Full Transcript
Wow, I can’t believe you’re actually prepared for that.
Gavin:
I made it up in the moment and on the spot. I fucking knew it. And this is Gatrier’s.
David:
So our family has been going to the doctor a lot lately. I had something scraped off my face. My husband had something scraped off his body. We had gets in and out of the doctor. It’s just been a lot of dumb. And this is not just exfoliating, apparently. This is not just exfoliating. But I took my my daughter has been, how do I say this in a way? Oh my God. I can’t wait. What is it? What is it? She has been complaining about pain in her bathing suit area. Okay.
unknown:
Okay.
David:
Except what she’s been doing is in the middle of the grocery store, grabbing her crotch and screaming, my vagina hurts. Like as loud as she can. And then I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know what to do.
Gavin:
So anyway, we took her to the doctor. That is this is, by the way, not a laughing matter. I’m glad to know that this is followed up by you took her to the doctor to figure it out. Yes, exactly.
David:
We took her to the doctor, and the doctor was like, Oh, yeah, it’s this and this and this and this. And then she goes, Well, actually, I think it might be strep. And I was reminded, if you remember from 50 episodes ago, my son got strep throat, but it’s not strep throat. It’s strep on your butthole. You can get strep, like streptococcus, whatever the thing is but it’s on your butthole. Streptococcus. Thank you. That is exactly right. Streptococc ass. And I forgot that. And she was like, this is probably strep of her butt and vagina.
Gavin:
Of her taint. Basically. I mean, sort of between. Because usually it’s taint the balls, taint the balls. Yeah, right.
David:
But taint the guys, this is if you’re a first-time listener, welcome to the show. This is this is the this is Gatriarch’s core. Um it’s classy. But so I was a reminded, reminded if your kid has pain or a like because she doesn’t wear diapers anymore, so I was like, it’s not diaper rush. Why is it red or whatever? It was strep of the vagina.
Gavin:
So that so she has to go on like amoxicillin or something.
David:
Yeah, exactly. She’s on like an oral antibiotic and then she has a cream for seven days. But like, and then oh wait, and then the doctor, oh my god, my I hope my daughter Nudver listens to this. Then then the doctor was like, well, and then once it’s cleared up, she’s like, after a bath, just take some like Vaseline and like rub it on the inside to give it a protectant. And of course, I have to ask, how far in? Like, I’m looking deadass into this this doctor’s face, and she could see I I’m just I’m struggling. And I I have to ask because I want to be a good dad. I was like, how far in? And I was like, the out, the in the inside of the outside, the the menorah, the majora. And it it was it was a very uncomfortable.
Gavin:
But what was the answer?
David:
The answer was like the the there’s like the outside part, and then there’s the they’re like the inside, but like there’s like the ring around I’m feeling very uncomfortable right now on my own fucking podcast episode.
Gavin:
But at the same time, no, I think it’s important that these are important.
David:
So it’s like inside inside the front, but like not all not inside of her. You know what I mean? Like just like inside the outer lips, basically. Yes, right. It makes perfect sense. But that was the part that was read, and so uh, you know, whatever. It’ll be fine. But it was just crazy.
Gavin:
It’s like uncomfortable questions we have to ask our doctors. Yeah, and so like the discomfort that you would feel in your throat from strep is probably analogous to what oh, that sounds awful.
David:
It sounds awful, and of course, I’m because she, you know, she cries about everything. I’m like, yeah, move it to the back, sister. And she’s like, no, no, no, I’m actually still suffering from a medical conditioner, you piece of shit, dad. So anyway, that was my week.
Gavin:
Speaking of piece of shit’s dad’s, I am still it. We are we’re in week 178 of me trying to convince my daughter that she does needs to do music in high school. And there’s nothing more to this except that it just keeps going on and on and on. And we are negotiating with a terrorist. I mean, I know that she thinks, I don’t know what, that the cool kids don’t do music, but let’s be honest, we know that it’s the cool kids who do the music. And um, but we have gone through stages of um, she doesn’t negotiate with me because apparently I’m an asshole, but um, she negotiates with my partner. And every single night that he goes in to say goodnight to her, because it tends to be me first, and then he goes in and she every single time it’s so when am I getting my bunny? When am I getting my bunny? When am I getting my bunny? Right now it’s a bunny. If she is downsizing to uh, I have to get a uh, I don’t know, guinea pig or some bullshit like that.
David:
Wait, kept catch me up. You’ve promised an animal in if she takes a class.
Gavin:
No, that’s uh if she will sign up for a high school class of either choir or band. She gets an animal. No, I’m not no, I’m like, this is your success, your path to success in life is you just do this. And she has turned it into I get rewarded for putting my own self on a path to success in life. Now I did negotiate and I would said I would I because it is worth it to me to fly her across the country to see Gracie Abrams in concert somewhere. I want to do it at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, where I um grew up going. And uh and I’m like, yeah, it’s kind of self-serving. I can see my friends. I haven’t been to Colorado in a while. Anyway, nope, that wasn’t good enough for her. That was not good enough for her. She wanted a puppy. And we’re like, we’re not. That’s a whole nother level of anger. Right? We’re not getting you a puppy for that.
David:
Because if it’s like a like if it’s like a hamster, you can just kind of let it out of its cage if you’re bored. You know what I mean? But like a dog, you can get in trouble for that. No.
Gavin:
Not that I’ve ever done that.
David:
We don’t condone that on catriarchs. We are very anti-murdering your pets uh for your own convenience.
Gavin:
But we’re like, no, you no, no, you’re not. And it it is the the clock is ticking. Um, and Todd and I both feel very strongly that this is just this is a non-negotiable, except all we’re doing is negotiating. And it goes on. And I don’t know what the answer is gonna be. She really wanted to do a volleyball camp, a super expensive sleepaway volleyball camp this week. And I’m like, okay, but you have to sign up for band. She’s like, that’s not worth it. Volleyball camp is four days. That’s four years.
David:
If she goes to volleyball camp, she’s gonna have to learn some Melissa Etheridge music on her way back. So she must it’s kind of killing her.
Gavin:
Might as well be able to play it on the trumpet, too. Anyway, it goes on and on. Parents out there. Uh anybody who says that parenting isn’t about negotiating, please let me know, listener, what am I doing wrong? Um, aside from the fact that I know the more I push, she is she is evolutionarily bred to push back on and hate me for everything I say right now. I get that. That’s fine. And there are you choose your battles and you choose to not have battles. This is a I am will not be a good dad if I do not win this battle, I believe. Yeah.
David:
I also I am still in awe right now that you said the word evolutionary without tripping up at all. And you were crisp. It was like you were a voice actor. I was I’m actually very proud of you. That’s amazing. Do you see how I I did slow down and you did you crisp? I absolutely slowed down. Um I just wanted to give a quick update to our listener. Um, if you remember, it was the last episode of the episode before where I was talking about like culture week or whatever at the daycare, where we had to bring in something that from our culture for a snack, and I fucking made up the well, we are like I am biologically Scottish, I am not culturally Scottish. Right. I do love Scotland. I’m gonna marry our listener Liam from Inverness. But but I I I I I just was like, I guess this, even though my daughter is not biologically related to me. So anyway, so so I made Scottish shortbread cookies for the class, which half of which came back. Um so I was like, dodge that bullet. Well, bitch, did I not look at the calendar for Friday? Oh no, it’s dress as your culture and bring something for show and tell from your culture.
Gavin:
Please. And please, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Please tell me, please tell me you will just dress her up as Florida white trash and give her a bottle of scotch, cheap scotch, and just let her be culturally Floridian, please.
David:
Oh my god, and and and and and I brought and she brings in like a cease and desist letter or something as from her culture. Um, but no, I I I was just like, literally, what do I do? Because our I I think I’ve said this before, our daycare, we’re so lucky, is like naturally diverse. You have every sort of ethnicity, every culture, every language, every whatever. And this little white bitch just chaussets in there in her tartan plaid. And and so what we luckily did was when we went to Scotland, we brought back the kids like little stuffed animals, and one of them was a stuffed Loch Ness monster. So from her culture, she brought back a stuffed Loch Ness monster from Scotland, which she has no relation to whatsoever. Whatsoever. No. Wait, how did you dress her? In tartan? No, we just we just put we just absolutely put her in like jeans and a t-shirt, like nothing. Like we did. We we were like, we are aggressively not dressing for this. It feels very uncomfortably. Um so speaking of uncomfortable, this I don’t even know why I’m saying this. This has nothing to do with anything. But discomfort. On TikTok, there is a guy, um, and his account is called The Necessary Conversation. And if you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. He’s like kind of gingery, bold guy, young, probably like mid-30s. He’s always in the West.
