Full Transcript
Hi friends, we are Dads and Daddies, a podcast about the lives and times of adult gay men in the here and now. I’m Brian Rubin Sowers, a married dad of two.
SPEAKER_01:
And I am Judson Morrow, a resident daddy. Join us for frank conversations and personal stories of sex, love, relationships, parenthood, daddyhood, addiction, and so much more.
SPEAKER_00:
Find us on Instagram at Dads and Daddies Pod and listen to new episodes every Tuesday on all major platforms.
Gavin:
I don’t know. They’re completely uh absolutely.
David:
This was your second try, I want to remind you. This is your second go at this sentence. And this is Gatriarchy.
Gavin:
So, David, how about that debate last night?
David:
Oh, I was like, what are you talking about?
Gavin:
How could you possibly say what are you talking about based upon how about the debate last night?
David:
Because it’s 10 49 a.m. on Tuesday. It is not Wednesday. And we are no longer lying to our listener. We are not recording this afterwards.
Gavin:
I was texting with a friend about uh like dear basically saying a prayer on behalf of Kamala. And I was like, Dear Cher on Earth and Judy in the sky, please let her be smart enough but not too smart, strong enough but not too strong, and charming enough, but not too strong charming, so she doesn’t scare America, which is afraid of women, and let her demean herself just enough so we can get her over the finish line and she can change the world for all women for all time and basically, you know, um change the course of history.
David:
Just the narrowest needle to thread, like you were saying, because it’s so true. But also, you know, you’re like, you know, throw some of his shade back at him, but not too much to look like a fucking bitch. And you know, it’s just like I I just I I don’t know how she’s gonna do it. I will not be watching, and here’s why. I will tell you why. Really? Because the last the the one between Hillary and Trump scared me in such a foundational way of the world of like, if if this goes wrong, do I literally have to flee this country? I was also watching Handmaid’s Tale at the time, which is Hey, this is a comedy.
Gavin:
You’re taking it down on that.
David:
Sorry, sorry, but but it’s the same thing here, where I’m like, like if this goes horrible, kind of like the other one did, I’m like, I’m gonna have to start planning about it. But anyway, yeah, last night, great, huh? She did great. She was f she she threaded the needle like we knew she would. Um, I want to just mention uh Gavin and I often talk offline when we’re planning the show and we’re talking about things. And he said something the other day that made me laugh so hard. We were going over the download stats. We were looking, you know, we can see when our listeners, we can we know where you are, we know what device you’re using, but also we can see, you know, every day who downloads what episodes. And we were just talking about how many people had downloaded this particular episode in the morning, um, like early in the morning, because our episodes release at 6 a.m. Eastern time. And Gavin’s response was, Who are these people? Don’t they have something better to do? Which I suppose is setting us up.
Gavin:
Let’s talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. But um, but I mean, it is it is thrilling to know that hopefully we are titillating somebody out there. And it’s nice to be right away.
David:
Our one listener. Uh, and with that, we are making a little bit of an announcement here. We here at Gatriarchs are going by. We’re going by, we’re we’re we’re by curious, um, and we’re also going by weekly. Um, at least through the end of the year. We produce this podcast ourselves. We make a lot of dollar on this show. Um it is a ton of work, and we um think we’d rather have fewer episodes that are better or at least medium than just keep pumping out every week. So through the end of the year, through 2024, we’re gonna be going bi-weekly. We’re still gonna be bringing you the same mediocre content by the same mediocre comedians from America’s most uh most trustworthy news source. Um, we had asked you last episode, I believe, or that maybe it was the episode previous. Please, you know, send us your ideas, reach out, communicate, like interact, you know, uh just basically asking for you guys to um send us stuff and interact. And we appreciate those of you who did. And I especially appreciate whichever listener asshole out there signed us Gatriarchs Podcast up for ourtime.com, which is a seniors dating website, um and named us Anne. So we get emails every day where Anne has matches because Gatriarchs Podcast is now a member of our time. So whatever listener out there did that, fucking hilarious.
Gavin:
Well, apparently, this person uh per your earlier topic of who are these people and don’t they have something better to do? Apparently, this person did have something better to do and signed us up. So that’s brilliant. That’s hilarious. Thanks. Really funny.
