Seven-year-old, like so positive. I mean, we’re real, he’s in the really easy phase. Like, just loves everything except any food. Any anything that’s not.
Gavin:
No, you can’t have it all. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah. Yeah.
David:
Totally. But besides that, he’s in a really sweet phase. It is so it is so comforting to hear. So I have two kids. I have a three and five and a half year old. And it is so comforting to hear when people kind of mirror my life back to me that I don’t feel as crazy because our five and a half-year-old rule follower, sweet, loving, fragile, sensitive. My three-year-old, it it I talk about it endlessly on the show. It’s like I will walk into her bedroom and I’m I’m like tiptoeing because I’m like, which version of her am I gonna get? And she does the floppy where like she’s so she’s having such a panic attack that her body has moved into a different room. And now she’s upset that she’s in the front room and not the other room that she wanted to have the breakdown in. And I go try to touch her, and she goes, No, and then she hits her hand on the wall, and now she’s mad that she hit her hand on the wall. I mean, it’s yeah, no, no, it’s so yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
It’s like wonder you know, when you go and you spend time with other couples and their kids are having a breakdown and they’re all embarrassed, and you’re like, I’m so happy. This feels so good. I’m celebrating it. I’m celebrating your misfortune. You don’t have some magic discipline magic. Like when our oldest kid was going through, he went through the terrible twos at like four. And he was just, he needs to stop, he really didn’t like me, and he was just breaking down at dinner. And so I got a and I I talked to this friend of mine who’s a single mom, and her kids were breaking down, and she went to this family psychologist, and this family psychologist was like, you need more boundaries, you need, you know, maybe a little punishment. So I was like, oh, so I hired this family therapist to hopefully tell us that we should like lock him in his room or something during that. Totally. Time to a three. And I I so I got my husband to be on the call, and she was like, Well, you have unrealistic expectations for a four-year-old. Oh, it’s she turned it around on you.
David:
She just held up a mirror, she goes, Look, Mitch.
SPEAKER_01:
Second of all, I think it’s probably you’re just not really connecting with that. Oh, that comes spending enough time, and your work travel is probably affecting the whole family. She came for you. Wow. And I was like, I just paid you$350 in front of my husband to validate all of his thoughts. Like, I didn’t, this is not what I was paying for.
David:
I was you’re like, this this cost me a hundred million dollars. This$350 cost me my life.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, lock him in his room, you know.
Gavin:
Ain’t that the way? So then what was the result? Did you just fire her and move on? It’s even more annoying.
SPEAKER_01:
I stopped traveling as much, and it got really it got better. Oh, that’s the worst, is when they’re right.
David:
It is the worst when they’re right.
unknown:
Yeah.
David:
So wait, can we go? Can we move? I I I am curious. Tell tell us about the Highline because we are New York City people. You say the word Highline, everybody knows what that is, but a lot of our listener probably doesn’t. So tell us what what is the Highline in New York City. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:
So the Highline is a it was an old elevated railroad. There’s a picture of it. Um and it was abandoned in the 80s, and it was when I went up there in 1999, there was a field of wildflowers growing up on it, and it was set to be demolished by Mayor Giuliani. And I was working in like a dot-com startup and I had my own office, and so I thought I could volunteer. And I went to a community board meeting. I was actually on Fire Island. I came back early from Fire Island on a Monday, like a uh a Monday in August, where I had the house for the whole week and I could have stayed.
Gavin:
That’s a massive, massive uh sacrifice meeting.
SPEAKER_01:
Right? I know. And I came back to go to a community board meeting, which I’d never been to, and I sat next to another guy, and we were the only, and it was on the agenda, and we were the only two people interested in it. So I was like, why don’t you do something? He was no, you do something. And so we exchanged business cards and and sort of it was just a hobby for both of us at first, and then it it became and it and it was very unpopular because you know, I mean, I was a 29-year-old in working in, you know, marketing and dot-coms, and he was a travel writer, so we had no experience. And it was just the developers, ironically, and the city was you know for tearing it down because they wanted to be able to felt like it would be better for development. Yeah. Um, and they thought these two guys with no experience and no money, like I rightly so, you know. I mean, my mom asked what are the chances, and I said one in a hundred, you know, because I’m a dreamer, but not stupid.