Gavin:
He’s in like the fields with mouth.
David:
You might be thinking of something different, but he’s in like a studio with a podcast mic, but he’s interviewing his MAGA parents. And his MAGA parents are on their fucking gateway laptop, their Dell premium, whatever. With its like condescending, it’s stock camera inside and no microphone. But like he’s aggressively laying in a recliner looking away from him. But it is him, the this, this, the guy, the son, basically saying, So, dad, what do you think about blah? And all they do is talk about politics. And the parents are monsters, they are the poster child for these sick, poisoned boomers who are just like, Well, Biden had pedophiles in the pizza. Like they they are there, and this guy keeps trying. And every video, the comments are like, You’ve got to stop talking to your parents. Your parents are terrible people. And it was really, really it’s it’s it’s really hard to watch, but this guy keeps trying. And then I saw a video, and this made me so sad, and it was basically saying, I this woman was like, I’m a mom of two girls. I raised them in a liberal household in a liberal area, very progressive, whatever. And then my daughter, when she got older, married a MAGA, and now she’s MAGA. And I was like, I have to worry about this. Yeah, I have to worry about my kids turning MAGA. Oh my god.
Gavin:
There was an article recently that I read in, I don’t know. Maybe it was some some pretentious liberal thing, of course, uh, full of uh lies and uh misinformation. I think it was either Vanity Fair or New York Times, but it’s all about the trad wife tradition and that the trad wives are taking over, frankly, our spaces yoga, health food stores, and realizing that they’re sometimes you wonder, are the kids gonna save us or are they not? Yeah, I I don’t know. We think that the kids are all right and they’re gonna fix it and they’re gonna grow up. No, no, no, no, bitch. There were an awful lot of young people who voted for Trump this year last year.
David:
If I have to admit this, like I kind of have a secret Shroud wife fantasy. Like just sitting around making butter all day and like sewing quilts and looking out at the end of the day.
Gavin:
Yes, but listen, when when Doge destroys our entire economy and you have to do that without not by choice, let’s go back and listen to this as if we could, because it’s digital and there will be no digitality anyway. So that’s true.
David:
Well, this has been very unhelpful to our listener. Do you have something helpful for them? Please tell me.
Gavin:
You know what? I have a dad hack of the week. My partner came up with it, and he said, So my children are now of the age that sometimes, oh rather, a lot of the time, we have to hide stuff in the kitchen from them so that they don’t just, you know, an entire box of Samoas in five minutes. I am the one who eats the entire box of Samoas in in one night, right? So we hide stuff from them and for we bring them out for their lunch treats and whatnot. And he’s like, Guess what? The the place where I know that they won’t look for it is the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator. Hide all of your little Nutella bars or your little cookies that you need to, you know, ration behind the broccoli and the children will never find it.
David:
That’s so smart because we have a dad, we call it the dad basket, and it’s all that’s the top shelf of one of the high cabinets. Listen, my kids are five and three, so they can’t they can’t really do much, but that is so fucking smart because we for sure have like if there’s some sort of candy or whatever that we want, we’re like, no, bitch, you’re not gonna put your grubby little cross on that.
Gavin:
And eventually, I mean, if five-year-old to me says climbing up on the counter anyway to try to get to the dad basket. So anytime soon, rather than him falling backwards and cracking his head open on your you know, bamboo floors, you need to put it in the vegetable floor. The bamboo floors. Um, speaking of nothing, um, I have some news of the week. Um, which please be good, please be good, please be good, please. Please be good. Have you heard that some absurd legislator in Texas has passed or is has introduced a bill to stop furries from being able to pee and poop in uh litter box in schools?
David:
Yes, right. I I I did see this because it it is as stupid as you can imagine. It is like one of those things where you spent all you spent your time writing this. This is not a thing that has literally ever happened.
Gavin:
Well, since we are America’s finest news source, I did want to do a little bit of fact checking. And um, there are on Snopes, you can there’s quickly a whole section on furriness. By the way, I brought this up to my uh daughter who is who talks about disparagingly about the furries in her classroom all the time. And she’s like, you know, it’s just people who wear like little headbands with ears, and sometimes they put a they tuck a tail into their jeans, and she’s like, I roll my eyes at them. I’m like, listen, they sound like people who are actually having a lot of fun. But I’m like, Ellison, there are no litter boxes in the bathroom. She’s like, no, and nobody would do that. That’s absurd. Of course not. So anyway, there this is totally debunked. There are no, there is no proof. There’s certainly no board of education or no superintendent or no principal in the entire country who has put a litter box in a bathroom. Yeah. And so I I did read some of the out excerpts of this bill that he’s introduced, and he’s like, it’s a distraction, which, okay. Just for the sake of argument, I’m gonna give him the benefit of that doubt that some kid walking around all day long in a hamster outfit is a bit distracting. And then at the same time, I mean, uh whatever. So they’re basically in pajama day every single day.
David:
When I was in high school, it was popular for girls to wear a like a baby pacifier around their neck and eat and eat baby food. Yeah, they would put the pacifier in their mouth and they would eat baby food because high schoolers are fucking weird and theater people are weird. We’re all trying to be cool and edgy and whatever. It’s not a fucking thing. If you want to protect children, close the churches, bitch. Where do you think where are the children getting molested? The fucking churches. So stop with the bullshit. Stop with a like we have all like you’re wearing hamster, like you’re wearing cat ears. It’s so who fucking cares. Sorry, I’ll get up myself.
Gavin:
I I’m with you. It is such an incredible waste of time and energy for this guy to go grandstanding so he can be written about disparagingly in the you know fake news. Anyway, I feel like that’s good news to just roll our eyes at stupidness and whatnot.
David:
So yeah. Well, listen, we talked about this last week, and we think we want to start, Gabe and I were talking before we started recording. We think we want to start this as a new, consistent weekly thing we do because this show is about parenting, but it’s also about hot guys, which is a weird little meeting. But so we’re gonna do we’re gonna do Dilf of the Week. And every week we’re gonna bring you our favorite dad, hot dad of the week, could be hot granddad. It could be maybe a hot uncle, some sort of parental figure, but somebody that we think is hot.
Gavin:
And so we’re so lucky to have me on this because I feel like if last week when I brought this, you were just rolling your eyes, like, oh great, Gavin’s gone down some new rabbit hole. Um, and I love having a new a new something of the week every single time. But if you want to brand the rebrand my idea, please go write.
David:
I’m not rebranding, I’m just making it good. So um, listener out there, if you want to write us a little musical jingle to get us into Dilf of the Week, kind of how Gavin and his husband did Gate Joy Arcs. Top do this. Three, two, two, one, one. Yeah. So if you want to write us something, oh my god, please send us your ideas. I don’t know if we’ll get anybody to submit anything, but we would really love that because we don’t want to do the work. Okay, so this week’s Dilf of the Week, I’m just gonna say is mine. We don’t have to go back and forth. But I was watching a TikTok of his, and this is a person I’ve known for a very long time, and I just suddenly was reminded he is very hot. Now he’s a little adjacent hot, and that is Ezra Klein. Now, if you don’t know who Ezra Klein is, he’s a journalist, he’s a political commentator, he’s got Podcaster, he’s got a podcaster, you know, he’s he’s he’s been on MSNBC forever, whatever. He’s got a slightly nerdy Jewish vibe going on. 100%. But have you seen him recently now that he’s starting to go a little gray? Oh the hot leader. Oh my god. The hot, he is a real daddy. He’s married to a woman, he has two kids, but he he part of his his hotness is his physical features. He’s just physically very hot, but he is so smart, he’s so well spoken. I watched this video of him and Jon Stewart going back and forth on a certain thing, and I was like, I would fuck these two guys so quickly at the same time.