David:
I I will give you that. That’s it. I I if it’s for if it’s comedy, uh, we’re we’re all for it.
Gavin:
Yep, we are all for it. Speaking of comedy, uh it’s 9-11.
David:
I knew that transition was coming and it still it still hurt me. Yeah, it is 9-11. It is 9-11.
Gavin:
Um, what’s your brief where were you? Yeah, it’s well, first of all, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have to say that the thing that makes me think about 9-11 right now is that my children think of it, they know about 9-11. I don’t think your kids do yet, but they study 9-11 like it is what? Ancient history. I mean it is. It is. I mean, when I think about the perspective of like, I grew up, you know, uh in okay, not in World War II, but World War II was such truly ancient history because it was 40 years in the past. Now 9-11 is only 24 years in the past. Wait, 23 years. 23 years, sorry. I I do math. And um, but of course, to a little kid who uh it’s it is ancient history. Um, so my kids talk about it and they’re like, Yeah, whatever. I mean, but they do ask me, what were you doing on that day? And which is, you know, important discussions to be had, but still it’s ancient history to them, which is just bizarre.
David:
It is, and it’s always weird because it’s just another marker of saying how old you are. Because I, you know, we all remember our parents being like, oh, the blah, blah, blah, blah. And you’re like, that’s so old, you old piece of shit. And now we’re the old pieces of shit. I, embarrassingly, I was in college and I was in a tanning bed. Um, and it was very early in the morning, and I was a grown-ass man living in Florida going to college. Tanning. In a tanning bed. A what I and for those of you who don’t know what I look like, I am white, white. I have blonde hair, I have pale skin. There are so many things to pick apart here. There is no reason my blanco ass should be in a tanning bed.
Gavin:
When you live in Florida, can’t you just walk outside for 15 minutes and do the same thing and save yourself 32.50? Sure can.
David:
Sure can.
Gavin:
Okay.
David:
But was I doing it? No. So I was in a tanning bed and it was, I was the first customer that was like, you know, it was like 9 a.m. and I the doors open and I pop right in there. And I come out and she has the TV on, and she’s like, oh, I think, you know, I think something weird has happened in New York City or whatever. But it was just so funny because when everyone goes like, where were you? Where were you? I was like, I was I was at a fucking tanning bed in Tallahassee, Florida.
Gavin:
You life changed in those 20 minutes that you gave yourself skin cancer.
David:
And I turned on the, you know, went home and I turned on the news and I was watching it. And I have I had a uh like a um what do they call it? The the the rewind cameras were they called?
Gavin:
A rewind camera. Uh a GoPro?
David:
No, where you like pull the um a throwaway camera, like a like a throwaway camera.
Gavin:
A point and shoot? No, like the kind a disposable camera.
David:
Disposable. This was two old people trying to come up with the word of the thing. Yes, this was it was a disposable camera. I took pictures of the television on a disposable camera that I had to get printed at a print shop. Um, in case you’re wondering how old I was. So um you were three years old.
Gavin:
Oh, do you still have those pictures?
David:
I still have those pictures.
Gavin:
Why do you think you did that?
David:
Because I was watching when the second plane hit, and I remember taking a picture of that particular moment that they kept replaying. Yeah. Um, because they had video footage of it, and I have photos of that. It’s in a box somewhere in my mom’s house. Where were you?
Gavin:
Uh I was waiting tables that day in New York. I had just moved to New York. Wow. I’m just a little older than you. And uh, but I worked at a restaurant called the Atlantic Grill that I think is still there at 77th and 3rd. Or no, actually, I think it’s gone. But anyway, 77th and 3rd. And um, so I was um waiting tables at the they gave me the outdoor cafe that day. Um, we were short staffed, so I had to do two sections, and one of them was the outdoor cafe. And I’m like, nobody’s gonna come to the outdoor cafe to eat here. This is ridiculous. But because I was outdoors, um, I saw the streaming of people walking north on Third Avenue. So that was surreal, obviously. Seeing, you know, no traffic, no cars, just people walking. And the cafe was packed, and people were drinking. So, needless to say, for a waiter, you’re like, I’m actually gonna make a fair amount of money today.