David:
And you have gay and you have the audacity of a gay man, which is significant.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, later we get Josh Josh is also gay, the other co-founder, Joshua David, lived in Chelsea. Um, and we gave a talk at the Gay and Lesbian Center called Behind the Bushes: The Secret Homo History of the Highline. Because there is a lot preservation in, I mean, I’ll say gay men, you know, Herbert Muschamp, who is the architecture critic for the Times, who’s also gay, one time wrote, he was writing an article about preservation. He says, sort of the secret alliance of preservation in New York is the alliance of gay men and rich white women.
Gavin:
That sounds like uh a duality I read.
SPEAKER_01:
But if you think about it, like every and and gentrification. Because like if you think about who fixed up those old falling down uh Victorian houses in bad neighborhoods at first.
Gavin:
A hundred follow the gays. Yep, follow the gays.
SPEAKER_01:
If you look at if you look at the Highline and gentrification of Manhattan, the West Village, Christopher Shire, first gay neighborhood. Yeah. When I moved to the city, it was the cheapest neighborhood. You know, I started paying$700 in rent for a huge terrace, and then when I left, it was$5,000. Then Chelsea, then Hell’s Kitchen. I mean, like the gays and the Highline, and it’s not a coincidence because gays went to industrial neighborhoods. The Highline was in that was why it wasn’t torn down because it was an industrial sort of artifact. You know, like I the first time I knew of the Highline was, you know, I think going to the Roxy. Um gay nightclub for some.
David:
Well, for uh for our listener. Well, our listener, it’s all not only is it it was it a gay nightclub, it’s not around anymore, but it’s a gay nightclub in a roller rink, right? In a former roller rink. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
And now it’s a Thomas Setherwick building on of course it is.
Gavin:
At what point in the process for the Highline did you think, wait a minute, maybe this has traction. Maybe we can do something here.
SPEAKER_01:
I mean, that’s what’s so weird because now it’s so successful and popular. It seems sort of obvious, but I was worried when we opened it. It took us 10 years. We started in 99 and we opened in 2009, so it took us 10 years to sort of save it, design it, raise the money. We partnered, the Bloomberg administration was a great partner of ours. We couldn’t really have done it without him and his whole administration. But then um I didn’t know if it would work. I mean, it was it’s I live in a three-story walk-up and I’m out of breath. The highland’s three stories high. I mean, did anybody want to walk up there? No one was on 10th Avenue to begin with. I mean, 10th Avenue was abandoned. I mean, yeah, um do would it all die because it’s a bridge? So we planted all this plants on a bridge that heats and cools from top and bottom, you know, and we uh initially we thought we we told the city that we would get up 300,000 visitors a year because that’s how much the Whitney got before it moved downtown when the Whitney was uptown and the Guggenheim, they got about we thought that would be great if we could get as much as you know as those institutions. Um but we just didn’t know if anybody would come. I mean it it didn’t and and and then the first year a million people come and now eight million people come. So it’s now we have over success problems. The the weird problems are over success.
Gavin:
On opening day, leading up to opening day, you still were like, I don’t know if this is gonna work. Definitely.
SPEAKER_01:
And like when people throw the DOT, the Department of Transportation wanted us to put what they’re there’s something called the Turkey Frozen Turkey rule, where one time someone took a frozen turkey and threw it off a highway. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. And it killed somebody, yeah, yeah. So after that, they mandated any new bridges over roads have to have an uh eight-foot fence. And we designed fences all over our 22 streets, and it looked horrible. I mean, it looked like awful. Yeah, yeah. And we commit the Bloomberg administrations let us transfer the sort of decision from DOT to the parks department, and the parks commissioner let us take it away. But we were really scared. I mean, would people throw things off of it? I remember the guy that owned Chelsea Market was opposed to it because he was worried people would throw things at the transvestite prostitutes, that’s what he called them then, um, underneath. So there were all these weird issues that you know now it turns out it it wasn’t an issue.
Gavin:
But that’s uh that’s bonkers. But so what what is your least favorite thing now about the Highline? What would you like to go back and fix?
