Full Transcript
Oh yeah, and it’s so boring in real life. So boring.
David:
That was something we’ve learned.
Gavin:
Brilliant.
David:
That is hilarious people who are just boring too.
SPEAKER_01:
It’s gonna be me, I’m telling you.
Gavin:
Yeah, it probably is. Well, let’s lower our standards.
David:
Yeah, yeah, please. On that note, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is Gatriarchs. Listener, I love you because the second we fail, y’all are on our asses. Last week I was talking, or Gabe and I were talking about, we were like, oh, what was the the Scooby-Doo’s band?
Gavin:
It was the the crazy band, the the the car, whatever. I mean, God, my brain has calcified.
David:
The amount of fucking DMs we got of mystery machine. And I was sitting, uh, my husband sometimes will get up early and he’ll like listen to the podcast, but I can hear him listening to it because he listened on the speaker phone. And I heard him literally out loud say, it’s the mystery machine. Like literally out loud. So we get it, y’all. We fucked it up. Thank you. Yes.
Gavin:
We can talk intelligently about some other things. We haven’t figured out what it is yet, uh, but apparently it’s not Scooby-Doo.
David:
That’s which is fine, which is fine. And Gavin, you sound different. Why do you sound different?
Gavin:
I sound different. I’m traveling for work. I’m in fabulous locations, thanks to fabulous friends. But yeah, I’m recording from afar. Which actually reminds me, though, um, I was lucky enough to take a little vacation last week because my kids were um, they have a February break. I love our school district schedule. We have a February break and an April break. It means school goes a little longer in the summer, but I’m like having those two breaks is so great. Now, I will bore our listener and you with details about our trip, maybe or maybe not, whatever. We were lucky to get away. I just felt lucky to get away. But in the process, of course, phones were always an issue. And we were even in an area that didn’t have great phone service. So, when, you know, I mean, I I I don’t believe in embargoes in parenting at all. We were never a no-sugar family, we were never a no Disney family, we are not a no phones family, but I think that everything is within, you know, you’re just a no mom family.
David:
I so not to be embargo.
Gavin:
That is, we are definitely a no mom family. But anyway, um, phones were an issue. My partner’s like, David, you are gonna give yourself a heart attack if you don’t stop obsessing over mainly my daughter’s um phone time. And you she’s not doing anything on it, but blah blah blah. I I probably do need to chill out about it. But anyway, I did go through her phone at one point, which she knows. I have full access to the phone, I pay for the damn thing. I will occasionally look through, and I’ve never found anything. I don’t know. I’m I just want to know what she’s doing a little bit, right? So I go on her phone and I look at her text some text and I say this.
David:
Oh David gasps, David gasps in the audio platform at the visual that Gavin just showed me.
Gavin:
Listen, listener, my daughter has changed my name in her phone to Devil. I thought it was just me. Oh my gosh. Just not even the devil. Also, I want to criticize this. There’s no article ahead of it. Like, am I just devil? I’m not the devil. Also, there’s since there’s no the, but she doesn’t capitalize the D in Devil. I mean, I have so many issues with this, not the least of which is the fact that uh my partner gets his own name, everybody else gets cute nicknames. I’m I have my own cute nickname, apparently.
David:
Okay, wait, you had you brought this up, right?
Gavin:
Yes, I have. And um I I I did one time, I probably brought it up not in the best moment. And I was like, why is that why are you so upset with me? Because I’m the devil, and I smirked at her, and she was like, Were you what? And then she slowly smirked and she was caught red-handed, and she goes, Well, I only did that four months ago and I was mad at you, and I forgot to change it back. And I’m like, you know, I deserve it too.
David:
I’m a tyrant with the phones, but you should have quickly changed her name to like fucking asshole or something like that, and then just been like, Well, two can play at that game. Oh, that’s so messed up. Oh my god. I I I think the access part, like, I’m not there yet. Obviously, my kids are five and three, but I I totally get why you do it, but also I am way too sensitive. If I saw one text that was like, my dad’s a fucking asshole, I would I would pout. I would be, I I don’t know if I can have that much access. I don’t know if I can do it.
SPEAKER_04:
I if she talks badly about me, she’s supposed to. We talk badly about me.
David:
No, I get it totally.
Gavin:
Yeah, she’s absolutely supposed to. I I don’t think I would take things like that personally, and I don’t actually take this series personally. I think it’s funny.
SPEAKER_04:
I I kind of roll my eyes. It is what it is. I think it’s funny. Um she’s supposed to do this, you know.
Gavin:
But no, um I get it.
David:
I I get it. I just I just don’t know if I have the maturity for it. Um, you are traveling for work. My husband was just also traveling for work, which meant I was solo daddy for three whole days. And, you know, it me it brought up something that my husband had said, because I travel a lot more for work than he does, and I’m um gonna be basically away every weekend for the next three months. And he was saying uh one thing that we had agreed on was like when you’re the only dad in the room and you’re the only one parenting, it is both way harder and also way easier to be a parent because you have nobody over your shoulder. Not that my husband is like barking, like looking side eye or whatever, but there is a natural, like if there’s an audience that you’re like, no, we’re going to bed 20 minutes early, or you’re gonna have Bluey later than you should, or whatever it is, it’s you in control. Now it’s also harder because there’s no fucking letting up. You’re doing the laundry, you’re cooking the meals, whatever. But it was a reminder of like sometimes being a solo dad is kind of easier.
Gavin:
Yeah. My partner was away for three months one time, and everybody around, and the kids then were in like kindergarten and preschool, and everybody around was like, Are you gonna be okay? Are you gonna be okay? Are you gonna be okay? And and um, and I was like, Well, it just is what it is. I I don’t have a choice, so it’s you know, and I mean, I would not want to do this solo. Props and snaps to everybody who does do solo. You are all saints.
David:
Um whether you’re single or you have a partner who just doesn’t do their fair share. I mean, like, but there are I know people in my life who are one, there’s some of those and some of the others, and like yeah, it’s hard.
Gavin:
But you’re exactly right. There’s no miscommunication, there’s no there’s no there’s no negotiation that goes on, and there’s less conflict, and it’s just that becomes easier.
David:
So this is I’m gonna announce my divorce for my husband on this platform. I hope he’s listening. Uh no, I’m not kidding. But I do I do have some helpful information this week. I have a dad hack that is it’s not really a hack, but it is something that’s working for me. So I guess it’s like a personal hack. Um, so I feel like there was a long time where, you know, when the kids are like, oh, I don’t want to brush my teeth or I don’t want to eat this or whatever. That the trick was, the hack was give them two options that both you’re okay with, and it’s like an illusion of choice, right? That has now worn off. My kids are totally seeing through that. I’m like, you can have peas or broccoli. They’re like, fuck you, I want candy, right? Yeah. So what I’ve learned now lately is asking them to join me in figuring out a problem. So I’ll be like, oh God, I just I only have these things for dinner. Like, what should I do? And so when I ask them, like, how do I do something? Will you help me figure this out? They weirdly get excited about figuring it out, but I’ve falsely given them the parameters already. Yeah. Yeah. So if I’m like, oh, I have all of these vegetables, but like I don’t really understand what I should do for dinner. What do you think I should do? Oh man, it fucking works. So asking them, asking them how to do something is the new give them two choices.
Gavin:
And another version of just how parenting is just mind games. We are just manipulating these little impressionable brains to make it easier for us. And also help them make good choices.
David:
Totally. And you know what else is manipulative? I have no idea what our top three lists. Gatriarch, top three lists, three, two, one. Um, this week, for whatever reason, I chose what are the top three dog breeds? I don’t know why I chose this. I was just thinking, I don’t want a dog and kids and dogs. It’s just such a beautiful like marriage. And we have zero yard. We have literally one little deck, and that’s it. So we’ll we can’t have a dog now, but we think about it all the time. So, what are the top three dog breeds? Okay, so for me, I’m here for it. For me, number three, America Golden Retriever. Just classic Americana, nice little shaggy dog, really loving. Uh, number two, this is a personal one. I don’t know if they’re actually good with kids or very friendly, but I think they’re the most beautiful dog is a Siberian husky. I think those little dirty dogs are just so fucking beautiful. They might be monsters in real life, but man, do I want a Siberian husky? And number one, if there is no crossover, I will be very shocked. Although, listen, for Disney week, I was blown out of the water that you there was no crossover. But number one for me, the best dog in the world, consistently Labrador. Just I mean, I’ll tell you right now. Yeah.