David:
Um is that is that the message you want to bring out into the world? Was that 9/11 was fiscally beneficial to you?
Gavin:
And I donated all of it to the firefighters fund immediately the next day.
David:
Anyways, but I think what’s interesting from our podcast point of view is like how do you talk about it with your kids who have no concept of that? They you, you know, we like when people talk about Vietnam War or any of this kind of stuff, it just strikes nothing emotional in me. And the thing that’s hard to explain to them is like a time where information wasn’t at your fingertips, where you couldn’t see things in real time and you just heard rumors and you had to piece together information. And the feeling of we don’t know what’s happening, yeah, and not knowing what’s happening in the world was such a terrifying. And that’s hard to translate to children who was like, well, just look online, what’s going on online? Yeah. Um, so that’s that’s gonna be a hard thing to do. Also, you know, my kids are so young, it’s gonna be weird to talk about planes flying into buildings and then us get on a plane somewhere and not, you know what I mean? So I think I’m gonna hold off on a for a while. But your kids are older, they’re studying it, you say.
Gavin:
No, yeah. No, luckily, my kids don’t think about it or talk about it, um, except in passing and like, where were you, which they’ve uh done many times. And they don’t have any anxiety about getting on planes. In fact, they’re just completely desensitized to general violence around the world because they live in 2024, where there are things like school shootings and then um, you know, uh terrible things on TV. Anyway, anyway, let’s let’s reframe that. You have had a huge week, right? Because we have all had a huge week.
David:
Yeah, we’ve all had a huge week, but you, but me specifically. Yes, I have my first uh school-aged, I guess, child. He uh my son went to kindergarten this past week for the first time, and it was uh is just uh you know a big change in our lives. So I wanted to um talk about it. Oh, what we haven’t mentioned to our listener yet is we have no guests this week. Oh, right. We we are um we had a last minute cancellation of our guest, and that is totally fine. But we were like, you know what, let’s record an episode anyway. Let’s let’s give the people what they didn’t ask for and just talk even longer. And we get to name it the one with nobody, the one with nobody, unironically, so or the one with nobody’s you and I, basically. But yeah, so I wanted to talk about all of our you and I’s first day of school for this year. So my kid started kindergarten this year, and I wasn’t you and I had talked about this a couple episodes ago. I wasn’t nervous about it. I was slightly nervous about him being made fun of, but I was like, yeah, whatever, like let’s do this. And so we go, and the first day you have to go, and they that you meet the teacher and you get in lines, and it’s all outside the building, and it’s this big, big thing, and they have all these it’s it’s it’s meant to be very um upbeat and fun, and they have like you know, picture taking stations or whatever. And my son woke up and he was like, I want to go to kindergarten, and he was so excited, and he was picking out his outfit, and we thought, oh, because my kid is mostly fragile and nervous and stuff like that. And so we get there and he’s super happy, and we’re looking at other all these other kids, and then his teacher comes and he meets his teacher for the first time, and she’s super nice, and we’re all just you know hanging out, and then they go, Okay, uh, everyone, last hugs, and then we’re gonna go in by lines. Miss uh, my teacher’s class, you’re first, and so we give him a big hug, and that’s when the tears just immediate tears. I felt the squeeze of his hands like on my shorts that he was like, he’s like, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go. I’m like, Yes, you’ll be great. We do all the things, and the kids are now gone. The the line is moved, he’s the only one having a meltdown, and we have to have an administrator come down and like take him out. And it was it’s always hard to have a person peel your sobbing child off of you. Yeah, of course, and then they walk into the building. Uh-huh. And then that that that was it. And it was a it was a weird thing to kind of be like, you are now out of my sight in a building I’ve never seen with people I don’t know. I don’t know how this day works because the you know back to school night isn’t for a couple weeks. And it was a little unsettling in that way. Um, also, it was unsettling in a way of being gay dads, right? We’re in this big courtyard with all the other kids and all the other parents, and we are the only gay dads there. It’s very obvious. And so I’m aware that other people might be aware.
Gavin:
Right.
David:
You know what I mean?