SPEAKER_01:
Um, you know, I mean, of course, I love the old Highline. I mean, I love the weird magic of what it was like. I love this is Hudson Yards, by the way. Where you’re looking. Like Hudson Yards is right there. I mean, so it’s just a different. I mean, I can be back, you know, I don’t know, Hudson Yards is a bummer for me. Just putting it out there. And related is trying to build a casino on the Highline right now. Yeah, you know. Um, so you know, um, you know, there there’s but New York’s meant to change also. Um and and I like, I mean, the Highline doesn’t like me talking about this now that I’m no longer there. I always like talking about the failures of the Highline. Yeah, absolutely. Like I thought that was sort of more interesting. Like, no one wants to hear about the successes of the Highline anymore. You know, it’s just um, and so there was a lot of things, you know, like we didn’t, I think the biggest now I sort of can’t encapsulate it. I think once you create value, you can’t capture it back. And so we created an incredible amount of value for developers, property owners, the city is gonna get like$1.5 billion in tax revenues. And the Highline doesn’t get any of that back. We we have a$20 million budget that we have to raise every year. And you know, we didn’t, there wasn’t as much displacement because it was the people that were displaced were people like sort of me, middle class people, you know, but the low-income neighborhoods, it’s most it’s mostly in uh public housing. And so, you know, I think if we’d known it was going to be successful, we could have done more to capture that value for different users. And I started something called the Highline Network, which was a network of other infrastructure each projects, and it really was to learn from our mistakes, not our failures. But that’s probably a whole different that’s a different podcast. I wanted to do a podcast series called the G-Word about gentrification. Oh.
Gavin:
Um, not gay or please do that. Whatever. But listen, listen, podcasting, it’s a it’s a it’s a beautiful pool. Just hop right in. There’s plenty of plenty to splash around.
SPEAKER_01:
We welcome it. I didn’t do it.
David:
One of the things I feel like I’ve lived in New York City since 2001. I literally moved here the month after September 11th, which is a really, really great time to move to New York City. But one thing I’ve learned about the culture of New Yorkers, and tell me if you guys agree, is that New Yorkers are constantly looking for experiences that make them feel like they’re not in New York, even though they love New York. And I feel like to me, that’s part of what is popular about, you know, not only Central Park, but like the High Line, any of these things, because you can kind of for a second pretend like you’re not in Manhattan, even though you’re surrounded by buildings, there is a moment where you can just have your overpriced boutique ice cream and you can stroll down, stroll down the High Line, and it’s like, oh, I’m not in New York anymore. Yeah. And it is a weird thing that we as New Yorkers do, even though we’re obsessed with the city. Yeah. No.
Gavin:
So speaking of um the city changing and whatnot, you are behind another movement in town. Will you tell us about that?
unknown:
Yeah.
Gavin:
So I left the Highland.
SPEAKER_01:
I’d been looking to leave the, I was at the Highland for 23 years, and I I left once and ended up coming back. Kind of like your husband. Yeah, and actually, you know what? I left the Highline, and then all of a sudden I had this epiphany that I wanted to get back together with Dan. I wanted to have a kid, and I wanted to stay at the Highline. It all happened in one month. And so um, so um, but so I but I couldn’t find a job that was sort of as interesting or as good, you know, it was like development jobs or nonprofits or real estate. But then uh this guy who was a mentor of mine and my former board chair at the Highline said he was going to go work for this company that did these, and he was trying to describe it. I was like, oh my gosh, it’s like modern day Roman baths, you know, which I’d always been obsessed with. Yes. Um, I I got a Rome prize and lived in Rome for a year, and just I just couldn’t understand why we couldn’t have these. Like, why did they get them, you know, a thousand years ago? And like we couldn’t have these amazing facilities that were not just really about bathing, you know, about art, food, no, and that the richest to the poorest people could or wit. Um, and so I realized this company, it’s called Therma, had basically come up with a modern day um Roman bath. And you know, when I saw a picture of it, I was like, yes, yeah, I want these in the US. And um yeah, so I I quit. I quit. It was it was it’s bad timing because I quit like while I was on paternity leave for having my second child. So I did what you’re not supposed to do, which is you want to have a baby and get a new job. And my parents were were sort of we had to move them in out of our family home. So it was a very difficult time. Um but it’s been great. It’s it’s really three years now, and we just announced we have a site in Washington, D.C. in downtown, right on the Anacastia, and we have a site in downtown Dallas. Um, and these things are big, they’re half a million square feet, you know. In Dallas, it’s gonna be on 23 acres. I love them. It’s gonna take a little while to open, but yeah, so it’s it’s like a a you know, combination of sort of a water park. It’s not really a spa, and it’s a mass market product. It’s you know, very accessibly priced. Um and it’s mostly for adults, not kids. There’s one.