Gavin:
Uh yes, spoiler alert, that’s my number one to. That’s my number one. And listen, it is Lab’s a perfect dog. Labs are it is the perfect dog. It’s the perfect family. Just they love you. They just want to be loved. They just don’t, yes. We have a lab mix right now, and she’s she’s my perfect dog. I mean, our last dog was the even perfect dog. We had her for 12 years. She was a great dog. Anyway, life is better with a dog.
David:
Do you ever like your dog a bitch, like non-ironically, to be funny? Because that would be a dad joke I would lean into quite heavily.
SPEAKER_04:
I don’t doubt that at all. She is, I don’t think I’ve ever done that, but I definitely do it with our cat and call her names because she deserves it.
Gavin:
Anyway, so going, um, you know what? I’m gonna change it up today, and I’m gonna give you one, two, three, and I know that drives you nuts, doesn’t it?
David:
It does drive nuts.
Gavin:
But one, yeah, one, a black lab. I would say specifically, I’m a black lab guy, but hey, the chocolates and the yellows are the whites are cute too. But yeah, labs, without a doubt. Yeah. Uh, number two, aussies. That’s what our last dog was, an Australian sheepdow. They’re just, they’re super smart. They’re smaller than labs, so their size is nice. They have really like bushy tails, but they don’t have they have hair, but not too much hair. Oh, she was a great dog. Maddie Madison, she was a great dog. Anyway, aussies are great. They run well, they they they’re just really smart and they want to be with you. It’s really sweet. And I would never have one. So I always have dog envy when I see other people have them. York’s York’s are good. Oh, I love them.
David:
Oh, if we did a top three worst dogs of all time, Yorky, Yorkie would be number one. Oh god, just the hair. The hair is like always, they look like little rats. They bark too much. You can’t cobble with them. They’re just ducks.
Gavin:
Oh I’m not a small dog person, and I never will be, but I think from a distance they’re cute and I like them. I do want to give an honorable shout-out to Bulldogs, though, because bulldogs are just hilarious. And I don’t think there’s enough bulldogs in the world. They’re and I don’t mean French Bulldogs. I mean like a bulldog that looks like it’s in Tennessee and named Beauver T Justice. You know?
David:
Wait, isn’t a Yorkie the kind of dog that Angel Dumont Chouinard killed in Rent? Wasn’t it a Yorkie?
SPEAKER_04:
No, that Akita, Evita, just won’t shut up. I believe if you play non-stop, that pup will breathe this very last death.
David:
I’m certain that girl will bark itself to death. Uh-huh. And a kita, wait. This podcast about two gay men just got gay. Oh my god. And I hope, listen, our guest is Eck is also a super gay podcast host, so I hope he’s appreciating this. Um, okay, that was a great list. What is next week’s list that you definitely have prepared?
Gavin:
Uh-huh. I have I absolutely prepared it. And I want to know your three top beach vacation locations. Our next guest is actually our very first host, a podcaster who’s totally obsessed. Obsessed with social media, obsessed with being a gay icon in the making, obsessed with true crime, obsessed with bad boys and good boys and the golden girls, but most of all, obsessed with being a dad. And he’s hosting us in his studio, so we should sound really good right now. I hope so. Introducing our latest obsession, Patrick Heinz. Patrick! Hi boys!
David:
This is so weird to have to all be in the same room. Gavin and I have only recorded one time ever in our life, and that was episode one.
SPEAKER_01:
I’m wondering, I wonder how, after it’s over, tell me how if it was a different experience. Well, it’s probably gonna be disappointing.
Gavin:
When we have a cigarette, probably disappointment as well. When we have a cigarette, we’ll be able to debrief all of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How were we compared to your last ones? And that’s like I love it. On that note, or not at all, we always love to ask, first of all, how has your kid driven you bonkers today?
SPEAKER_01:
Well, it’s a com it’s a it’s you’re getting a twofer because it’s my husband and my daughter in a in a in a in a twofer. So my daughter um is severely dyslexic and she has ADHD. So um, like, you know, we it’s a long story, but we’ve come to the process of like what is best for her to do her homework, right? And it turns out if we get her up early, a little bit early in the morning and give her her ADHD meds quickly, then give her a little time, then she’s most focused doing her homework in the morning before school. All right. This morning, I had to go to the gym during homework time because I like for whatever reason.
Gavin:
You had a very important podcast you needed to work out.
SPEAKER_01:
And if it was truly, truly, truly. And so I left it to my husband to do homework with my daughter. Uh-oh. And uh, I’m the homework dad. Like that’s my husband. Right. And he and his role is literally everything else. So the homework is the one thing that I do with my kid. I went to the gym, got screamed at by a lesbian. I will live that story for another time. Okay.
David:
Um, this is why I say you cannot trust a lesbian. Period. See not anywhere.
SPEAKER_01:
I am the biggest lesbian fan. I love my mom is a lesbian. I was raised among the lesbians. I basically am a lesbian, which why I’m like, you’re my people. Why are you screaming at me at the gym at six in the morning? Anyway, I come home, the daughter’s not done the homework. She’s sitting there. No, I’m sorry. She’s sitting there watching the iPad doing her homework.
David:
Oh.
SPEAKER_01:
She hasn’t had breakfast, her hair isn’t done. Okay. Uh, and and and we’ve got to leave in 20 minutes. Yeah. I lost my mind. That’s all. No, but that’s the whole story.
David:
But like we talk about all the time on the show, like getting the shoes on, the morning process. You’re like, it’s 7.29. We’re already five minutes behind. Why are you doing that?
SPEAKER_01:
The truth of the matter is I started having to go to therapy twice a week because of the morning routine. Yeah. I was already in my, you know, third decade of therapy once a week, but then when like Daisy became of age and we were doing the morning routine, I had to start going twice. And my therapist was like, you need a routine with timers. Changed my own. So now our morning routine is um I get her up, we go to the couch, we sit and listen to two songs. They’ve been the same two songs for three years. Oh, the songs. Um, one is called uh Watch Me Work from the Trolls movie. It’s Andrew Rannels. No, yeah. Okay. There’s nothing like screaming, Alexa, play Watch Me Work by Andrew Randles at Alexa at six o’clock in the morning every single day. Um and the second one is a Taylor Swift song. Okay. Uh Cruel Summer. It’s a very it’s a cruel. That’s a really good song. Yeah. And then she has 16 minutes to watch the iPad and get dressed, including socks and shoes. Uh, and then she has to do her homework. Uh, she’s got as much time as she needs to do the homework, but then at 720, I set a clock, I set another timer for 10 minutes, and then that’s like iPad off hair and toothbrush timer. And the wrap.
David:
That is the only way through a morning. And I also think that parents having their own isolated things is so good because my husband does the homework. Yeah. And every once in a while he’d be like, Can you do the homework with Emmett? And I’m like, Okay, yeah, that’s so easy. We just have to draw an E. Yeah. Three seconds later, I’m screaming, I’m running outside for a breath because I don’t have the patience.
SPEAKER_01:
No, and it’s not no comparison because every every family has their own challenges. But Daisy, like I said, is severely dyslexic. And so getting her to even start her reading and writing homework is is the world’s biggest challenge. Yeah. And so she and I have developed a routine over the years, and like, you know, Steve is a much much smarter than I am. He’s, you know, validatory in his high school class and all of that. So you would think that he would love doing the homework with our daughter, but like for some reason that’s been left to the idiot of the family. It’s true, literally, truly. I’m like, Daisy, I can’t read it either, girl.
David:
And I don’t have this like, you know, duplicate, it’s a mystery. Nobody knows. No, literally, and there’s no way to find out. Nobody knows.
Gavin:
So but I’m so curious. In in her in the treatment that you have for her uh homework process, is it is it school focused or do you have a tutor that helps and how do you focus her being able to both.