Gavin:
So anyway, talk about two silver foxes. Two silver foxes, yeah. Just as a fox sandwich, please. Also, I am not kidding here. Um, this morning when I was in the shower, I was thinking about Ezra Klein. Oh, insert joke here, and I was thinking, God, it would be so amazing to have him as a guest. And because part of the reason is I just this morning ordered his new book that just came out last week. I’m a huge You may have brought Ezra Klein to Gatriarch, but I’m the original Ezra Klein um uh superstar fan, whatever. He has a book that just came out last week called Um Abundance, and it’s about it’s basically a completely new uh political theory about how Democrats get in their own damn ways by having too many rules and regulations. And like we can’t build the high-speed train between San Francisco and Los Angeles because there’s too much regulation, and that’s just stupid. And while we don’t all want to be Texas, hi Texans, um, at the same time, Texas is getting things done because they just have fewer less red tape. And it’s essentially like super liberal. I mean, he is from San Francisco, basically, but super liberal, but also like just don’t be dumb. Do not be dumb. Let’s think in abundance, not in um, you know, uh scarcity mentality. And so, Ezra Klein, since uh we know that you are a listener, when we say listener, we’re thinking of you, Ezra, also the guy in Scotland. And we can’t wait to have you on the program because I think he’s already like uh, you know, he’s an honorary gateriarch, without a doubt.
David:
You know what else is dumb and gets in our own way? What? All right. Top three list.
Gavin:
Gatriarchs. Top three list. Three, two, one. This week, um, so on our centennial episode, we were talking about three, I don’t know, memories from having done a hundred hundred episodes. And I I quickly wanted to morph that into just what are the three funniest moments that come to mind for you? Now, I did not go back and listen to 100 episodes in doing so. I’ve only listened to probably three as it is, and those were the ones that I talked the most in. So um, but what does come to mind, what immediately comes to mind are these three elements. Um, number three, Jamie Grayson talking about making cocktails for a hookup, who then looked up at the wall and was like, Why do you have so many baby carriers on the wall? Yes. The the visual of all of that um just just really, really cracks.
David:
And that he kept the simple syrup in the fridge for all of the trade that wanders through his door. Yes, I remember.
Gavin:
That was a good one. Uh, number two, this was the serious discomfort where I was texting you on the side thinking, this is the creepiest, weirdest interview we have had yet. And it’s I can’t remember his name because why would I go back and do that work? And I don’t want to name check him, but it’s the older guy with the cock ring. And he just kept talking about his very active sex life, which, hey, I hope may we all be having active sex lives until we are 115 years old. But that was just so painfully awkward. And did you ever get your free sample in the mail, by the way?
David:
I thought, didn’t you say he was gonna send us some? I feel like a lot of guests will come on and they’ll be like, oh, I’ll send you this, and they never did. You know who did send us was uh uh Eric uh Weinmeyer sent us his book. Um by the way, I saw him his little poster in the airport, which was so fun. Um also um Gabin’s laughing. I’ll tell the story Gaben’s laughing because I uh I was I was leaving the airport and I see this giant poster, and it’s Eric Weinemeyer, who is our guest, and he’s he’s famously the the blind mountain climber and blah blah blah. You know, not gay, but he’s not gay, yeah. And so I my my first thought was I’m gonna take a picture of it, I’m gonna text it to Eric, and I’m gonna say, Eric, have you seen this? It’s at the United Lounge. I can’t. And as soon as I went to go text him, I went, David, he’s blind. He can’t see this, he hasn’t seen this. Oh my god. And you’re a monster. And then, of course, I immediately text Gavin. Here’s what I was just thinking about. Anyway, so I thought you’re a monster. Yep, I am.
Gavin:
And uh number one, I I gotta give it to her. When Ellen Marsh was talking about her hookups, oh yeah, and when she said that she basically screens them for being MAGA, she asked the guy, did you vote for Trump? And he had to stop and think about it. What was it?
David:
And that it was she goes, who did you uh did you vote for Trump? And he goes, No. And she goes, Okay, good. Wait, who did you vote for in 2016? Right, and there is a pause.
Gavin:
Because he wasn’t old enough to vote then to vote.
David:
Good for Ellen. Good for Ellen. Yes, that was a really good one. Um, all right, so one of those is a crossover. The Ellen one’s crossover, so I’m gonna submit that. I’m gonna change that at the last minute. But I’m looking at my list, and they’re all just funny things that I’ve said. So get ready. Well, you are the funny one. Except for number three. Well, except for number three, because I had to switch that the last minute. All right, so number three for me, nobody knows about this. Gavin knows about this, but you listener never heard this. We often do when a guest wants to be on the show, we’ll do what we call a pre-interview. And it’s like 15 minutes, and it’s just us getting to know them. Why do you want to be on the show? Are you, you know, whatever. I interviewed this author who was like, Hey, I’m an author. I have this book about a gay dad, you know, whatever. So I was like, Great, I’ll meet you. This guy, I was asked, he was so awkward, so weird. And then finally, he’s not gay. And I finally said, Oh, well, like, do you have gay friends you could talk about? And he goes, No. I said, You don’t have any gay friends? He goes, No, my sister has an uncle who was gay. And I was just like, Oh my fucking god. And for the and I at the end of the interview pre-interview, I’ve never said this to anybody else. I said, I don’t think this is the right show for you. And he was like, I don’t think so either. And then we hung up. To his credit. I know, but he was he was like, I wrote a gay character, and I was like, okay, but how why are you gonna be on gay tracks? You’re not a dad, you’re not gay, and you have no gay. How do you have no gay friends?
Gavin:
Yeah, that’s I that that was a bizarre.
David:
Anyway, forget that. Number two is my story about when I took my daughter to the park and she was still wearing diapers, and of course, because I’m a great dad, I did not bring the diaper bag. I was like, we’re just at the park, five blocks away, and what could happen? And she just stops and she freezes and she makes direct eye contact. And I’m like, fuck. And she takes this huge turd in her diaper, and I’m like, I don’t want to like have her walk home in this. I don’t want to carry her because I’m gonna push it up against. So what I did was I kind of peeled back the diaper down, and like the old lady in Titanic throwing the heart of the ocean half the ship, I went whoop, and I just tossed that little turd into the garden bed of the bark. I pulled that diaper right back on, and we walked the fuck home. Oh, you’re so funny for thinking you’re so funny, but that is a funny story. That’s a funny one. And my number one, my number one favorite funny thing that happened that I said on the Gate Charts podcast was recent, and it’s when I caught Gavin following me on Instagram recently when I got that fucking notification that said Gaven Lodge, your your partner in business and in art for over two years, followed you on Instagram. Yeah, that was funny. Um, I I did a terrible job in this top three. I apologize. But next week will be my week. That’s true. Okay. Um, next week, please up the standards. I’m gonna make it really difficult. Oh god. Top three women. Okay.
Gavin:
All right. Uh, you know what? I think I already have them.
David:
Great. Our next guests are a couple, a couple of actors, a couple of lovers, a couple of parents, and a couple of former strippers. While they got Broadway TV and film credits galore, what they don’t have is any self-respect, which is why they’re here and spending the next 30 minutes with us on Gatriarchs. Please welcome to the show Gabrielle and Nathan Reed. Yay! Hey guys!
SPEAKER_04:
That was the best interest. I am I am on it. Former strippers.
David:
I am absolutely I mean, point to the lie, guys. Point to the lie.
SPEAKER_00:
There is no better athlete than a stripper. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Well honey, you’ve got nothing on diamonds at the gentleman’s club. Get out of here.
David:
Let’s talk to Cardi B about it. I mean, come on. Um, but before we get into all of the fun stuff, let’s start with our first question. How did your son drive you bananas today?
SPEAKER_00:
Um let’s see. I will be honest, today he was pretty good, but actually there was a moment that came to my head that was actually it was kind of a while ago. Um probably about two years ago. We were at Christmas in London, England at my sister’s house. And there was probably about 25 people there, like her entire brother-in-law’s family was there. And you know, we had a beautiful day, and we go to put him down, and um, there’s a little basement apartment they have, and um, so we put him down and everything’s fine. About an hour and a half later, I was like, Oh, I need to get something. He’s probably asleep. I walk downstairs and I’m like, what does that smell?
David:
Oh god. Oh boy.