Gavin:
I was gonna say, yeah, so that’s uh we know we know what water parks are all about.
SPEAKER_01:
We’ve been to water parks. I won’t now because I’m in the industry, I can’t name names, but it is so foul. Um, you know, I mean, I looked at the water and it was just gray. And now I know what it is. That grayness is skin.
David:
Oh, nice. That’s that’s something I’m gonna think about as I’m going to sleep.
SPEAKER_01:
So we use ozone filters, so there’s no chlorine and there’s no, it doesn’t smell. So um, so that’s one thing. That’s what I’m that’s my new day job that I love.
Gavin:
Yeah, I mean, and you’re creating, as we were talking about this before, too. You’re like, I’m basically trying to foment a movement.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, that’s that’s what I became obsessed with. So is is bathing in general? Like I didn’t know that much about it, but um, but then I started meeting and talking to all these people that were opening bathhouses. And I at one, I realized it was like a growing business. It’s it’s a ground, there’s a lot of them, but then I loved the people that were opening these things. They were just like weirdos and passionate and like all different, coming from different a lot of them. Sort of came out of tech startups, some of I mean just every I don’t know, it was like the people that start Highline-y projects. They didn’t come out of parks, they came out of just weird, and they all had this passion that was sort of crazy, and they were often the only one in their city. And so I realized it was sort of like, but there was no network of these people. So this woman who is opening, uh, Ann who’s opening Alchemy Springs in um in San Francisco, started a WhatsApp of people opening these things and was really lively. And then I was like, I want to bring everybody to New York and like let’s all meet each other. And so I started this thing called culture of bathing, which basically one brings together people doing bathhouses, but is also just trying to sort of promote the weirder side of bathing in some ways because um I think in a few years this is gonna be a big industry. And it and when that happens, and the same with like the highlight, when the high line becomes sick, you lose sort of what makes it special. And there’s this guy, Nickel, who wrote this book called Sweat in the 70s. Um and it has a naked person, and when he was on David Letterman, David Letterman had to hold his hand over the glue water. Um and so he he’s sort of the godfather of this sort of movement, and he always says there’s three things that make a good sweat or bathhouse: the physical, the heat, the things that it does for you, the social and the spiritual. And right now, I think people are in some ways, they think they’re doing it for this the physical, like the Andrew Huberman, Peter Atia, you know, these straight dudes that want to live to be a thousand.
David:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
Um, but to me, the interesting part is the social and spiritual. And so that’s what we’re trying to promote in this. We have a Substack, an Instagram called The Culture of Bathing, is really promoting more of the artistic. And so we did a variety show um as part of this gathering, a public, where we had, you know, some raquettes doing an Esther Williams number. We had Machine Dazzle sing a song that had nothing to do with bathing, but sort of more of the cultural side of it. Yeah.
David:
I I I am a huge fan of Korean spas. And that is kind of what was my entry point. I used to live in the Netherlands, and in the Netherlands, there this kind of communal bathing thing was the first is the first time I ever went. I remember walking in, and I had my only experience with bathhouses prior was the bathhouses. Do you know what I mean? Like when they came in going into a steam room to have sex with each other. And then when I got here, it was like children, older people, young people, mixed genders, all together in a variety of ways. And it was that it was the social aspect that I was like a little shaken by because it was like, why aren’t people talking in the sauna? Why aren’t why aren’t they just having sex with each other? And I realized that this was like a cultural thing. So when I came back to the United States and I started doing these Korean spas, it this this has been in Korean culture forever. And so I am at love, love, love. You can bring your kids. Yeah, and you can bring your kids.