SPEAKER_01:
So she goes to a school specifically for kids with language-based learning disabilities and ADHD. So they they are, I mean, the school is incredible. And so she gets a lot of that structural help at school. We have a tutor that she works with twice a week, um, who is also amazing. She’s like the like a motherly figure to Daisy. She’s wonderful. Uh, so we get a lot of direction from them, honestly, you know, and um, and they’re used to the behaviors that come along with like of the avoidance of a kid with ADHD uh and with dyslexia. So they they know the tools better than we do as parents. And I remember one of the first times our tutor came over, Daisy threw a fit and ran and locked herself in the bathroom. And I am, I am so easily embarrassed by my child’s behavior. Like, I can’t take it. Like, I if I feel like she’s not modeling perfect behavior, which she never does, but like I just I freeze and I don’t know what to do. And so Miss Galcona’s her name. She um after five minutes of me being like, Daisy, please, please, Daisy, please come out, Daisy, please, please, please. She comes up to me and she’s like, Would you like me to handle this? Like the professional. Like, exactly. Dad will have a cocktail. Clearly, the daughter’s perfectly fine. Dad needs his therapy. The dad meltdown, you know what I mean? Because, and my husband does not suffer fools. He doesn’t, he will pick Daisy up over his shoulder and carry her down Ninth Avenue too, which I’ve seen him do, screaming and crying. We were at a museum last week and there was a Barbie exhibit, and we told her when we were on the top floor, like, there’s a photo up here. If you don’t do it now, we’re not coming back. Oh, yeah. We get all the way down to the bottom, and she wanted to go back up. And I said, No, she threw a fit, I started to cry, and I went outside. I was like, Steve, you have I can’t do it. We’re in public and I can’t do it. Did Steve take her back up to take the photo?
Gavin:
He walked.
SPEAKER_01:
Oh, hell, no problem. Steve Tipton would die in that museum before taking her back to the photo exhibit. I’m like, we live here now. Yeah, we didn’t know. Never going upstairs ever. I’m standing outside being like, what am I gonna do? Oh my god, everyone’s looking. Oh my god, everyone, like, and you know, we’re all having our own look. Everyone but Steve is having it, but he doesn’t care. He will deal with my meltdown, he’ll deal with Daisy’s meltdown, and you know, for better or for worse, there there are times that I’m like, I you are gonna give her that tractor because we’re in public and she asked for it. And I can’t, there’s nowhere for me to go, and now she owns a tractor. Well, thank God there’s somebody who’s strong-willed in the family besides Daisy.
David:
I mean, who’s raising who? You know what I mean? Um wait, let’s go, let’s go back. Because I don’t think our listener understands. How did you become a dad? And did you and Steve want to become dads always?
SPEAKER_01:
It’s funny because no, we I uh you know, I I wrote about this in my book that when we first met, my favorite thing about us was that we didn’t want kids. We used to say we were gonna have like fancy vacations and name them. Yeah. Um and then
David:
Like this is Claire, it’s women to Greece. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:
But literally, and so like photo albums saying, this is Jonathan.
David:
Um that’s a really good idea.
SPEAKER_01:
I love that idea. I know, it’s our weekend in Mikano’s. But we then something we were on one of our trips, and the trip was not going well. And we just had a lot of a lot, like a lot of things went wrong. I lost my wallet that had all of our credit cards in it, and we were just like kind of screwed. And I realized like on this trip that like I didn’t want to do that. Like I really wanted a kid. Uh-huh. And my husband had kind of the same realization at the same time. And but we were poor. Like, we didn’t, you know, I I mean at the time we were New York poor. You know, like we were making like a like a middle class income anywhere else, but in New York we were poor.
David:
And uh Which is like$200,000. Like literally, that is that is poor. People here that you completely revealed. They’re like, no, we’re not paying our bills.
SPEAKER_01:
No, well, I mean, we I was making, I think,$70,000 a year as a hotel concierge for the W Hotel, and Steve was working for a big hospital doing like data analysis, and he was making about the same. Like, that’s a decent income. Very good. I mean, it’s like top 10% in the country, but for not in New York. But and we couldn’t afford, I was looking at my friends who had the similar jobs. I’m like, how are y’all affording this surrogacy? Or like this even traditional adoption, which could be like a hundred thousand dollars. Totally. We just didn’t have the money. But literally, I mean, that’s what I was thinking. Like, these are parents who want, these are like their parents who want grandkids, you know. And so uh those were not an option for us. And so we, I was on the subway one day and I saw a thing for um foster to adopt. And I didn’t really know much about it, but like me, I was like, that sounds good. I don’t need any more information. Let’s just go. I didn’t know no further questions, baby. No, literally, I have no questions. You’re like, come to an orientation. I’m like, I don’t even need that. Just I just pick out my child, just walk down the line and pick one out of a cage.
Gavin:
If I’m on 18th Street, it’s gonna be perfectly fine.
SPEAKER_01:
I’m gonna be there. So we did because my husband is very smart. We went through all of the steps we had to do, which is a lot. I mean, we we went through the orientation and we we were very clear from the beginning that we wanted um a baby that had a high likelihood uh of being uh released for adoption. Because the whole thing about foster care that they will say is that it is meant to reunite families, it is meant to be a temporary thing, and most of the time that’s what happens. Uh, and so we kind of got lucky. I mean, we got our our agency knew what we wanted. I think when when Daisy came into the system, her story was that, you know, she had come from a birth mother and birth father who had had other kids removed that had been successfully adopted. Uh, and uh, so you know, it was like no guarantees, but this baby is available. This is the situation. It was the first baby that that was offered to us for lack of a like. It feels weird. No, the language is weird when you talk about it.
David:
It’s surrogacy too. It’s like there’s money involved, there’s legals, and there’s like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, yeah. And and she came to us and she came to us at six days old. Um, and you know, I I kind of stopped the story there because a lot of it is Daisy’s story that I I’ll wait until she’s old enough to to um tell me that I can tell. But right, um ultimately, after about two and a half years, uh, you know, she was cleared for adoption. And uh, I mean, we were the only parents she had through that whole time. She was obviously with us every day and night. But the the thing about foster care is that you really are glorified babysitters, you have no legal rights. Right.
David:
Because they’re trying to reunify them with the other thing.
SPEAKER_01:
And they’re giving the parents every opportunity to there’s like a checklist of things they have to do, and they they give them every opportunity and resources to do those things, and that’s why it takes so long because they want to really exhaust the idea. But eventually they do, it is important for the child to have the permanency of a you know of a legal family.
David:
So But are you in that time trying to like weirdly distance yourself emotionally because you’re expecting this child to be able to do that? It’s interesting.
SPEAKER_01:
Like it, you know, in the beginning, we weren’t we were never really trying to emotionally detach, but or and we were also not trying to not emotionally connect. We were just kind of like it, we didn’t I remember saying to my sister, because she’s like, What is gonna happen if this doesn’t work out? Like you guys are gonna be devastated. I remember I remember saying to her, like, no, like if this baby comes to us and is with us for a time and the family is able to take her back, then like that’ll be a beautiful thing. I very quickly realized the fallacy of that thought. And that was a lie. Yeah.
Gavin:
And right, and you have to tell yourself that too.
SPEAKER_01:
Yeah. You have to emotionally prepare yourself. At the end of the day, you really want what’s best for the baby, you know, and and uh Did you call her your daughter during this period? It was funny because we in an initial, I was going back to an old Facebook post recently, and it was like our foster daughter, Daisy. But that pretty quickly went away. We then we would mostly call her by name, you know, like this is Daisy. This is, you know, are you the dad? Yes, we’re the dad. But as the the time progressed and it became clear that this was that we were kind of waiting out a clock, you know. What was that limbo time? Um, you mean like how long was it? So the adoption what became final, I think two and a half years after she came to us. That is so long. That was a really long time. And it was probably about a year in that the circumstances were such that it was pretty clear that it wasn’t gonna happen. Um, and I told this story before, but you know, on the on the day that the adoption was gonna be finalized, uh the birth mother showed up to the to the hearing. And we were very nervous because the judge, we had we you you’re you’re basically assigned a judge and you have that judge the whole time. Our judge changed right at the very end. And the judge that we got, we had been told, was very much pro-reunification. And the birth mother was there, and we were just kind of like, well, we didn’t really know what this was gonna mean. Had you met her before? Uh-huh. A couple of times. But it was, we didn’t have a rel, you know, we didn’t have a relationship with her. We didn’t really know what her what her wants were. And the judge really was over the top with like the are you sure you know what you’re doing? Are you sure that you know that you’re giving up the parental rights? And essentially, she said that she, um, this is the part that always makes me cry, but she said that she came so that she could willingly give up her rights as long as the baby was gonna be with Steve and me. Oh so like that’s part of Daisy’s story now is that her birth mother will like willingly and intentionally gave up the lights, the her rights so that she would come to be with us, which is to give her the best life. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Gavin:
Yeah. And how did your whole perspective change from the the the day before that moment and the day after? I mean, did your parent did your style change? No.