Gavin:
I’m I’m doing that math that’s completely overthinking it entirely in the world.
David:
A hundred percent. I’m certainly not overthinking it.
Gavin:
They might clock it, but be like, oh, cool.
David:
Maybe, but then I’m like, does anybody care? Should I make note of that? Like, you you have to run those simulations in your head as gay parents because you need to know who’s friendly, who’s not friendly. And we my husband and I are always very overt about being like, oh, this is my husband, this is my husband, to make sure they know what’s going on.
Gavin:
You virtue signal to put everybody at ease because they’re questioning it. You know they’re questioning it, so you just kind of state it and then you move on. Yeah.
David:
And we’re the only gay dads here. But I will say there was a teacher there, and we never talked to him, but he was, you know, helping corral the traffic or whatever. And he had a lanyard, they all had lanyards that had their names on it, but his lanyard had a rainbow thing on it. Look at that. And so he was very obviously gay because he was fit and unhappy. Um, so so, but he had he had a lanyard and had a rainbow on it. And I assumed that meant either that he was gay andor I am a safe place for gay students or whatever. And that made me very happy that that is something he prominently was displaying. And that um I kind of wanted to go up to him and be like, hey, you’re gay, I’m gay. Cool, right? Right. And then he’d look at me like I’m a crazy person.
Gavin:
A little fist bump um action there of like of the virtue signaling, in which case it’s really important to be able to um get to state that out there and make everybody feel good.
David:
And so day two, and now forever, he gets to ride the bus. Which so many people have been like, he’s riding the bus? Like they look at it like the substandard, oh my god, I can’t believe you let your child be on the bus. And I’m like, that’s a good idea. Wait, people are getting like an extra 30 minutes every day.
Gavin:
Absolutely. Buses are uh thank goodness for the busing system, first of all. And those guys, those drivers, just like the teachers, are not paid enough, that’s for sure. And that’s why we have a busing crisis across the country, because we would rather buy, you know, submarines and aircraft carriers rather than pay teachers and bus drivers. But um, riding that bus, man, it gives you extra time. And my kids, who of course, they were so thrilled to ride a bus when they first started going to school here in Connecticut. And um, I mean, so excited, but that wore off pretty quickly. Oh, really? Suddenly, like, can you just drive us now? And they were just getting lazy. And I’m like, oh, hell no. I have tasted the fruits of freedom, and you are getting on that bus for sure.
David:
And and I expected, like the first day, tears like, oh my God, I don’t want to go. Who’s on this bus? I don’t know anybody, whatever. This motherfucker, that bus pulled up and he went bye and just right on up the bus and was so excited. And so the last bit of my giant monologue is um the the end of the first day, you know. My husband and I are just like on pens and needles because of course we don’t have an app anymore. Yeah, we don’t have photos, we don’t have no idea what’s going on all day. Yeah, he’s just disappeared from our lives.
Gavin:
He he has absolutely become a tool of the vast school public school industrial complex, and he’s gonna be brainwashed, and you won’t know this child when he comes home.
David:
And so when when we go to pick him up, I’m like, Oh, I can’t wait to hear everything. I’m gonna hear everything, I’m gonna hear what his teachers look like. So we we pick him up, he’s happy to see us, we get in the car. I’m like, okay, tell us everything. And he was like, it was fine. And I was like, okay, well, tell me more. What does your teacher look like? And so finally, like, three questions in. He goes, Dad, dad, dad, can you stop asking me questions? And I was like, but I want to know. He’s like, Yeah, I I just I don’t want to keep talking anymore. And I went, and it was a moment where I went, This was this was the turn. Yeah, this was it. Where he’s like, I don’t give a fuck. I had a fine day. I know, just you wait, but I’m here. I waited and now I’m here. And I’m very disappointed because he probably held an alligator today, and I have no idea. He also lied to his teacher and said he dropped his lunch, and so his teacher would buy him lunch with like, you know, pizza and chocolate milk. And he comes home with a full meal. I said, What happened? And I got it out of him. He totally fucking lied. Well, I’ve got a liar and a con artist.