SPEAKER_01:
The only place you can bring your kids.
David:
And in New York City, there’s a couple of of these bigger spas, but I’m looking at your website now, and this is like those on steroids. Yeah, we’re talking massive change.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, it’s um it’s really the scale allows us to have them be much nicer and lower the price.
David:
So we would be even less than most a lot less than a water park, and less than some of the, you know, yeah, because like the the nicest one by me is Sojo and Sojo, and that’s the highest. I love it. Love it, love it. And it’s$200. Yeah, so we would be significantly But the but what you’re saying, this like what is missing from those is the kind of social community, you know, act of bathing and some of it, you know, now there’s five four bathhouses within five blocks of each other in Flatiron.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
unknown:
Wow.
SPEAKER_01:
People think it’s like the peak, but it’s another one’s opening up next door this year, another one next to one of literally next door to one of them. But they’re all really different, they’re different products, and that’s what was interesting finding about Rome. I thought there was just one of these giant baths of Caracol, but there was like four giant ones and then a thousand, all different other sizes. So you would go to your neighborhood one, you’d go to the big one, and you know, that’s what’s um happening here. And and they’re just all the four that are in Manhattan are different. Like one, we go for a bathhouse, we go on other dates, other ship.
David:
I might go this afternoon because I’m having a Russian Turkish bathrooms are having a moment on TikTok right now. I don’t know what about that. They have found their TikTok lane.
SPEAKER_01:
I thought it was some genius TikTok person. It’s actually the owner’s daughter who, like when she pushed draft and it doesn’t make any sense, I thought that was all on purpose to make it look like it’s just she’s just like she’s just bad at it, but it looks brilliant. I know, I know. And it was too many women in bikinis, and so then she started featuring, you know, that became all the straight guys.
David:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
And my my fondest memory is I got to have Jesse, I don’t even remember Jesse that was featured one time. They’re all just dumb straight guys who you think are gonna let you know. And he said, I’m blending into fall. And I had him come, I got him on stage. I was actually wearing the shirt. I got him on stage at my Culture of Bathing Gathering. I got his name.
Gavin:
And switching modes just a little bit, um, I hope you don’t mind me bringing my condolences that it looks like your father passed away fairly recently, right?
SPEAKER_01:
Why I was having a shitty day today.
Gavin:
Yeah. Oh man. You know, so sorry. Can can I touch base on that though to say how did he influence you as a dad? And what are what’s some of the wisdom he passed down to make you a better father?
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah. Um, yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. I haven’t really been thinking about it in that regard. I’ve been really thinking about it uh growing up as a gay kid. I’m 55, so I was, you know, a kid in the 70s, and then I was a teenager in the 80s. Um and um, you know, I now my life is like the gay things seem so easy relative, you know. I’m married, I have kids, I like been out for so long. I um that I that I forget what it was like growing up. You know, you you said you had a lot of sex in college. You know, I didn’t I kissed my first the first guy I ever kissed was when I was 21 in college, and then we dated for seven years. So like I didn’t I wasn’t out until and we were so freaked out that we dropped out of college and moved to Hong Kong. Like because we didn’t know what to do, and got a two-bedroom apartment because we were embarrassed to get a one-bedroom apartment in front of the real estate lady, and then when we got to Hong Kong, we realized homosexuality was illegal there. So, but but and my dad was a big sports guy, like he loved sports, and I um, you know, I wasn’t. I was like a typical gay. Now I see my kids. My kids are more typical, like straight dudes, you know. Like I see the difference of the kids, you know, it’s a stereotype, but a lot of times you go to the playground and the the boys are running around hitting each other, and the girls are underneath the playground, like talking. Like I was definitely underneath the playground talking. So terrified of balls. I mean, balls were terrifying. Right. If they got thrown one at me, would it catch it? You know, it was just like, and my kids like can’t get enough of balls. And um, but my dad never he made me play T-ball. He said, Okay, all I want you to do is to play, and you just play one game. If you don’t like it, you can quit. And I was like, that’s a good deal. And I went, and yeah, I actually I guess I hit the ball, which is amazing to me, and he thought I’d really like it. And I was like, okay, I’m done. And he never said anything else about it ever. And you know, I think I I I never felt I felt shame, but never from my parents. You know, I knew, and when I came out in college to them, I knew they would be accepting, especially him. Like I just I knew that. And so to me, it’s often about we talk about what your parents do when you come out, whether it’s positive or negative, but I really think it’s what parents do before you come out that really makes the difference because you’re already shaped, you know. Um, and you know, I just think that’s such a gift, and I had a lot of weird interests as a kid. Like I became obsessed with Russia, and my parents let me go to Russia when I was 14 by myself.