SPEAKER_01:
Because by then we were, you know, getting out the door, was it any less stressful?
David:
No, I mean.
SPEAKER_01:
Wow, this really is gonna be 18 years. Um yeah, no, it it really, really nothing changed. Nothing changed except like I remember one time we had gotten really close with our social worker and the agency and the all the lawyers involved. And, you know, we’ll like if we were taking Daisy on like a family holiday out of the state, we had to like get that cleared through the agency. And one Christmas, we like forgot. And we were in Massachusetts with my family. I’m like, oh my god, we are technically kidnapping this child. We just kidnapped our baby. But literally remove them from the gate. I’m a full Republican now. Um, but yeah, it was so like it, you know, we um it nothing really changed by that point.
Gavin:
Wow. Yeah. I don’t think that we’ve talked to many people who’ve had who’ve done foster to adoption. I think we’ve talked to one one other person, but it yeah, it is in six episodes.
SPEAKER_01:
Yes, in episode 96. It’s unusual. I used to think, like, where where is everyone doing this? Because it’s like, you know, I mean, to give you the nitty-gritty details, not only does it not cost you anything, but they and this is a thing that is very important for because people like we were low income at the time. Like they were, you know, they the the state gives you money to like cover the costs of the kid. We got free daycare, nice, you know. Yeah, we got some money, like a stipend every month for expenses, and um, and we got like WIC. So we got like free baby formula and diapers. And I would argue that this is actually government in action for good. But that’s exactly that’s what it’s meant to be because you know, truly, most foster parents are not looking for what we were looking for. They really are it mostly in our experience, it was older single women of color who just wanted to give back or who just wanted more kids in their life for a time, or or just felt that they had wisdom to impart, you know. Um, most of them are not young gay men looking to adopt a baby and make a family. But in the beginning, I was like, this is like what a sweet gig. Like, where is where are the gays? They’re practically paying us.
David:
But literally, you know, and and uh way about everywhere. I’ll like I’ll drive through any neighborhood and I just want to walk up to every single big house. I want to knock on their door and be like, what do you do? Where’s your money from? I know. And I need to know everything about your finances, and all your logins to your Chase account. I know. I need to know everything because I am always like, where is everybody getting to especially when you’re at Disneyland? True. Where are these Disneylands? Yeah, we had we had some friends of friends who went to Disneyland for one week and it was a family of four, two kids and two parents. And they were like, admittedly, they were like, oh, you know, we just wanted to do it right and we stay on a property or whatever.$30,000. I mean for one one week, which is fucking mindful.
Gavin:
I mean, I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise, but that’s a shocking number to hear out loud.
David:
But you know, they’re eating in the park every day, but still, it’s like that is that is fucking interesting.
SPEAKER_01:
We went to Turks and Cakos one year for like our big, you know, we hadn’t been on vacation in like two years, and we went to the uh Beaches Resort, got the cheapest room you could get, and for like me and Steve and Daisy. We found out when you got when you get there, like we were we were fully second class citizens because of like the room type that we had and where we were staying. You can pay like a hundred grand for a week at Beaches, you get like butler service and happy ending. Literally, you would hold it. If you’re hungry, my butthole also, then I’m not doing it. What am I doing here? Yeah.
Gavin:
You just had to do it yourself. Honestly.
SPEAKER_01:
And then I started to hate our room. I’m like, this I hate this vacation. This is a poor person’s room.
David:
I don’t want to be a poor person. Well, speaking of poor, let’s go to you, because I want to know more about you. Because for our listener who doesn’t know who you are, you are you’re you’re uh podcast royalty with somebody else.
Gavin:
But you’re aware that I mean I’d love to hear your kind of Rags to Riches podcasting story, right? Yeah. Like, how did you end up in this room hosting us?
SPEAKER_01:
Listen, these two losers. You know what I was just thinking about? Feel the temperature of this room. Isn’t it nice and cool? It’s nice. So here’s the thing like so podcasting is such a scrappy thing, right? So I started podcasting um for fun as a hobby. Uh a little over 10 years ago, I started, I was making a theater podcast called Theater People. And essentially, there was a theater podcast that existed where they were in, it was uh the American Theater Wing. It was called Downstage Center. Okay. And um Where we all belong. Right. Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were just interviewing like Broadway stars, and I was like, I loved it so much. And then it went away. And I was like, well, somebody’s gonna do this, right? Nobody did. So I was like, well, I guess I’ll do it. I’ll figure out how to make a podcast. I didn’t know anybody on Broadway. I’ll figure out how to book Broadway people and and and and do interviews with them. So that’s how this all started. I didn’t. When you had to actually explain to people what a podcast was. Oh my God.
Gavin:
Even when I like was able to explain what a podcast is, but will you come doing it?
SPEAKER_01:
Where can my mother to this day? Where can I watch your podcast?
David:
I’m not throwing shade at Patrick Wilson. I just I just I just said that. I don’t actually know who he is. I don’t know if he’s dumb or not. He’s so hot. Oh my god. He’s hot and straight, so I assume he’s dumb.
SPEAKER_01:
And is he straight? I don’t know. Yeah, you know what I mean? Anyway. Um, but so anyway, that was my first thing. And then I I met this woman named Gillian Pensevale, and uh, she started making another theater theater podcast called The Hamilcast, which is a podcast about Hamilton. Of course, because of course, right? And so my whole thing was like, you know, the the theater, the theater adjacent world, so people who make like theater content who aren’t like actors can be very competitive. And I was like, I don’t do that, I don’t believe in competition, I believe in supporting people and bringing people up. So I was one of the very first podcast uh theater podcasts. There was a podcast called The Ensemblist, they were doing something totally different. I remember that one. Yeah, they were great. They were doing um, they were uh they they basically interviewed it was a it was a podcast about Broadway Ensembles and fairings and stuff. Mo Brady and Nika Grafland’s Rodney and they were wonderful. And I was the first sort of like young guy doing like interviewing like big stars. But that more started coming up as we were doing more. And every time that happened, I would always reach out and say, I’m Patrick, I make theater people. If there’s anything I can do to help you, I’m here, like let’s be friends, let’s pool resources, whatever. So when Gillian started making the Hamill cast, I was like, Well, that’s gonna be way more popular than mine. And I was like, maybe I won’t send her the DM. But then I was like, be your who you are. And so I sent her a DM saying the same thing, and she reached back out. We sort of that we became friends, we started getting drinks, and this was when the podcast, like creators were some creators were starting to transition to like actually making a living. And I was really interested in that. I was very interested in the uh business of podcasting.
Gavin:
Just say it, money, not being second class at the Sandals Beside. Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:
So I love the business of podcasting. I I’m not smart enough to make like a smart podcast. So I was like, I loved true crime. I’m like, I bet I could make a true crime podcast that could maybe make money. And Jillian wanted to make a true crime podcast too. We had a couple of different ideas. We settled on this one that was like um a three-segment podcast of like a news segment, an interview segment, and a segment in the middle where we sort of like recap something. And so we did all three segments, and the middle one, we were recapping this documentary called uh The Imposter. And I didn’t know she was funny, she was being so and I was kind of annoyed that like her recap was like making me laugh, and I’m like, no, but this is true crime, like we have to be serious. We can’t do that. Literally, and so I I was editing the the pilot episode, and when I was listening back to it, I was like, wait, this middle part where we’re recapping the thing, this is so unique, no one is doing this.
Gavin:
I there was already a lot of true crime podcasts, and I called her, I’m like, there were because actually I was gonna try to interject earlier where I’m just like this already existed, but yet you did still think I have something different to put into this space.
SPEAKER_01:
I weirdly have that thing where I’m like, well, I can do anything. You know what I mean?
David:
The audacity that we all have flowing through our veins. I could probably build a house. One. Do you know what I mean? I’ll watch two YouTube videos. Yeah. We built the deck in our backyard, which will collapse at some point. But I was like, how how hard is it to build a deck?