SPEAKER_00:
And I have my phone on me and I didn’t want to wake him up yet, but I was like, you know, maybe the toilet overflew or something like overflowed or something. I turn on the light and I don’t see anything, and then all of a sudden I look up. He has taken his poop and smeared it all over the wall.
Gavin:
Picasso. Picasso, baby.
SPEAKER_00:
Not only was he not asleep yet, but he has taken poop and smeared it all over the wall.
Gavin:
And this is the best beginning to this podcast ever. To hear a great Picasso poop story. Apologies for interrupting your disclaimer there, but I needed to make the disclaimer that this is my favorite way to start.
David:
He’s very good at interrupting uh our guests and not letting them talk. So just get used to it. But what I also love about that story is that not only is that story canon for parents, right? But also, I feel like also is canon is the grandparents or the like surrounding family being like, oh, but maybe he’s an artist. He just wanted to play. You’re like, bitch, you clean up the art though.
SPEAKER_00:
Oh, yeah, totally. That’s what I was like, that did not happen in this house. They and it almost it kind of made me feel better because thank God I was in a house full of parents, and then my sister literally was like, here’s a bucket, clean it up, see you later. Like she was like, okay, shit happens.
David:
Shit literally happens, and especially if they do that, like both of my kids have done that in their respective cribs, and you think you clean it all up, but they have all the little bars. And when we took apart my son’s crib to move it to the next room, I had found all the hidden layers that had kind of dried and congealed into this like Jurassic Park X. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was it was wild, it never goes away. Um, but that is such a canon event that’s literally happened to everybody in this call. Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00:
Oh, I just thought about the newest piss-off though. He please we had one toy that was left over from Christmas randomly. Um, and obviously we didn’t know what it was, so we were just like, oh dash, got a present for you. It’s your fault. I didn’t know what it was. Oh my god. I didn’t know what it was. So it happens to be a dinosaur that when you pull the arm down, it goes, and it’s like a really cheap dinosaur, so it’s like a really bad, like that’s for him. I think all of those every day at 4 30.
SPEAKER_04:
So she no, no, no, no, no, no. She opened the toy, showed, like, oh, it must be broken, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00:
Because I thought it was. We moved, we were moving all the time it says move the thing, and it wouldn’t do it. And then we figured it out.
SPEAKER_04:
And then she got it to work, and then she said, And of course, now that’s like a favorite toy. I’m gonna go to work. And I was like, the worst. Obviously, with with Dash being on the autism spectrum, sensory things are really, really big for him, right? So he was on his tablet watching some educational video, and the shit was just roaring in the corner.
David:
And I was like, Well, you have to put an audio disclaimer on this episode and be like, there will be Jurassic noises in this episode.
Gavin:
Before being done, I would I would like to see this Jurassic Dinosaur X.
SPEAKER_00:
Oh, because I told him actually to hide it from him this morning when we were getting him together for school. Oh yeah, here it is.
David:
Play it for us. Play it. Oh man.
SPEAKER_00:
And the and the mouse lights up.
David:
Yeah. Yeah. That stuff finds its way to the trash can in our house.
SPEAKER_04:
Oh, not only that, but I didn’t know that you could get the arm stuck and then it’ll just repeat.
David:
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah.
David:
But one of the one of the dad hacks that we we did many, many episodes ago, but it is it literally saved our lives in the infancy and the baby stage when there was like the toys and the games and the speakers or whatever, is to put clear packing tape over all the speakers. It was the only way to have the sound at a reasonable volume. But I’m glad you mentioned Dash with his autism, because that’s something I really wanted to bring up with you. Because I feel like for parents or anybody who don’t have anybody with autism in their lives, autism can be this like blanket, broad, like whatever category that I think a lot of people don’t understand, especially the word spectrum, which I think people think go to like zero to ten. You have the most autism or you have the least autism. So tell us a little bit about A, how he was diagnosed, and also what does autism mean? A for Dash, but also how can you educate our audience? Because our listener is very dumb.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, so Dash is very I would I I personally would put Dash sort of in the middle of the spectrum and also a new segment of the spectrum that actually was diagnosed during COVID. Um it’s called social communication delay, where the attributes of what you’re seeing look like autism. It is treated and trained like autism, but nine times out of ten, once the kid gets the concept of what it is, you don’t ever go back to it. Whereas a lot of times with autism, it’s a daily, sometimes lifelong retraining, should you know, should that be.
Gavin:
Um Can you go back two seconds? What do you mean by once you get a handle on what it is, you never go back to it?
SPEAKER_00:
I’m meaning like the specific concept, the specific concept or a specific routine or something like that. Um sometimes we’re example, uh uh, like say for instance, say for instance, like with him with his communication, there was a point where he was absolutely nonverbal and we were teaching him uh sound like sign language and everything like that. The second we got him into preschool and he was actually in a class learning words, sight words, blah, blah, blah. Now he talks like crazy. And there are certain things that we will never ever have to go back to because he now understands the system of it. Whereas certain spectrums of autism, you’re still using sign language, you’re still, you know, redirecting things, which he does have to do, but it’s a much shorter amount of time, if that makes sense. Um, and then um as far we, you know, like I said, we’d noticed that he was nonverbal once we got him into school, and now he’s in a specific autism program called Horizon, which is in New York City, which uh the blessings of that happening. There’s so, so much need for it in so little seats. So um sometimes it can be very, very hard to get into the school. But um, but now he’s living and thriving. Um, so now a lot of it is like concepts for him. Yeah. Whereas like the who and where is really good, but the why and when he might only be able to answer you like one level of question. He won’t be able to like continue a conversation.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, he wouldn’t be able to answer why did you like going to the park today?
SPEAKER_00:
Cannot, can’t give you like and or he’ll or if he does, he’ll give you like a real like a rote answer of like it was fun. Uh it was fun.
SPEAKER_04:
And he’s yeah, he’s not even answering your question. It’s really interesting. What he’s trying to do is get you to stop asking him because he’s doesn’t know what to say.
David:
I mean, if we so if we asked him like why would anyone listen to Gatriarchs, he would have no answer. No, no, which is the right answer.
SPEAKER_00:
He would probably say, I love you.
David:
That’s the right answer. Well, honestly, that’s what most, yeah, most of our listeners just like, I don’t know why you listen to the show.
Gavin:
And also, it I can’t help but I’m gonna be the voice of listener out there saying, but wait a minute, my 13-year-old child who is undiagnosed with anything necessarily, also has a very time hard time saying why they wanted to do something or why they didn’t. But I imagine here it’s just a matter of like to to use the another term, it’s a spectrum of like, well, yeah, your kid is just being a 13-year-old who isn’t thinking beyond. But your son just has there’s a way his um brain is programmed. It’s just he’s like, I I don’t I just stop asking me questions.
SPEAKER_00:
He kind of, yeah. And and you’ll or like he’ll get very um his body will get really silly, or you know, he’ll start jumping up and down to try to get you to move on to the next thing. Distract you. Absolutely. And we definitely did all of the neurological exams and the you know, the question and the million bubble things, and uh parents literally call it alphabet soup of all the different uh abbreviated names of all the different applications you put in and the different things that you do, you know. So we did the whole thing, and he was properly diagnosed in probably 2021. Um because it was around the point of about two years old and he wasn’t talking at all. And at two years old, you should have small form sentences, you know, and be able to like actually hold a small conversation and he wasn’t saying a word. And it turned out that this social communication delay um bubble kind of came up with a lot of kids that were born in COVID because they missed out on the actual social communication. They didn’t go to the park, no one came to visit. Um, and a psychiatrist put it to me perfectly. She was like, When you play Legos with him, you go pick up the egg Lego, look at it, put it down. He goes, open up his fingers, see the Lego, close the finger, like you’re missing like 20 steps between, and he only sees that from another child.
David:
Uh-huh. Interesting. Interesting. Do you ever think about like how because you and I have a similar age child where we, our kids were born just before the pandemic started. So we had like baby, we were first-time parents during the pandemic. And I know this sounds sort of really stupid, but I think about this every once in a while. I think about do you remember how fucked up that first year or two was? Like, I we I I think we’ve all kind of erased it. We’re like, oh, COVID, whatever, whatever. But like when you we re when somebody reminds me of how fucked up it was, yes, those first two years, and then you have a baby, and then you have a baby diagnosed with autism. Yes. And uh, it just it so I have no point to that story other than like I’m often reminded, oh no, it was a fucking hellscape.