SPEAKER_02:
Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01:
Like this is this is pre-Parestroika. This is like the evil empire, and I was in Texas. I grew up in Texas, you know, where it was real weird, and um, and then I lived over there for three months in college. Wow. I mean in high school, in high school for the summer, so and then I became obsessed with like Russian crown jewels and like collected books. I can still tell you basically every tiara and I could probably tell you the provenance of every single one of Queen Elizabeth’s tiara. Wow, and how many of them came from Russia, too.
Gavin:
Um this all tracks, frankly, with the path you’ve been on in life to follow passions and see them through.
SPEAKER_01:
That’s but they let me do it, they let me do it, you know. And God bless, I grew up in a time where people just I loved, I thought a good way to hide my gayness was to be really into Madonna. Oh yeah, yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah, and so I but this was Madonna’s first album. And like, like a virgin, she was considered like sexy. Oh yeah, yeah, totally. You know, and so like my I was live when the ATMs came. I don’t even know if people know what ATMs are, they were these machines we used to get cash out of. And um, my first ATM password was MRTW. That’s what that is. Madonna rules the world.
David:
Just the gayest, the gayest.
SPEAKER_01:
I mean, it’s just like a red cabriolet convertible. Oh my god. Oh my god.
David:
Wow, you having sex with men would be less gay than the things you just said to us.
SPEAKER_01:
I know, and no one really I wasn’t outed. I mean, it was just because people didn’t weren’t associated with those things.
Gavin:
Like they just it was pre like will and grace, or when you like, I don’t know, when people knew the solidification of stereotyping, actually. I mean, I as much as absurd as it seems right now, I could see how people wouldn’t immediately be like, oh, obviously he’s gay. Uh it’s I don’t know, it was all more more closeted, literally.
SPEAKER_01:
And I think some people did if you were smart or if you had any kind of, you know, but for yeah. So but going back to my dad, so I you know, I feel like in some ways that’s like the biggest gift. He was a very sweet man, he all a lot of great dad things, but um he you know that he gave that to me.
David:
Yeah, yeah um that he set you up for a shame-free existence to to come out, if you would, versus being good about coming out, right?
SPEAKER_01:
Like, yeah, there’s plenty of shame because I thought I was gonna die. And yeah, you know, my husband and I went when we graduated, or not my husband, my first boyfriend and I in college. We went to Angels in America perestroika, the second part, the day we graduated from college. We went, we went to we graduated from college and came into the city to go see it. And um, you know, we’re just crying and crying because we thought, which one would we be? Like wow, who’s gonna die, who would leave the other one? Yeah, he was pretty sure that he would die and I would leave him, which probably would have been true. But um, yeah. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about.
Gavin:
Well, it is it is a testament to him and to both of your parents that you are somebody who’s been able to follow passions, and though that’s great uh parenting advice, frankly, is let your kids’ eccentricities fly. As long now, I immediately want to turn that to myself and with my daughter’s complete obsession with TikTok. How on earth do I turn that into something productive in her life? Maybe sending her to sending her to Russia at 14. Yeah, go for it. I mean, it worked for him. So, Robbie, Robbie, tell us um what is that story about your children when in their, you know, they’re still quite young, but in your parenting path, what are those stories that you will never, ever, ever forget the time when?
SPEAKER_01:
I don’t know. I well, I just recently, when my husband told my son, oldest son, that my dad died, he like looked very thoughtful and he said, Can we still stay at Hotel Emma, this nice hotel? And then going to bed that night, he asked tons of questions. He didn’t ask any questions. And and and then finally he said, Um big dad, which is what he calls the other dad. Um, do you think do you think Bob, which is what they call my grandfather my father, his grandfather, bought me those Tintin books before he died? Oh my god. Worried about presents, worried about which I was sort of psyched for those. That that exchange. I don’t know, you know, my favorite thing about having kids is talking about them with my husband when we go to bed. Like, what did they just say?