SPEAKER_01:
I once bought a bed, a loft bed from IKEA. I built it myself and then never slept in it. Because I was like, I’m gonna fall to my death. No, but you did it. Boom. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, essentially, we we put out our first couple of episodes. Um, it we called it True Crime Obsessed, the worst name for a podcast because it doesn’t tell you anything about what it is, right? Now it helps us because if you’re searching true crime, it’s one of the first things that comes up.
SPEAKER_05:
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:
But like we were talking the other day about like it does not tell, we recap true crime documentaries. Like that’s what the with with like humor and heart, and like that’s our whole thing. So, you know, we were, I mean, pretty quickly we got an email from this company named Audio Boom that was like, we sell ads on podcasts and we don’t have anything like yours. Do you want to work together? And we’re like, you’re definitely gonna scam us, and we don’t know anything, but okay, we’re still with them eight and a half years later. Amazing. Yeah. And then, you know, we got approached by UTA. They wanted to represent us. Yeah. And we’re we’ve been with them for eight and a half years, and they, you know, our agent Orin has just like really guided our sort of trajectory. And, you know, we within a year, Gillian and I both quit our jobs and we were doing it full-time. That’s incredible. We launched our Patreon, and that was the biggest, that was the big thing was that for many, many years, we were the number one creator on Patreon.
Gavin:
Wow.
SPEAKER_01:
And yeah.
Gavin:
How often? I mean, I would imagine you pinched yourself constantly thinking, holy shit, here I am.
SPEAKER_01:
Sent me to therapy because we were, we got so successful so fast that it this is gonna sound crazy, but it made me question reality. It really made me be like, is any of this real? It what is happening? But also podcasting famously very volatile.
David:
Yes. Like it’s super hot and then it’s not, and then it’s super hot, and then it’s not.
SPEAKER_01:
And so we’re like eight and a half years in now with True Crime Obsessed, and it’s not many true crime podcasts make not many podcasts at all, make it that long, you know? And certainly there have been ebbs and flows, there’s been ups and downs, and uh, but we’ve weathered it all. We’ve we our big focus was always on building community. So we have a Facebook group that has like 59,000 people in it, and you know, we’ve got a couple hundred thousand listeners that have been with us really like from the beginning.
Gavin:
Now that is such an Oprah moment, right there, where you’re I’m just about building community, and it’s kind of hard to take you seriously when you say that, except what you’re wearing. Let’s be honest. Yes. I do think you are a very sincere person. I don’t think you’re bullshitting that at all. Yeah. But at the same time, you want to study how people murder each other and get away with it.
SPEAKER_01:
Right.
Gavin:
And you want to build community about it. What is the motivation?
SPEAKER_01:
Well, the it’s kind of our Facebook group was not started by us. So what happened was our listeners actually wanted community. So you hear that listeners. I know. Made them a Patreon Facebook group.
Gavin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We always reference our listener. Yeah, yeah.
David:
And then every once in a similar DM must be like, I know my friend listens to your show too. So I know it’s not just one of those shows. Like, there’s five. Guys, it’s a joke. It’s a joke.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, yeah, our Facebook group was started by listeners, and we were like, oh, is that it? The people do that. So we we got into the Facebook group, and it kind of grew over time. And and but it is true. The thing about true crime is that every like people love it, but people don’t always have friends that love it, right? Uh-huh. So, like you’re the weirdo that wants to watch every dateline and wants to watch every documentary, and but there’s no one to talk about it with. So we kind of became, I and there’s many, many true crime podcasts that are like ours now. You know, there’s some that definitely came before us. We did not invent this by any standard. Um, but we just sort of slid into this space, and now there’s a lot of them. And we have been, I will say, we’ve been particularly good at cultivating our community. And like, for example, on our Patreon at the$5 level, like once a month, among other things, we do bonus episodes every week. But one of the things we do is uh virtual drag bingo every once a month. And we love it. It’s like our favorite thing. Drag is kind of like a is part of the culture of our show. It’s our show is very gay and campy.
Gavin:
And very campy. Which, frankly, let’s face it, grisly murder is campy.
David:
It can be. But I think it’s also because everybody secretly thinks they’re gonna get murdered. Or we all know we are going to be murdered someday. And so we’re just we want to talk to other people.
SPEAKER_01:
Imagine that there is a thing that exists in the world called the true crime documentary where you can learn all of the different ways to avoid getting killed. You know what I mean? Why isn’t everybody obsessed with this? Like, why doesn’t everybody go home and watch dateline? It’s like, I have like the three datelines I’m gonna show my daughter over time. Oh, yeah. You know, as she’s old enough to like understand them because it’s like really important like lessons. So, did you grow up obsessed with dateline as well?
Gavin:
No. Has this been a lifelong obsession?
SPEAKER_01:
I was the nerd that was obsessed with like the Loch Ness monster and like Bigfoot, UFO. That’s an easy gateway. I was gonna say there’s actually a gay theme here for sure.
David:
Like into cosplay and furries. There is something gay about the Loch Ness monster. Can we infer there is? Like, do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:
Nessie is the biggest bottom. There’s no question. A big bare bottom. We talked about Twink Top earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He loves a Twink Top. Yeah.
David:
How did how did we get here? I would like to know. Because we’re three gay men and everyone. But I will say to compliment you, is like the reason I think you probably broke through the noise of true crime is just we say this all the time with our favorite creators. Just the authenticity always flows to the top. Yeah. It’s just because you love it and you wanted to do something, and that’s it.
SPEAKER_01:
And I so I loved the podcast we were making. I loved the business of podcasting. I loved my partner that I was making it with. I loved learning about marketing. That was the big thing, too. Was that like, so yeah, I can be funny on a microphone. But then it was like, how do you? Because he really struggles. That’s he struggles. No, that is not my job. You are very funny. Tall.
David:
You mean tall.
SPEAKER_01:
I think you meant tall. I loved learning about, you know, how how to market the thing. How to because in the beginning we had no money, but we would spend$25 a week marketing on Facebook. So how can we make that$25 really pop? You know? Um, and and also I will say, there weren’t any other gay true crime podcasters at the time. Right. And like I gotta say, like the the the the shows that I really looked up to that I listened to a lot that that were kind of my my like True crime podcast idols at the time that all became friends. I’ve said this to them over and over and over again. You guys made room for me. You didn’t have to. You know, like you accepted me. You loved that we were different. You were kind to us. Like, should we start being kinder to other podcasts?
Gavin:
Not interesting. Well, not interest. I was gonna say because you and I have had some really uh dark private conversations about being like, oh, those guys know those guys. I don’t know, those are.
SPEAKER_01:
But that’s the thing. I know, but if you fight your darker instinct and and and collaborate but we do, we collaborate with people a lot of time.
David:
But but talking about your earlier point, the longevity in this business is impossible. Yeah. And we are the only gay dads podcast, but there have been others that are like, you can tell, like they had this idea and they were so excited, and there’s like 18 episodes, and the last one was three years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of the kind of like remnants of the thing.
SPEAKER_01:
I was years and years ago, um, before I made True Crime Obsessed, I was thinking about making a gay dad podcast. And I had a great title. It was gonna be called Dad Pod.
David:
Um Wait, do you know the original title for this podcast? Was Dad Pod? No. Dad Pod Pod. Oh, I love it. I loved it. And literally, when I called him, I was like, Do you want to do this podcast with me? He was like, Yes, change the name. And I was like, What? This is a great name. And he’s like, No, I hate it. And I was like, Well, whatever, it’s my podcast, we’re doing it. And then my husband was like, Well, what about this idea, Gatriarchs? And all of us were like, fuck, that’s really great. He’s literally like, I’ll sh I’ll show him anything I’ve written, anything I’ve done. And he’s like, Oh yeah, well, what about this? And it’s always the like the magic sauce. So yeah. You know how to collaborate with gay with other gays.
Gavin:
Kindly.
SPEAKER_01:
Get yourself a husband like that. Like, my husband’s like that too. You know, like he runs all of our business operations, and he’s really, he’s really smart at those things too.
Gavin:
Thank goodness. Now, wait a minute. Have you figured out then, in all of your obsession with true crime, have you figured out what really what’s the element of an actual psychopath?
David:
Like how yeah.
Gavin:
You’re the professional in the room.
David:
What is it?