SPEAKER_00:
No, it’s serious, because like because there is sort of like the blessing of it as two actors, like there’s literally no time in the world where we would have been together for the first like two years of his life all the time. Be to be able to see all these milestones and everything and you know, be able to help each other, blah, blah, blah. But however, it was so fucked up with the fact that we literally couldn’t go outside. Like, we already don’t live near our family as it is, um, between Ohio, um, Atlanta, California, London. Our family’s super, super spread out. So they couldn’t even come to visit us. It was, it was absolutely awful.
David:
So, can I quote you guys? I’m sorry, can I quote uh Gabrielle and Nathan as like you love COVID and are glad about the global pandemic? Can I submit that to Broadway World? I don’t know. That you that you’re very that you’re very happy. No, I said it was not a good thing. I’m kidding, I’m being a dick. I’m being a dick.
SPEAKER_00:
All the time.
David:
Um, but wait, you did mention you guys are both actors, which I think is interesting because one of the questions I had for you is I my husband is a muggle. So we have an actor and we have a muggle, but you guys are two actors. So how as parents do you make scheduling work? Because as we know, you’re like, uh, I’m booked, I gotta go out of town for four days. No, but I’m out of town that week. But how do you just is it a constant calendar nightmare?
SPEAKER_00:
Constant. Yeah. There are two dragon eraseboards on our front door that we redo every week.
SPEAKER_04:
Oh, and I get to tease her all the time because she’s like, babe, would you write it down on the board? I cannot tell you how many times I’ve written it on the board.
SPEAKER_01:
Written down on the board, and I’m like, She’s just like, wait, what is Wednesday again? On the board.
unknown:
Exactly because you put it there.
Gavin:
I mean, all of our brains work a little differently, and I would think that you two would know that.
SPEAKER_00:
That’s constantly moving and changing. I’m then adding Dash’s stuff to my brain board before I put it on that board. So I need to find out what’s on that board before I figure out Dash’s stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. Uh her greatest comeback, and look, I’m gonna tease myself like there’s no tomorrow. She’s like, oh yeah, babe? Oh yeah? Oh yeah? What’s his doctor’s name?
David:
And I was like, Not only that, I am the dad who like I’m I’m I’m doing the pickups, I’m doing lunches, I’m like the whatever, whatever you want to call that. But often when I’m like scheduling appointments, I’ll be like birthday, I’ll be like, what one fourteen? What is it? Like I only have two kids.
SPEAKER_04:
When it’s like, when’s your son’s birthday? And I’m like, D2, nine, or something. Oh, 5’28. It’s the beginning part. And they’re like, oh man, if you if you videotaped my face, they’re like, there’s a delay. You know that spinning wheel of death that you get on your computer?
David:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m like, no, I know my I know my son. He he has blonde hair, I think. But I know him. I just don’t know his birthday.
Gavin:
So the the bonkers balance that you have to strike in auditions, let alone having jobs. I mean, uh, illustrate that a little for us, besides the the dry erase board.
SPEAKER_00:
We have two times of the day that we can get auditions done. It’s usually between about 10 a.m. to about noon, and then after my show, I get home at about 10:30 and 10:30 till about 12:30, 1 o’clock.
SPEAKER_04:
She will literally, and this is this is a great part. And this is we call this great problems to have, right? The problems that we are talking about is like two, like our careers are just moving. And so I will literally get a text from her that’s like FBI audition. And what that means is set up, and it doesn’t take us long, but it’s like set up the entire self-tape thing. So she’s walking into the house and everything is ready. Most of the stuff we teleprompter, which is all right.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, we have a teleprompter system where we have like a table that has like four boxes set up to like wherever I need my eye line at, and the script is on the computer, and the camera is my person that I’m talking to, and Nathan is literally scrolling, scrolling in.
David:
You have to do that. I have a similar thing where I have a TV behind where my camera is, but like you have to do that. People, yeah, people like you know, sometimes your agents or managers will be like, no, we need to have it memorized. You’re like, bitch, I you can’t give me eight pages of sides and have it done in three days. I have to, I have to put my kids’ shoes on. Yes.
Gavin:
And for the muggles out there, what I think we are already skipping over because we speak so quickly this language of acting is that you’re talking about a self-tape audition where your agent sends you the sides. You’re gonna do an FBI um uh audition. Uh Nathan sets it up for you, and for the muggles, you stand there in your house with a camera six inches from your face, and you’re speaking to it, and blah, blah, blah. And you get to, thank goodness, you have the luxury, which didn’t largely exist pre-COVID, of being able to self-tape at home and send it off. And thank God you didn’t have to schlep to Ripley Greer and sit in an sit in a waiting room for 90 minutes, etc. etc.
David:
Well, yes, but also the thing I feel like we’re missing, and again, this is a little inside baseball, I swear we’ll move on. But is like, what you do miss is any sort of direction or 100% casting, who can just go, oh, the tone of the show is much more muted. Can you do it again? And blah, blah, blah. Or can make remember that he’s actually mad at her, or whatever the context of the thing is, especially if it’s something new, yeah, that is so hard because you suppose you’re flying fucking blind. Yeah. The line says I love you, and that’s it. What the fuck does this mean? And there’s nobody to ask.
SPEAKER_00:
I can get like one fucking line of like synopsis or like character information that truly could be read in any way. Yeah.
David:
Oh, no, 100%. I remember there was a voiceover audition, and it was a two-paragraph long description of the voice they wanted. It was like adult with texture who’s got history and thought and future. And the line was dove. Babe, that was the audition. And it was a two-page bio of what the sound would sound like for the word fucking dove. Anyway, whatever. Moving on. I want to move on because I’m just.
Gavin:
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no. I don’t want to move on too much further because I want to hear about Gabrielle’s job, also. We haven’t actually said what it is. Tell us about her very magical job.
SPEAKER_00:
Oh, very magical job. Um, for the last year and a half, I have been a wizard in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. Today’s amazing. Um, I’m swinging the show and I cover four tracks. I cover uh Madam Pooch and The Trolley Witch and also Hermione and Jimmy.
David:
Amazing.
SPEAKER_00:
She goes on for Hermione tonight. I’m actually on for tonight. Yeah.
Gavin:
Woo! Oh my god, that’s amazing. How are you wasting your time? Don’t you don’t you need to be looking at your um teleprompter right now to get on those lines?
SPEAKER_00:
Oh god, I hope not. God, if I don’t know it by now, honey, we need to start the fuck over.
David:
Can you imagine if like the conductor, like the conductor monitors on the rail, like were just your lines because you could never fucking remember your lines?
Gavin:
That would be actually kind of a good idea, a good hack just in case you had to.
SPEAKER_01:
I wish.
David:
Wow. So you’re a magical wizard. And but and also, Nathan, you have a very, very interesting job. Please tell us what. Well, listen, you’re an actor, you do a lot of things. You do film TV. You did one musical, which maybe we can go into one time. But what tell us what like kind of your like your kind of your your your day-to-day is, which I think is super interesting.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. Uh so I have been standing in and photodoubling for Ryan Reynolds for coming up on like five years now. And when I tell you that that maximum effort crew has become a family, it is a family. Like they they obviously know Dash and they know his whole journey. The executive producers of Maximum Effort have bought him books that have become his favorite. Like there are certain ones that are just like amazing. And then Ryan did this really amazing thing because, okay, so I have this custom-built Deadpool helmet that Maximum Effort built for me because they needed me to wear it or whatever it is, for when we were doing all of his uh commercials for Deadpool Wolverine. And Dash wanted to put it on, so he goes to puts it on, and I’m like, oh my gosh, Dash, who are you? And he goes, I’m a Spider Man, because it’s the same color. It’s red and black. And so I show this to Ryan, obviously telling him about you know, Dash’s autism, whatever it is. Ryan goes, give me your phone. He takes my phone and he records a video for Dash telling him that he is Spider-Man, but he’s a bad Spider-Man because Swain doesn’t like work, which is hilarious because and I haven’t even gotten a chance to tell Ryan this story. So I showed Dash He’s listening, though.