Gavin:
Yeah, I mean, that is so relatable and universal. And I don’t even know all the ways that my kids are lying to me, frankly, all the time. That it uh, but it definitely happens. I mean, yesterday, um, it just a week or so into school, I had a kid stay home from uh school. Unfortunately, my son stayed home, and he it was one of those like, are we really doing this? He should have gone. But I’ll get back to why we kind of justified it later. But um, but I’m like, okay, well, I mean, if you’re gonna stay, that’s fine. You need to take care of yourself and you need to lay in bed and read books the entire time. You get no screen time.
David:
As we know, you make their lives miserable if they’re gonna stay.
Gavin:
I make sick days as miserable as possible. And at 8 a.m., he was fine with that. And by 8 14, he was not fine with that. And um, I fully caught him on his iPad. And um, I bolted into his room and um he hid that thing under his blanket so quickly and had that look on his face, like, what, what? What are you what are you what are you what are you talking about? What are you talking about? Yes, and then he said, Well, Tatty, that’s what my partner’s called. Well, Tatty said that I could um go on my iPad now, and I later verified with him, and he was like, Oh, hell no, I didn’t say that. I did not say that, but anyway, he did spend an awful lot of the time reading and he played piano during the day, so he he didn’t make piss me off too much. But anyway, so yeah, we are fully in school. I mean, I think I’ve actually talked about it a little bit, but um, we, you know, I have a now a first-time middle schooler who he’s, you know, my super mellow child, but I know that he was um nervous to get on the bus because he heard that they were the older kids there and he was afraid of them. But um and middle school is full of animals.
David:
Those people, I remember that being the most terrifying schooling of my life, yeah.
Gavin:
Oh my god. Yeah, I mean, those people out there that I I how do you get through middle school and how do people teach it? I mean, but but but i I were you seized with anxiety w every day that you went, or do you just look back on it and be like, wow, Trevor Foster was in that hallway with me, and I was so I can’t believe I breathed the same air as that guy. I was so afraid of him.
David:
But I did it. Every day, every day I was terrified to walk because I just Was I was I was I was like an animal being waiting waiting to be attacked. I just remember like constant you know scream faggot and and like but just aggressive boys and I was this you know little faggoty boy and so they were right, honestly, to call me that. Um but like I I I I just remember my memory is every day just being miserable.
Gavin:
Yeah. No. Wow, I think I deluded myself. Anyway, whatever. This is not a therapy session. So my uh so I will say that my daughter was all she was all kinds of excited about the first day of school. And so she set her alarm for 5 15, which was a full 35 or 40 minutes before she really needed to get up. And what did she do? She went downstairs to get her phone and a Celsius. Now you might recall, I say no Celsius in the household. 200 milligrams of caffeine, even though I’m not saying though I’m on my third cup of coffee right now.
David:
Yeah, cheers.
Gavin:
But uh, she went down to get her Celsius and she was gonna be on her phone. And you know what? I chose my battles and I was like, I’m gonna look the other way, especially because it’s 515 and don’t get me up right now. But also, I felt like I was uh wussen out by not being up with her. So I did actually get up at that time and kind of checked in on her, and I’m like, are you really having Celsius? She goes, Dad, I’m not gonna drink the whole thing. I’m not crazy. And indeed, she sipped a quarter of it. Have you ever tasted a Celsius? No, I mean it’s I’m sure it’s disgusting too. It’s a melted Jolly Rancher, even worse than a Red Bull. So anyway, she did that, but she was really excited, really, really excited. And for a daughter, for a girl to be excited to go to middle school, I think is actually pretty awesome. And then at the end of the day, I had nine million questions, nine million questions, just like you. And by the third question, when I was like, Well, how is everybody? Was there any drama? She’s like, whatever, it’s all the same people, and they’re all just as annoying as they were annoying as they were last year. I’m like, okay. And then ultimately, my son, who is not used to getting up that early, he had an entire week where we were pushing him. I mean, not pushing him, he had to go to school, and then a tough weekend. And then ultimately he woke up. I think it was just sheer exhaustion yesterday, and his stomach hurt and his head hurt, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, maybe we need to tamp down on the weekend activities and make sure that he gets to bed. You know, he might be in sixth grade, but we’re like, nah, bedtime 8 a.m. This is so boring hearing me talk about putting my kids to bed at 8 a.m. But he was just fully exhausted. So that is how I look back on last week’s first full week of school.