SPEAKER_01:
Oh, it was a weird journey to understanding the true psychopath, but I think I have. And um it takes one as well. I mean, the the the thing about psychopaths that is the most terrifying is that they um they have no empathy, but they fake it really well. And um there, they’re the the the tell for a psychopath, in my opinion, is a true inability to not be light. So the psychopath has to get everybody on their side. The psychopath will go out of their way to f uh to befriend the people that outwardly don’t like them. And uh yeah, am I a psychopath?
David:
Because like I can have a hundred people be like, you’re the best, I love you so much. One person says, It’s not for me. And I’m like, I think about that person. Like, should I send them flowers? Truly. Like, what should I do?
SPEAKER_01:
Well, and so will I murder somebody? It’s diabolical because you know, um, it is it is it’s truly scary, actually. And and uh my therapist actually gave me a book called The Monster Next Door, which is all about do you know that there are we think about the number of real sociopaths in the world. You think that must be one in a million. It’s actually one in 24. Oh, and um, but it’s like there and you have them in your life. You may or may not know it. But the but the truth of the matter is like the you will you will see them behave sociopathically to other people and either not recognize it, it’s only when they turn it on you that you understand.
David:
They would never do that to me. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you’re not sure. Which is one of my biggest life lessons to somebody else. They will always do it to you.
SPEAKER_01:
That’s that’s the thing. Yeah, and and then you you start to, as you, as you grow it, and and god forbid, if it ever does happen to you, then now you will always, as long as you do the work and do the healing, yeah, you will be able to recognize the behavior and then from a mile away and then not and then be able to keep that person out of your life.
David:
I’m not comparing sociobaths with MAGA, however. Oh, but however, I have I have seen that happen in my family where I’m like, oh, these MAGA or like right Republicans. I’m like, well, they I would never come for you, David. Like you like, and then they do. Right. They all they always do.
SPEAKER_01:
MAGA behavior doesn’t have to be MAGA, you know what I mean? Like MAGA is a behavior as much as it is a political ideology. And the MAGA behavior is very sociopathic.
David:
And also being gay.
SPEAKER_01:
And authenticity. Do you know what I mean? Like it’s a choice, first of all.
Gavin:
And it’s and we’re always at fault with it, absolutely. So, but now bringing it back to recognizing the sociopaths and the psychopaths, are uh do you feel like you can always figure out who did it in scenarios?
David:
No. No, but then you went off Broadway to see a perfect crime at the Snapple Theatre on 51st Street and 8th Avenue. Do you know who did it?
SPEAKER_01:
I will tell you this. I saw Mousetrap in London recently, and I and I figured out who it was. And I, by intermission, I sent a text to myself so I could show my husband afterwards that I that I figured it out. But I’m not smart like that. Like there, these these documentaries are very well constructed. They don’t want you to know, they’re manipulative. But the problem with that is that what they’ve started to do is they don’t give you all the information. So if you’re if you’re presented with all the information, then you could probably think about it. There was this call that’ll left. Or they’ll start to say, like, no, here’s what we didn’t tell you. And you’re like, well, bitch, you know what I mean? Like, how’s anybody supposed to be able to figure it out?
Gavin:
So, with this obsession though, then, do you inherently trust people or not trust people given everything that you watch? Always trust people.
SPEAKER_01:
Good. Well, I love that.
Gavin:
I actually love that.
SPEAKER_01:
That said, I I won’t try like I I can spot it sometimes, it can happen that you like a like a sociopath can be charming and you let them in. But the the behavior, if you learn what the big the what the behavior is, you will they it they will show it themselves quickly. But I will always lead with like trusting and being like good.
Gavin:
Isn’t it more fun to be that way?
David:
But also it’s the only way because like the the the the pain you uh when they turn on you is like versus just being a cold, like shitty person.
SPEAKER_01:
When it happens, the it can feel like the bottom falls out of your life. You know what I mean? Like it’s it’s and we don’t want to lose our bottoms.
Gavin:
We love our bottoms, we’re very pro-bottom here on the game. We are very pro-bottom, yeah. All right, so there’s a couple of other things that we definitely need to mention here. First of all, you’re an author, you’re a published author. And that title is Failure is not an option. No, it’s failure is not not an option.
SPEAKER_05:
Wow.
Gavin:
All these things journalism here as Game Retrix Podcast is on brand. For sure, on brand. Well, failure is not not an option, right? I stand corrected. But what inspired that? Well, what gave you that gay audacity to say, I’m gonna go ahead and write a book?
SPEAKER_01:
Once again, I think I can do anything. But do it. The truth of the matter is I have very good people around me. I have a lot of help with everything that I do. But I I always wanted to write, I well, many, many, many, many years ago, I wrote another book. Uh, I was a ghostwriter for a woman named Romaine Patterson who was Matthew Shepherd’s best friend. Oh. Um, and she was, if you saw the Laramie Project, she was like the Christina Ricci Angel Wings character. Sure. And so ever since doing that, I always kind of wanted to write my own book. And I, you know, like everybody, I’ve got these eight or nine stories you tell at a gay cocktail party. Like, oh, here’s the time I literally walked through a glass door in Barcelona. And people say you should write turn that into a show. Yeah, yeah. Full-fledged musical. Truly. And so I, well, funnily enough, my book is being adapted into a musical. Of course it is. Which is like, well, why?
David:
It just got gay. It just got gayer.
SPEAKER_01:
But yeah, I I really wanted to, I wanted to put all the stories together in one place. Um, I wanted to see if I could do it, if I was any good at it. And I worked with a collaborator. His name is Doug Moe. He uh he’s like a UCB guy, he’s very funny. Um, I did most of the writing, but Doug was really, really helpful. In fact, Doug wanted the book to be less funny because I was very much, I wanted everything to be a joke, everything’s gotta be a laugh, a laugh a minute. And Doug, as a true comedian, was able to be like, no, there’s gotta be like highs and lows. Yeah.
Gavin:
Um, out the emotion by tamping down once in a while on the humor.
SPEAKER_01:
Truly, and like the moments with like the real moments between me and Steve or me and Daisy or whatever, like those need to be there too. Did I once accidentally sleep with a sex worker? Yeah. Am I gonna tell that story? Absolutely. Oh, I want that story so bad.
David:
I was like, that sounds amazing. But yeah, dolls, go.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, the long of the short of it is just I was at a bar with Romaine of all, but funnily enough, this was this is how long ago it was. And this like really, really hot guy was like all about me. And I was like, Yeah, I got it. Yeah, I mean, I got it. I mean, you know what I mean? Yeah, and um, I was hammered, and I I don’t remember everything, but I do remember him coming home with me, and like, and then like I remember waking up the next morning and he was still there, and I was like, oh my god, he’s so beautiful. He’s like my husband now. Like, we’re getting married, we’re getting married, and I remember like like going over to like snuggle up to him, and he kind of like pulled away, and I was like, oh no. And and then and then he said the words I will never forget. Are we still good to go to the ATM? Oh my and I was like, Oh what for what, babe? And uh, I know for what though, and and then I guess I remember, I mean, I was 20 years old, and I guess I rem 21, I guess, because I was drinking. I just moved to New York, and I and then I remembered the night before some discussion of like money, but I didn’t, but I was too drunk. I was whatever, you know.
Gavin:
That’s such a great detail for your musical.
SPEAKER_01:
Oh my god. And I I remember and also I was like broke at the time. I’m like, do I even have the money?
David:
And I went to- Do you remember the the sex at least?
SPEAKER_01:
Not really.
David:
I know because part of that is like the memory you have.
SPEAKER_01:
Totally, and I I barely remember any of it. And I and I we went to the ETM and I pulled out like literally, I was down after giving him the money, I was down to$12 in my bank account. Oh, baby. And he takes the cash and he goes, Don’t worry, it was worth it. From whose point of view?
Gavin:
That’s I don’t know, it makes sense. He knew. Yeah, he knew. I wonder if he’s out there listening, do you think? I don’t think.
SPEAKER_01:
The funny thing is, I remember after that running into him at bars, like and seeing him, oh my god. Doing the shtick with everyone else. But like old men. And I was like, what a I wish I could have eaten. He went a bankrupt then. He knew, he was being generous. I was like, what about me? Made me really like look like an easy mark to you. I don’t know. It was it was wild.
Gavin:
Like, I think I think that he was actually, he was indulgent, he was giving himself a treat that night. You know what? Let’s go with let’s go with that.