Gavin:
I’m sure he’s listening right now.
SPEAKER_04:
He’s already I showed Dash this video and I was like, hey Dash, who’s that? And he goes, That’s Dada, because I’m in the video, obviously, with Ryan. I was like, no, no, no, who’s the other guy? And Dash goes, Grandma. I had no idea who he was because he’s outside of the mask. Yeah. Yeah. That’s grandma. That is grandma. That he officially is grandma.
David:
I feel like Ryan would 100% do a spin-off of like the grandma Deadpool universe. How fucking funny would that be? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. That would be amazing. So over the so over the last like five years now, we have done we’re we’re past about 225 commercials that I’ve thought with him. Because it’s the only crew that every time we get together, it’s a three-day setup. They build they build the sets at the Samsung stages in Brooklyn. And then second day, I show up, shoot all the commercials with the whole, you know, the team, and it’s the same DPs.
SPEAKER_00:
They actually put me in one.
SPEAKER_04:
They put her in one. They upgraded her. They upgraded both of us actually for a knit mobile spot. And then third day, we shoot between 15 and 22 commercials.
unknown:
Wow.
SPEAKER_04:
Wow. That’s crazy.
Gavin:
Now I want to know how were you rediscovered for this? Did somebody just on the street say, hey, you know who you look like?
SPEAKER_04:
What’s really interesting is I have this thing where, and this this goes with like actors that I think are just going to do well in like their career, is we’ve all got mortgages, we’ve all got families, we’ve all got dramas, and like we want to just show up, do our work, have as least amount of drama as possible. And when you have that level of professionalism, I think people just get the sense of like, oh, as Gabrielle says, show up on time, be cool, don’t be weird.
David:
He’s he’s referring, by the way, listener, to the fact that Gavin was four minutes late to this interview. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:
I want to circle back circle back to that thing. So how it came about was I had worked with a lot of A-listers, and I was just known as this guy that’s like, I’m not gonna check a selfie with you, you don’t owe me anything. And also, I would do the thing to where it’s like I’m not really talking in social media about doing that thing. Like it, it’s it’s so weird. It’s like I’m because when you’re a stand-in and folder double, you’re kind of a part of the crew, but you’re not a principal. It’s not like I’m posting these commercials because I was in them or whatever it is. And that got back to casting that it’s like Nathan’s cool, like da-da-da. So I show up randomly to the sound stage just five years ago, not even knowing it’s Ryan, not even knowing it’s gonna be a mint mobile and aviation gen sort of day. And I’ll tell you the funny moment where I thought that I booked the gig, or I didn’t even know that it was gonna be this long standing, is I was standing behind the aviation gen set, and they were lighting it based on me. And Ryan shows up and he goes to say hi to me, and he comes around the bar and he goes, You’re not standing on a box. And I went, No, I’m not. Ryan is about six, two and a half. He is tall, like in flats. Like you can tell how much taller, like he wears Converse, he does not wear like anything that gives him any lift whatsoever. And I’m about six, one and a half, like, and I always wear boots because I spent a lot, like a lot of my life in Wyoming, and I just knew that he was tall, but I didn’t know how tall. And I was like, damn, in boots, he’s still taller than me, like by a little bit or whatever it is. And so it was just this thing of like, okay, cool. Like, I just thought it was one day, and then that was gonna be it. And then two months later, they called me again, two months later they called me again, and that was five years ago.
David:
That’s amazing. And listen, you’ve spent so much time with Ryan. You don’t you know you don’t have to tell us, but like, have you gone to like maybe shower or kiss him? Or like maybe like maybe you guys fell asleep together in a trailer holding each other? Like you, you know, like like you maybe if you want, we can stop recording, you can just tell us really slowly by maintaining eye contact with me.
SPEAKER_04:
Is so uh Gabrielle yells from Chris, we’re in the living room. Gabrielle yells from the living room, babe, your boyfriend’s on TV.
SPEAKER_00:
And then what is he you know, and he goes, which one?
SPEAKER_04:
Which one? And then there’s this pause. And I literally yell back, um, is it Chris Evans? Is it Ryan Reynolds? Is it Hugh Jackman? Is it um Alan Richson who plays Rejo?
SPEAKER_01:
Who is it?
SPEAKER_04:
And she’s like, Oh, it was Hugh Jackman, and so you know, I came, you know, running into the room, whatever it is. So there’s a there’s an ongoing thing of you want cuddle sessions, you know what I mean? With certain people. Yes.
David:
I just I it’s like not sexual. I don’t need to. Oh no, no, I just I just need you to hold me for 10 minutes. That’s all I need.
SPEAKER_00:
For warmth, you know what I mean? Maybe you feel like we’re having sex, but we don’t actually. Yeah, exactly.
David:
Correct. I’ll be thinking about you fucking me, but we won’t be doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. For research.
David:
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
For acting, act for understanding.
Gavin:
Getting into character.
David:
You’re actors for yes for subtext. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:
But but the but the bromance is for stand-in subtext. Yeah, yeah. The bromance is really real because I think when you acknowledge those types of relationships and you see that, like, oh, this is actually the healthy level of you know, male friendship, it actually kind of normalizes like we can hug each other, we can tell each other that we love each other, like just putting those things into existence.
David:
Straight people having to think about this. I just feel so bad for straight people sometimes. Like, instead of just being like, I don’t know, I want to hug my friend, so I hug my friend. Man, that is hard. I would be like to write and be like, listen, I’m your standard. How does it feel for your penis? Can I just really see? I just want I I just really quick, it’s not a gay thing. Oh my god. I just want to see so wait, I have a question about you guys because you guys are city parents. And for those of the listener who don’t live in cities, being a city parent, I assume I am not really, because I’m just outside the city. Yeah, it’s gotta be hard. Tell us about like what is it like to be a city parent.
SPEAKER_00:
You know, I I I personally don’t think it’s hard, it’s just different. Uh timing is very much a thing because you just have to make sure that the trains are on time and making sure you know where you’re going. Fortunately, with Dash, he loves the subway. He loves it.
SPEAKER_01:
Loves it, loves it.
SPEAKER_00:
So literally, sometimes Nathan will literally take him two stops on the subway just for fun.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah. He doesn’t want to go anywhere. He doesn’t want to go anywhere. He just wants to. We live at 160. He just wants to go to 125th, turn right back around.
Gavin:
Yep. Does he does he study the maps? I’ve heard about kids wanting to study subway maps, and they memorize them entirely.
SPEAKER_00:
This fucking kid. We have videos of him. We live off the A train, we’re at 168th. He will start at 168th. He is now all the way to J Street Metro Tech, and he will go stop after shop after shop after we literally never go past 34th Street with him, ever. Ever. So he has like a whole nother half of the train memorized.
SPEAKER_04:
And if you just ask him about it, it’s really fascinating to watch sort of almost like a rain man type of answer. Is that, you know, obviously most kids love maps. He loves the subway map to the point to where when he was um he had a uh private speech coach and she had one of the really big subway maps that was like just outside of her office. And Dash, when we arrived, we had always arrived like about five minutes early. Um David. I went, Yeah. And he would just stand there and study it.
David:
Yeah, it might even be a boy thing. I mean, listen, it could be autism, it could be the boy thing, it could be just him or whatever. But like there, they’re like, I have a boy who like, you know, there’s some trains and metros and all that kind of stuff is just so fascinating to them. I always think about when I was I was working in a theater up on the upper west side, and I remember seeing at the bottom of the stairwells of these buildings, like all the strollers where like the parents would like leave this, and I would just think, you’re in a fifth floor walk-up with a baby. Oh my god, I cannot imagine.
SPEAKER_00:
Because we moved apartments right before we were like, okay, we might have a baby in the next little while. Elevator, laundry in the building. Yep. Non-negotiable. I was like, we will figure the rent out. I don’t care. I’m not fucking slepping laundry.
David:
You’re like, I’m a motherfucking wizard. I will get my fucking elevator.
SPEAKER_00:
I will get in my elevator and take this carriage.
SPEAKER_04:
And I remember the day that it sort of changed. We had this we had this apartment over at 154th Street that didn’t have laundry in the building. And in one sentence, this girl goes, Oh my god, it’s so freezing outside. And then we started talking about other things, whatever it is. And she’s like, Oh, babe, we need to do the laundry. And I was like, Can it wait? And she’s like, It’s not that cold out. I was like, bitch, you just said it was freezing.