David:
And where you can’t wait for them to be asleep, but then as soon as they’re asleep, you’re like, oh my god, so let me just tell you the story. Yeah, yeah. Let me show you the pictures I took.
SPEAKER_01:
It’s really hard to appreciate the cuteness in that’s why I think that my husband now doesn’t want me putting pictures of my kids on Instagram, which is good. But you know, like whenever I would see pictures of my kids on Instagram, I would think, oh my god, this is like such a cute life. Where it doesn’t feel cute or fun.
Gavin:
In the moment, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
In the moment. And so that’s why talking about them is some of my fondest memories.
Gavin:
Yeah. Well, Robbie, we of course love to talk all day long about kids and thank you for having demeaned yourself by coming onto our stupid little podcast to talk about yours and all of your passions. And we can’t wait to see.
SPEAKER_02:
I do want to go from here.
SPEAKER_01:
Can I do give the spiel about urging gay men not to have children? We’re all about it. Go for it. Okay. Because my husband thinks this is like he doesn’t like me doing this because he thinks it makes it look like I don’t love my children or don’t care or wish I didn’t have them, which is not true. I love my children and I’m so happy I have them. But I just feel like gay men of my age and a little younger, you know, when you’re in your 40s and 50s, people are successful in their career, they have a relationship. And I feel like now there’s all this pressure on them to have kids, or they think they should have kids because I don’t, oh, I don’t have anything else to do. I’ve done my career, you know, and and especially like wealthy, upper middle class gays, you know, I often literally hear many times, oh, I’ve done the financial calculation and I can continue to live my life. Terrible place to start with having kids. I’ve crunched the numbers. Yeah, yeah. I’m like, one, those numbers are not correct. Yep. They’re not correct. Yep. I I don’t care. It is gonna, it is gonna hurt financial.
David:
Like it’s we’re literally having this conversation now where we’re talking about our daughter this year is gonna not be in daycare anymore. She’s gonna go to like uh preschool, which is paid by the town. And so I’ve already spent that$1,500 a month. I keep telling my husband, I’m like, no, no, but it’s fifteen hundred dollars less a month we or more a month than we have. And he’s like, no, no, no, no. Because now summer camp, which is five hundred dollars, and now and like all of a sudden? Where’s that summer camp? I want to go to that summer camp. Weekly, babe. Um, so it’s like it’s like, oh no, that money, that money doesn’t magically come back to you. That money absolutely is spent somewhere else. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
Oh and then and then the other things like, do you like going to the gym? Do you like are you into your own body? Or do you like vacations? Do you like your selfish life that you’ve created? Like most gay men, like I had, you know, before. And so I just I there’s a have y’all ever heard of Harry Hay? He started something called the Matishine Society, it was the first gay political organization in the like 50s or 60s, I think. Um, it was it was sort of a Marxist, very leftist, but it was like a gay uh political organization. And um, and then later in the 70s, he started something called the Radical Fairies. Nice, which would have was a reaction to the gay clone movement of gays trying to be hyper masculine, and this and then the gay rights movement saying we’re just like you, you know, where and his point, he’s had this quote that said, the only thing gay people and straight people have in common is what they do in bed. And he was basically saying gay people are different. Yeah, we are not the same, we are different, and that’s what makes us special.
David:
And speaking of Billy Eichner, that’s how he does that opening scene in his his movie bros. He does he does he says, We just said we were just like you to trick you into giving us more rights.
SPEAKER_01:
We’re very different. So I don’t know, I don’t know how that, but but that we don’t have to, and straight people should that’s something they can learn from gays is they don’t have to have kids. Well, that’s it, right? That that that and I say this to my straight friends all the time. I’m like, them and us having to have them.