David:
Yeah, yeah. So coming back to parenting, right? We gotta, we, we gotta come back to parenting. That’s that’s the whole point of this podcast.
Gavin:
Yeah, it is, it is. We’ll just also give a shout out that you also have another podcast um about the Golden Girls Deep Dive, which we’ll talk about another time. Okay, we’ll talk about more sex capates and the golden girls deep dive tomorrow when we record the next part two.
David:
It’s it’s honestly too much gay for this room. If we start talking about golden girls and Gen Sammart, we’re like this whole place. It’s wild. Literally, it will like the gayness will explode. It’s too much gain. Yes, like with her breasts, it’s too many things. Um if you don’t know who Jen Samart is, she’s starring in Death Becomes How right now with Megan Hilty, and she’s amazing and she’s hilarious. Incredible. Um, but so all of your true crime, has that affected the way you kind of like protect your daughter?
SPEAKER_01:
Oh, for sure. Okay. Yeah, it’s funny because we um we were we her school is close by where we live, so we walk if it’s not too cold or too hot, or if I don’t feel like walking. Um just the three bears. Or it’s a Thursday. On a Tuesday in April, we’ll walk. But we were walking to school and there was a cat in one of those like um like outside of Bodega. You know those like bulkheads where they and I and I saw her go to the cat and I had to then like tell her the story of Eton Pates. Do you guys know the story?
SPEAKER_05:
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_01:
So really quickly, he was in like 1970, I believe it was. He like lived in Soho with his parents, and he was six years old, and his parents let him walk to the bus by himself. And I mean, it was a different time. No, no, no. But like you know, we didn’t really know what happened to him until about 40 years later. And ultimately, we’re gonna be a good one. Just a couple years ago. By the by a man with a cat. Because you know the the all these bodegas. Hillary Clinton. By Hillary Clinton with a pizza. Bodega gate. Bodega gate. And I basically had to explain to my daughter, like, you never, never go down into one of those. If anybody’s trying to lure not that I can ever imagine a world in which my daughter would be on a street less than, you know, more than four feet from me. But as a parent, you’re running those scenarios non-profit. But I had to, she’s like, why? And I and I had to tell her the G-rated version of the Aeton Pate story. So yeah, I mean, like, this stuff is but like He was the start of the milk missing.
Gavin:
Oh, yeah. Interesting. But the very beginning of it. Also the beginning of a complete moral communal panic about kidnapping.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, it it it was the biggest, one of the biggest stories of the of the time. And it’s like I’m much too young to have heard of this. Of course, of course.
David:
Devastatingly young is what they say. Devastatingly young young.
SPEAKER_01:
That’s exactly those are the words I was thinking.
David:
There are my kids’ bus stop is two blocks from our house. And there are some, and he’s in kindergarten, but like there are some parents who have like first, second, and third graders that I watch them walk to the bus by themselves and home from the bus. And it fills me with such I’m I feel like I’m a pretty free-arranged dad. Yeah, like that fills me with such anxiety. That is not my journey. Hopefully, yeah, that’s not that’s not my mission. No, no.
SPEAKER_01:
And Daisy literally is like, Dad, when can I walk to school alone? I’m like, well, when you’re 30. When you take adult education classes at 40 years old, when you’re getting your GED, that’s all. Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, I mean, like, I, you know, this stuff like lives in my head. Like, I’ve been doing it for eight years now. So it’s like, you know, I mean, like, you still hear about people who don’t lock their doors, you know, like that’s a like that’s a thing. So I don’t know. I mean, I I really do wonder like when on earth I would ever let my kid like be out in the city by unattended. I I just can’t imagine.
David:
You know they’re gonna be ready before you are. Oh, but she’s already ready, yeah. Yeah, and you’re just like, oh my god. Um I know. What is your uh favorite part about parenting?
SPEAKER_01:
Oh, my favorite part, the snuggles. I don’t know. I mean, I you know, I will say, well, like it’s gotten really fun lately because she’s just getting more and more interesting by the day. She we both learn how to play chess on the same day, and she beats my ass in chess. She is, and she literally, Daddy, I’m gonna kill you. Wow. And then, like, daddy, you’re not good at this.
Gavin:
Those are triggering words for you. It’s what truly.
SPEAKER_01:
So I think my favorite part now is what just watching her little brain grow. Like, she also like wants to join the math team. Oh, yeah. Like watching my little kid become this like fabulous nerd is so great. So, really, like what like just like watching her grow, hanging out with her now is awesome. Um, for a time, my my favorite part of being a dad was just being a dad. Like the the sheer act of rebellion, of like being a gay daddy identity. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David:
All right, what’s your least favorite part about parenting?
SPEAKER_01:
Her fucking attitude. I love that there was no sometimes our dad’s kind of go.
Gavin:
Yeah, um, well, I don’t think there is a worst part. No, that’s really great.
David:
I love putting on my shoes in the morning.
SPEAKER_01:
No, it’s dinner is impossible. Uh like, what are you fucking feed them every day? Like uh, like that’s awful. I yeah, I I I gotta say, for a person who is kind of a mess, who is like not organized, who like I’m not generally like a worrier, but like I am definitely not like worried about her. You know what I mean? That’s great. Like, I think she’s gonna be just fine. I think she’s gonna do well, I think she’s gonna have a good, fun life, but she needs to watch that mouth. Oh, you know?
David:
Literally this morning I walked into my daughter’s room. Now she’s three, but I said, Good morning, honey. And she went, Go away. And I said, It snowed last night. Do you want to look at the snow? She goes, I don’t want you. So I walked out, I closed the door, she started crying, daddy, daddy, and I walked downstairs. Yeah, yeah. Fuck yourself.
Gavin:
Yeah, go fuck yourself. My daughter last night had a band concert. It was actually quite good. She’s in eighth grade. They’re actually making music now. It’s not just honking and blaring.
David:
Although I do love those when you have those like TikTok videos of like, yeah, you know, they’re doing some like classic, like 90 blind mice or something. It’s just the dissonance is insane. Are hot crossbuns and three blind mice? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s okay. I didn’t realize that. No hot cross buns, I’m three blind mice. It’s a generational thing, yes.
Gavin:
Anyway, it was actually quite good. We had to drive separately home because my partner and I both um went separately. So anyway, I came home. She came, she came home and I said, Oh, you were so fantastic. She had such looks of dagger, murderous death in her eyes because I was so enthusiastic. I was like, You were so good.
David:
I was so proud of her. Don’t be unbanned.
Gavin:
That would be the worst possible insult for a mean girl in training. That’s for sure.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, if I were to if I were to be like, Daisy, you’re a nerd, she’d be like, you’re a nerd. Like it would be my daughter is savage.
Gavin:
Awesome. That’s a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:
Well, and that’s the thing, like, that’s why we’re trying to not tamp that down in her.
Gavin:
Because that will protect her.
SPEAKER_01:
It will serve her when she’s somebody else’s problem. But speaking, you know.
Gavin:
Speaking of tamping things down, tell us about a couple of those times when you could not tamp that down. Well. And you’ll never forget the time when.
SPEAKER_01:
Oh, God. Well, uh, I mean, I, you know, the the worst moment of my entire life was not this, not this. No, no, no, no. This is like two or three. Uh no, the worst moment of my life was when we were, we took a big family vacation to Hawaii a couple years ago. And Daisy, who doesn’t always pay the closest of attention, we’re walking, like we had to walk, we walked like literally a mile down the beach as a family. And to do this thing that we ended up not, it was like a cliff diving thing that we ended up not being able to do. And then we were all walking back, and we have this big thing where it’s like, Daisy, you have to be in front of us. You have to be where we can see you. And she was like lagging behind, and then was kind of in front. And then we’re all kind of like in a group, and we get to the part of the beach where you turn to go to the parking lot, and Daisy wasn’t there.
David:
Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01:
And she was nowhere. Like she was, she wasn’t there, she wasn’t behind us, she wasn’t in front of us. Oh my god. She was just that’s worse than grocery store panic. That’s worse. Oh my god. It was now it was, it was so I my next- she underwater. You don’t know. Because we’ve been walking on the shoreline, you know, and um, and I it was I was my my husband had already gone to the car. It was me and my older sister, her two and her two younger boys, or her two like teenage sons, who are amazing. They went running down the beach, like ahead of us. I okay, you guys, this is so gay. I fell to my knees. I fell to my knees. Because one of the sons went to the car. I’m gonna go see if Daisy’s with Steve. If somehow she so he goes back.