David:
If you check the tape, ma’am, yeah. Yeah, and she goes, just a slow fade.
SPEAKER_00:
Now, the one thing that I will say that is really, really fucked up about city children or are doing kids in cities is schooling. Now, in regular suburbs, you just go to the school down the street nine times out of ten, unless you know you have some crazy speciality. It is mind-numbing because not only is there your zone, then there’s your district, then there’s the different types of school within the district. Do you want private? Do you want magnet? Do you want religious of any sort, uh uh magnet schools, uh charter schools, people gifted in advance.
SPEAKER_04:
And then there’s a waiting list.
SPEAKER_00:
And then there’s a waiting list.
SPEAKER_04:
And there’s no inf like you have to go. Here’s the most fucked up part is you have to find all this information out on your own. Yeah. She’s a part of literally mommy Facebook groups.
David:
There’s so many Facebook groups that are just like, which are the wild, which are the wild west. We had CeCain on the up on on the show a while back, and she’s kind of like famously makes fun of those groups. Yeah. Those groups can be so.
SPEAKER_00:
They’re amazing, but then sometimes it’s like, okay, back back off. That’s not what I fucking asked you.
David:
Hey, hey, mama.
SPEAKER_00:
Uniforms. I was not asking about your trauma in the school. All I wanted to know is do they wear uniforms? Calm down.
David:
Um, okay, so wrapping up here, it all it all happens so fast. The the these interviews always happen so fast. But I know there’s so much to talk about. Well, let don’t don’t worry about it. I I am curious if if you have a favorite and a least favorite part about being parents. You can you can each answer if you want.
SPEAKER_00:
I mean, for for me, of course, my favorite part is just him. He’s he’s he’s the truly the coolest guy. And he’s he’s really funny because he’s not only is autistic, but he’s also a Gemini. And I mean he is a Gemini. He is either bouncing off the fucking wall or he is like cuddling into your esophagus to where you can read for the amount of love that this kid truly has. He’s he’s honestly a bundle of love. He’s so great. Um, do you want to give a worst part?
SPEAKER_04:
Uh worst part is I would say those moments, and this is a subtle, God, amazing parent humor, where it’ll be about half an hour before his bus is supposed to drop him off, and we’ll be like 30 minutes left before the tornado. And we say it because he literally is an actual tornado that like just comes in and like destroys your living room.
SPEAKER_00:
And the place is so tired.
SPEAKER_04:
And it takes him less than five minutes before it just looks like there were seven kids and a rhinocross that entered your living room. Yeah. And so we will just take a moment and we’ll just go one week on a beach with a cocktail in your hand. And it’s like this erotic thing. Yeah, you’re immediately erect. Immediately.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, you create this porn in your act doing nothing. Nothing.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, in silence. And she’s just like and no dash, and dash is at his grandma’s, hopefully alive.
David:
Hopefully. I feel like nobody ever got it better than there was this. It was a TikTok or a meme or something that was like, my favorite thing is being around my children, and my other favorite thing is not being around my children. It’s like, yeah, those those two things are exactly the same. I want them around me immediately, and I want them as far away from me as possible. Don’t don’t fucking touch me.
SPEAKER_00:
That’s what recently our mother and father’s day presence has been. We have like breakfast or whatever in the morning, and then it’s like go away.
David:
A day off. Yeah, that’s what it should be about.
SPEAKER_00:
Come back in this house until after eight o’clock until he’s gone down.
David:
I don’t want to hear your voice. I don’t want to get a phone call from the nurse saying you have the sniffles. Sniffle by yourself, kid. I’ll see you at six.
SPEAKER_00:
Yep. You see you at six. Figure out. Figure it out.
David:
Um, okay, so wrapping up, last question for you is do you have, I’ll never forget the time when, where you earned that parenting badge so hardcore when something went totally wrong, where you were like, oh fuck, I will never forget this story.
SPEAKER_04:
I would say, uh, and obviously, you like most men, and I will take accountability for this, I would not be able to function and or be a parent without her, right? Like, I’m surprised I know where the hospital is. Do you know what I mean? Like, I know it’s that way.
Gavin:
Funny that you’re saying that this on a podcast hosted by two men who their entire identities are that we have to do everything ourselves. But anyway, please continue. Please we are very pro-women on gay podcasts.
SPEAKER_00:
I can’t say it has me.
SPEAKER_04:
I mean hard. You know what I mean? It’s like when you know Patrick Mahomes is your quarterback, you’re aware.
David:
I’m gonna stop you right there. I’m gonna stop you right there. This is a podcast hosted by two gay men. It is offensive that you use a sports metaphor. We don’t platform.
Gavin:
And we don’t like hockey anyway. Okay, so is your Oh my god, I’m gonna cry.
David:
I’m gonna cry.
SPEAKER_04:
So to answer Well, we didn’t even answer the question, but Um Dash had a night where he, you know, the kids come down with stomach bugs and you don’t know what it is, and he not only couldn’t keep down solid food, but all of the liquid was literally like coming out of him. Yeah, he was just pushing to. Yeah. And so, you know, we took him to the emergency room, but again, this is during COVID, so only one parent was allowed to be there. And she was sent, and I’m just like sitting at home, like, you know, you can’t sleep. It’s the middle of the night. And she’s just texting me videos, and the whole time I was just thinking, you know, A, the stress of I can’t be there, so I have no idea kind of what’s going on.
SPEAKER_00:
And I would just say that getting him through that and like us as a as a really as a cohesive team of going, babe, I got this, you know, and she knew that I wasn’t gonna go to sleep, but she’s yeah, and me saying to him, like, I I got it, I understand what you’re feeling, I would feel the same way, blah, blah, blah. But please try to get some sleep because when I get home, I’m gonna need some sleep. It’s that tag team of like please try to get some sleep. I will text you. You will always wake up with a text and know what’s going on, da-da-da, whatever. Um, and if you don’t have anything, nothing happened. We’re just we’re just chilling, you know.
David:
And it’s just further proof that like parenting at that age is a relay race. It is a haunted relay race.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, you have to be you have to have that moment where you ask for help. And we have almost like wrestlers who are like tag tinging each other nice, you know, on the nights when they’re a little above, a little behind. Yeah. All of that of just saying, like, you know, um, yeah, yeah.
David:
I mean, Gavin, you tag team some wrestlers back in college, right? Yeah, absolutely. And it was all about the ass smack at the end, yes, for sure.
Gavin:
Thank you for demeaning yourselves and being on our stupid little podcast. We love chatting with you.
SPEAKER_00:
Anytime, my friends.
Gavin:
I rarely go into the social media world because um, frankly, I’m not very good at it, but um, I am definitely obsessed with an influencer who is she is an her handle is shop underscore AIF. And her um her bio on Instagram says NAACP image award nominee, creator, author, diversity advocate, and host, and a big ol’ rainbow. I’m not sure exactly what her identity is, but I think she’s you know in the queer.
David:
Wait, is this Roshonda?
Gavin:
Yeah, Rishonday. She’s amazing. I’m obsessed.
David:
She’s absolutely amazing. She is she is arguably a perfect person. Yeah. Hey, Rishonda. I I’ve I’ve messaged her. She hasn’t messaged me back. But like, oh my please, I don’t want to take over to something crazy. She loves her.
Gavin:
So I I love her when she stands up and says, let’s take a look at the board, and she breaks down, you know, society for you. That’s what got her famous. Oh, she’s just fantastic.
David:
And her cat nutmeg. Her cat nutmeg, she has these full-on arguments with her cat sleeping on her. She’ll be like, Nutmeg, I know you’re trying to go out there and hoe with all these boys, but like she is, but she’s so funny. She does that breakdown thing, but her political stuff, where she’s comes for you, she lives in Kentucky, so she’s amongst all I and she was so and she was talking about Andy Bashir recently. Oh, our daddy of the week last night.
Gavin:
Like, our not exactly our original doof of the week, but yeah. Wasn’t the original how embarrassing I pulled somebody from the Trump administration. Remember the um uh the anyway. Anyway, let’s let’s keep it something great. Rishonda is something great, and we can’t wait to have her on the show.