David:
There’s no the I always tell my straight friends who are like, I don’t know if I should have kids or not. I feel like I should. I’m like, you there, I’m gonna oversimplify what you just said. Have kids if you want to have kids. And that sounds like, oh, you’re not thinking, no, it really is that simple because the money and should I or whatever that is all terrible. That is terrible reasons to do anything. If you’re unsure, don’t do it. If you’re sure you really want kids, then have kids. Whether I I it just but the straight people, especially, but now the gays, because we’re kind of like straight people now, have this pressure of like, now you’ve gotten married, now you have a job at CVS. Get get have kids now. That’s the next logical step. And you saying no used to feel like this outlier, although I feel like straight people not having kids is becoming more common. But yeah, have kids if you want. But I think a lot of us feel that pressure coming of like, that’s the next step of this like heteronormative family that we’re trying to chase after.
Gavin:
It’s like, no, not up, not for everybody. And with or without kids, you can always come here and be an honorary gatriarch. So, Robbie, thank you for uh joining our family. It was a total pleasure. Take care. Thank you, Rob. So something great this week is libraries and the fact that I’ve had a book out for a year and a half. And I stopped into my library, and they’re like, you need to get that back to us, but not in a mean way, in a like, come on. But the book I saw at my I’m lucky enough to be in touch still with my high school. School English teachers. They’re a married couple. She taught me Honors English. He taught me AP. Did I tell you I was in AP English? And they I could smell that on you. They posted on Facebook that if they had read this book, uh The House in the Cerulean Sea back in the day, they would have added it to their repertoire. And I thought, oh, well, that’s cool. I’m going to take their uh advice. And it’s basically a young adult novel. Um, and it is it is so wonderfully subversive, not subversively, so nonchalantly queer, it’s fantastic. Like it’s a it’s a fantasy story about a school that has um like magical creature kids in it, it’s sort of a um uh orphanage. And um, and like some of the kids are like Lucy has a beard and Nathan has wears dresses or whatever, and it’s just like normal, right? And so my daughter’s really loving it, and we are clearly reading it slowly, and I’m very happy to say that she still lets me read to her, and I’m kind of like, okay, I’ll indulge this. And we’re up two-thirds of the way through because I’m now trying to get through it so I can get back to the library, just like I’m trying to get through this something great right now. And last night we were reading, there’s a very stressful part of the book where suddenly this character who’s going through a super, super stressful time said time says, Um, I I’ve seen it before, it’s awful, but it’s not anything I haven’t dealt with before. But it’s funny, right? Linus, the protagonist, says, What is? And then Lucy says that there’s so much hope, even when it doesn’t seem like it. And I read that last night and I thought, we’re going through a pretty stressful time, but there is still plenty of reasons to see hope for our kids’ future, if not for yours and mine. So the house, so libraries, hope, and the house in the cerulean sea are my something great this week.
David:
Um, I am so gay that cerulean only means Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep. Absolutely. She has totally taken the name of a color and kept it for herself. Totally, absolutely. These something greats, man. I I unfortunately mine is also very earnest and sweet, which I hate. You know I hate that. I wish I was promoting some sort of vibrator or butt plug or something. But a good friend of mine and co-worker and person I love dearly just had her baby today. And she is a first-time parent, and she went through IVF to get pregnant with her husband. And it’s been a long road, and it’s been a lot of fun to kind of have the conversation. You know, she her and I have these very kind of like frank and honest conversations offline because, you know, we’re a safe space and and so uh the baby is here, and there’s lots of information I cannot spill or talk about because it’s all very new and it just happened. But I’m like, um, she literally texted me right before we started um recording, and she was like, baby’s here, everybody’s healthy, more to come. And I was like, screaming and everything. Because it is having a baby is so much more exciting after you’ve had a baby and don’t have a baby anymore. Yeah, totally. Because all you can think of is all the fun baby things that you can do and toys you can buy, but then you get to go home and sleep eight hours in a row. And it’s like the per it’s like being a grandparent. So, friend, so happy for you. That is my something great this week. There’s a new baby in the world with new parents, and I’m very, very excited. And that’s our show. If you have any comments, suggestions, or general compliments, you can email us at gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.
Gavin:
Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast. On the internet, David is at DavidFM VaughnEverywhere, and Gavin is at Gavin Lodge in Cerulean City.
David:
Please leave us a glowing five-star review wherever you get your podcasts.
Gavin:
Thanks, and we will thrill you next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.