Gavin:
Everybody get out of my eye line of sight so I can have my milk down, but everybody else will manage my life.
SPEAKER_01:
Wait, well, well, truly. So, like, so so so he comes back, she’s not with Steve, the other nephew’s gone running down the beach, I’m on my knees. Now, the the fucking Hawaiian mothers, the way, the way these women hadn’t seen anything but knew exactly what was happening, jumped up. They’re all around me. The only question is, how old is she? What color is her hair? What is she wearing? Oh my god, I could cry right now. Yeah, yeah. Like I was so scared. And I remember the team was there. They were there.
Gavin:
That tribal feeling.
SPEAKER_01:
And because of what I do, I know we’ve got 30 minutes. If we don’t find her in 30 minutes, I will never see her again. Wow. And I’m I’m also thinking, uh, we also have 30 minutes to collect everybody’s phone around us because it’s like whatever pictures they’ve been taking, she’s gonna be in the background somewhere, whatever videos they’ve been taking. Like I’m and I’m screaming, call the police, call the police. I started screaming, nobody leave, nobody leave. And I don’t even remember who found her. But like within 45 seconds, 45 seconds, everybody listeners, pause this and count to 45. That’s how long I thought my my kid was. This has been a three act play. This has been forty five times. I’m also like, how much are houses here? Cause I live here now. Like I gotta buy that house or that house. So like I and then she’s which I build the memorial here.
David:
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:
The scholarship fund, like who’s gonna donate to that?
David:
Yeah, who’s gonna run the scholarship fund? Who’s gonna like oh good?
SPEAKER_01:
We need a board of directors on exhausted. So fall on your knees. On my knees. I the way I fell to my knees. I and so now I’m hysterical. I mean, I am his wait derical Steve. It’s a car. He is he is so unbothered. He’s so sure. Turning on the air conditioning. He’s like, I’m gonna let her manage this. Like, there’s no, he was literally the air conditioning. He was not gonna come and deal with me. No. Even if Daisy’s dead, he’s like, he’s his last sweet 45 seconds of having to deal with me for the rest of his life. So like Daisy’s there. I’m holding her. I’m crying. Now she’s crying, but she doesn’t know what she did wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s like, Daddy, I just, I just was walking by. I didn’t. And it was, yeah. So that was the moment. I couldn’t tamp it down in any of us.
David:
Oh my God. And where was she? Where happened?
SPEAKER_01:
I think that she had just, I think Griffin, my my nephew who had who went, who kept going, found her. And I think that’s what happened. I think she was did the thing where she had to be in front of us, and we turned and she just kept going. And then it took me 30 seconds to realize she wasn’t there. And by the time that happened, she was, I just would, I couldn’t see her. Yeah.
David:
I remember being at a spring, like this like spring thing at the White House. They had kids and it was like all this thing. And at one point, I turned around and my parents were gone. We had like separated. And then I was like, where do you live with Jimmy Carter now? And then it’s exactly Jimmy Carter.
SPEAKER_01:
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, girl. I meant, I, I meant, I meant first Trump. I meant first Trump one. Yeah.
David:
And then my mom ended up founding me, and she’s in hysterics. And it was maybe 11 seconds. Oh, yeah. But I remember thinking like fucking relax. What is your problem? Now I’m like, oh no, I get it. I was on a walk in Riverside Park. Jimmy Carter. I’m not gonna do that. Sorry, girl. What is George Washington really like?
SPEAKER_01:
You can you say. Um, but we were this was before I even had kids. I was on a walk with a friend. Kids, I’ve got one and barely. Uh we were walking, and and I watched it happen. This mother, do well, she were like, you know, Riverside Park is basically the woods, right? And so, like, the woods for city people. It’s like plays there’s four trees. There’s three trees. Yeah, yeah. But uh, but the mom couldn’t find her kid, and she this mother was hysterical. And when when like the son came back, like the the sun, I mean, I think it scarred him for life. And I remember being like, I’m never, if that ever happens to me, I’m never gonna be like that. Cut to me, cut to you on my knees.
Gavin:
But just gayer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Texting back your future board of directors. Never mind. Never mind, never mind. We’ve canceled the memorial.
SPEAKER_01:
Sorry, Chrissy Teegan. We don’t actually need sorry, sorry, girl.
David:
Oh, I’d love to end on a Chrissy Teegan.
Gavin:
Who does? Who doesn’t? Patrick, thank you for demeaning yourself. Oh my god, by being on our stupid little.
SPEAKER_01:
This is the gayest thing I’ve done yet today. And it is only nine.
David:
I think I’ve checked with his husband this morning. This is gayer. This is literally gayer. But thank you so much for coming by.
SPEAKER_01:
Guys, thanks for having me.
David:
And by say coming by, I mean us going into your studio, by the way. This is come back anytime.
SPEAKER_01:
All right, we love it.
Gavin:
So we will have fun putting it in the calendar for tomorrow. Same time, same place. Thank you so much, Patrick.
SPEAKER_01:
Oh, you’re welcome, boys.
David:
So, my something great this week is we uh for whatever reason, because my my son is in regular school and then my daughter’s in daycare, so sometimes their days off don’t overlap. And my daughter had school and my son didn’t, and we and my husband was off for work. So, what should we do? Just the three of us. Um, and so we decided to go to the local water park. There’s a beautiful, amazing water park by us, and it’s super fucking expensive, but we’re like, you know what, let’s just have a green.
SPEAKER_04:
They’re so fun though. They’re kind of worth it. They’re fun.
David:
They really are, and this one is incredible, and it’s indoors and it’s wonderful. Anyway, and my son is now just old enough to do a good 50% of the rides that are like, you know, with it, and it was just it was listen, this is the wrong podcast for this, but it was just one of the best days. It was just easy, and he was fun, and he wasn’t, he was fearless, and he went down big slides, and he felt really brave, and we just laughed a lot, and we it was it was so sweet. And it was just like I was saying to my husband, we didn’t have our phones with us, and like to not look at your phone for a three-hour stretch is so fucking liberating. Yeah, and you were reminded, like, we’re slaves to these little fucking rectangles. Oh, 100%. Yeah, but anyway, and then we got swindled on the way out because they were like, listen, if you want to buy a year pass, we’ll just deduct the price you paid today and you can blah blah blah. And I was like, what a great deal. We we can’t afford not to do this. And then I spent basically my kids’ you know, college tuition. So how many times do you have to go to justify it? Three. Oh, you can do that. That’s easy. It’s five minutes from our house. So like we have no excuse. So anyway, that was my something.
Gavin:
I can’t wait to come visit you guys and bring my surely you have guest passes then, too, with your own.
David:
Please don’t visit please don’t visit me.
Gavin:
So mine is actually along the same lines. Um so we were on vacation last week, and some people have said what were the best things about it. And I have to say, and we were on a beach, we were down south um in the Caribbean. And but my favorite moments from it, one playing soccer with my kid on the sand at sunset. That was and frankly, we could have done that anywhere, but it was just no phones. Of course, I took my phone out because I had to take a bunch of sunset pictures that which never come out as as well as you want them to. And but then also the four of us, my partner and my two kids and I, all played horse on a basketball court randomly. And that was one of my favorite moments because we were just spending time together. And it’s a reminder, you know, you don’t have to spend a bunch of money to do to it’s just felt out of the ordinary, it was just a something great moment.
David:
I would like to point out uh before we close the show that Gavin was talking to me about like, oh, like like really worried about money. And then I said, Great, can we record today for something? And he said, can’t, and he sent me a selfie of him and his family of four on a Caribbean island. So I just want to point out the hypocrisy, not only in our show, but in the hosts themselves. And that isn’t even let me get away.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, all right, all right. But you know what? We were camping on the beach, and I’ll bring that up next episode. A Caribbean beach.
David:
With a family of four.
SPEAKER_04:
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And that’s our show. If you have any comments, suggestions, or general compliments, you can email us at gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.
David:
Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast. On the internet, David is at David FMVonEverywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge on We Only Fly Private.
SPEAKER_02:
Please leave us a glowing five-star review wherever you get your podcasts.
David:
Thanks. And we’ll lie about our finances next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.