David:
I I I Gavin, this is the best something great you’ve ever had. I am so obsessed with this woman. She’s she’s a lesbian, she was married um to a man early in her life, she had kids, she came out and she does this. Yeah, she’s she’s so great. You have to go find her. Okay. My something great is not even good, it’s gonna pale in comparison that to Roshonda. But I, you know, there’s those things that tickle you that you just can’t explain why, for whatever reason, you know, you know, people falling downstairs are like there’s some sort of thing that just like gets you so belly laughing. For me, for me, it’s people who are trying not to throw up because they smell something gross, and they’re like, they’re like, and you’re just on the edge of throwing up, like, you know, dad’s changing a diaper for the first time or whatever. And so that stuff gets me in a way that I can. I have found the funniest trying not to throw up video I’ve ever seen in my life. And this is one of those something great where like I can’t explain it in in the right way, but I will post this on our Instagram when this episode goes out. But it is these two women who I it from the way they’re dressed, it looks like they work at probably a doctor’s office. And they’re like maybe nurses in like a back room. And one of the nurses is trying to tell a story about having to walk her boss’s dog and the dog pooped, or was something gross happened, and her memory keeps bringing up, she goes, uh-huh, and she has to keep stopping. But her throwing up is triggering the other one who has to say things like, Stop, you’re gonna make me true. And like her voice changes. It is, guys, it is it is arguably the perfect video. It’s a perfect video. So I’m gonna post it to our Instagram on when is this coming out? Because today is definitely April 2nd, and we’re gonna post it to our Instagram. And I hope you love these women as much as I do. They’ve done other videos similar, but this one is it’s perfect.
Gavin:
I love that their handle also is at pottymouth chicks.
unknown:
Yes.
Gavin:
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 DavidFm Vaughn everywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge on nothing.
Gavin:
Please leave us a glowing five-star review wherever you get your podcast.
David:
Thanks, and we’ll puke on you next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.
Gavin:
Um, here we go. But I’m so curious. When Dash got his diagnosis, how did you react? And what kind of community have you uh been part of?
David:
This is the most gave and lodge question I’ve ever heard my entire fucking life.
Gavin:
I desperately wanted to ask it earlier. David’s like literally, but yep, literally turning it into dick jokes. Like quite literally.
SPEAKER_00:
And I’m like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to talk about it.
David:
But no, please go answer.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, uh, it was a bit of a mixed bag, I will say. There was times where I was like, oh, thank God we have an answer. Because it was just like, okay, blah, blah, blah. But then there was times where it was like, you know, you think your kid’s gonna be normal, quote unquote. Yeah, you know, whatever. And then there’s times where I’m like, are people gonna understand him? You know what I mean? What what is his life gonna be like? You know, so it kind of it kind of changed by the day. Um, again, I leaned into some Facebook groups. Uh, there’s a great group called Manhattan Special Kids. Um, and again, it had uh same, it has its gamut where some people are like they go nuts, and another person is like, here, this is this form, call this person, blah, blah, blah. You’re gonna have to call them a hundred thousand times, but you’ll get you’ll get an answer back, whatever. Um and then once I kind of started to find his school community, that’s where it started to get really chill. And then also in this show, there’s a lot of parents in the show. So I lean on them a lot. Sometimes we’ll have in in the winter, uh, once a month, we would do a family um between shows, and we would go and hang out in the lobby, and all the kids would run around together. It was really, really nice. Yeah, and so just getting to know them and talking to them and having their kids know Dash, and like they didn’t care at all. They were just like, Dash, come on, blah, blah, blah and they went running up and down the stairs, whatever. It was great. So, you know, it it took, it was a it was a mixed bag. A lot of times, some of the hardest parts was family um dealing with it and giving information that they don’t know isn’t exactly the right information. Because of course, all we were doing all day on our phones, just researching, researching, researching. And somebody will come with something that’s like, nope, that’s not exactly what he has. That’s not really gonna work. That’s gonna exacerbate something, or you know, well, he’s not quite ready for that yet, da-da-da. You know, so that was kind of interesting navigating that. But um, but yeah, it kind of it kind of changed on the day. And and especially as he as he progresses and as he gets older, it it changes again. Because now he’s at the point where you would think in kindergarten he’d really be making like his best friends, but I don’t know if he really understands that they’re friends, or you know what I mean, how they understand, and and obviously with our schedules and stuff, we’re not, and his school is a bit farther from us. We’re in Washington Heights, and the school is in East Harlem. So we’re not able to be quite as hands-on at the school as we would want to be, so we don’t get to see the other parents and the teachers quite so much. So that feels a little, a little uh uh disconnected.
SPEAKER_04:
Yeah, when he leaves and goes and does stuff and then just comes back and we know that the bus drops him off at 3:30. And we’re like, what? And it’s like, what did he do at school that day? Yeah, getting that information is also very difficult.
Gavin:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, then what advice would you have for parents who have a young kid, a toddler who’s just been diagnosed to um get well A, get them professionally diagnosed as soon as absolutely possible.
SPEAKER_00:
Um try to find out as many um as many resources as you have. I like I I know it’s what it is the Wild West, but Facebook special that that special group truly saved my life many, many times. Because I just I just didn’t know where to look. And you’re coming from parents who had who literally just did it like two years ago, or they did it and it changed because that’s also another thing. You’ll do that, and over the year, an extra step has been added, like because of COVID. Do you know what I mean? An extra step has been added for something, and they’re like, oh, make sure you do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you might find somebody that’s like, oh, that did not work at all for your kid, sounds a lot like mine. That one didn’t work at all for mine. So try this one. If you don’t end up getting that one, just try to dive into the community as much as possible. The yeah, because autism is such a spectrum on a sometimes on a state or medical level, you don’t get the right people that really want to treat it for the spectrum that it is. You have to look at many more different options. And those parents were able to say, no, that doctor just wanted to throw them on a pill or something like that. He just said, Oh my god, it’s ADHD, blah, blah, blah. And it wasn’t, it was this. When I took them to this doctor, they looked at this. And if you want to do a more um food-based, you know, uh thing first, you can go here, blah, blah, blah. So just really, really lean in to community and just try to find the people that you like. You know, I found some folks that I ended up we ended up personally texting each other now, and we go back and forth. And we have done some park meetups and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04:
And so it you just just lean into the and it’s also not as I mean, it is scary because of the unknown, but it can it can be such a solution for the individual in such a great way. I literally yesterday read an article that Bella Ramsey, who is the lead actress in The Last of Us, just literally found out that she was autistic.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah. And girls are typically diagnosed way later in life. Way later in life, which is interesting because girls are usually supposed to be so much more talkative and extroverted and blah, blah, blah. Which a lot of times is the complete opposite of uh is what autism is. You’re a little more introverted. You might not be as talkative, blah, blah, blah, but they don’t they don’t think about it a lot with girls when they’re younger. They go immediately to it with boys a lot.
Gavin:
Got it.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah.
Gavin:
Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it seems like you are um you always get the kid you’re supposed to have, and and and you, I mean, there are so many unpredictable unknowns of the path that we trod. And so, you know, that’s why we’re here is to help each other out.
David:
But also to be honest, being being able to be honest about like sometimes you’re like, God, I just wish you were different. I wish this wasn’t and then also not not really feeling that way and feeling guilty that you ever felt that you wished he was normal, and that back and forth. Whatever that means, that’s fucking parenting every day.
SPEAKER_00:
Because I do think about times where there were times where I was trying to figure out if he could like if he could repeat 4K in order to get him more training and blah, blah, blah, and like kind of re-up on stuff. And one of his teachers was like, absolutely not. She was like, one, the state probably won’t let you do that. She was like, Two, I have seen kids like him. He needs to keep going. And now he’s reading and writing at like a almost a second grade level. It’s crazy. She was like, Don’t stop him. And I was like, okay. And so you get those special little angels that are like, uh uh, no, wait, wait. Just listen to this one thing. Everything else, don’t listen to a word I say. But this one thing, uh uh.
David:
Yeah. And here on Gate Trucs, don’t listen to anything we say. Please do anything ever.
Gavin:
Sorry about this, Ryan Reynolds, but thanks for listening to listening.
SPEAKER_00:
Of course, of course.