David:
I will say that the the the kind of saddest parenting transition moment for me was, you know, I used the both my kids used to go to the same preschool. So they’re both in the car. I drive and pick up. And now they’re in two different buildings. So one, I drop one off at the bus, and then now it’s just me and my daughter in the car going to the preschool. And that ride is so quiet now. In a good way, and also like because they’re not fighting and yelling at each other for whatever and and arguing over who gets to play what song. But like it is there was a sad kind of like it’s just me and her, and she was just looking out the window, and I was just like, oh man, this is such a sad thing.
Gavin:
Yeah, I know I know that silence. And boy, my partner so many times this summer, as I would complain about my daughter, she would say, he would say, Listen, we got five more years with her. And that five years is gonna go real fast. And boy, is it gonna be a quiet household then? So let’s keep it light, shall we?
David:
Yes. Um, uh, speaking of light, uh, one of our former guests uh reached out and they were uh Brett Mason, um, who uh was on our God, I have no idea what episode that was.
Gavin:
A couple dozen ago, that’s a couple dozen ago. Hi, Brett today, your listener, right?
David:
Yeah, Brett is our listener. He has a counseling service uh called Expanding Your 2 S L G P T QIA Plus Family Exploring Options. And so they’re doing one of their classes, I believe it’s on September 17th, um, and also on November 14th. So they wanted to uh have us reach out and tell everyone, especially if you’re in the Canadian wilderness, which is where they live amongst their chickens. Um lots of chickens. But I think they do a virtual uh class too. So go find Brett Mason, Brett Mason Counseling on Instagram.
Gavin:
Um it could be a very welcoming, non-judgmental place to like get a little bit of uh one-on-one, um, just like mental therapy right there. That would be helpful for everybody.
David:
Also, Brett used um an article about gay flamingos as the cover page for this uh this thing that they’re offering. So that’s pretty cool.
Gavin:
Um that’s awesome. And also, Brett is fully stealing from my page because guess what? We’re getting into gay dad news, all right? So, and guess what? Another couple are biting the dust. Remember the saga of John Deere and uh why is this a story that never ends? It’s not ending. That Starbuck dude, that Starbuck dude who claims to be a movie producer keeps going after companies that he very explicitly says they tend to have like a, I don’t know, a conservative audience. He’s now gone for coors and coors folded, which also reminds me of I grew up in a super labor-related household. My dad was a uh labor attorney, and uh growing up in Colorado, the coors, there was some big union. Cors went on strike in the, I don’t know, late 70s or early 80s or something. And my dad had this two t-shirt that was basically boycott cours, but they turned the O’s into swastikas. Oh, wow. And it was a t-shirt that I just remember from my childhood. It was memorable, and I kept the t-shirt more as a memento than anything else. And our mutual friend and obviously listener Ellen Marsh, one time came across that t-shirt and she’s like, Why are there swastikas in your house? And I don’t even think of them as swastikas, I just think of it as my dad’s t-shirt. Anyway, that’s creepy and weird.
David:
But your dad was a member of the Nazi party, cool. Moving on. So but wait, isn’t Coors like, isn’t that like lesbian’s like number one choice of beer?
Gavin:
Uh probably. Let’s go back and ask two lady, two ladies, two babies. Yeah. Um, although she was more um white claws. White claws and beer. That’s right.
David:
That’s right.
Gavin:
Anyway, anyway, so coors has now bitten the dust, unfortunately. Guess what? So has Ford. Ford, the you know, megalopoly, has taken away all of their DEI stands, and they’re like, we’re just gonna do everything based on merit and not actually be part of Pride Parades and not contribute to the community because they have folded to this Joe Starbuck guy. Now, under the gun or in the um cross, what is it called? The crosshairs, is Stanley Blackendecker. That is a Connecticut-based company. I see you. They’re being attacked, but they haven’t folded yet. And they are a company um based in Connecticut that makes tools, obviously. Of you know, it’s an obvious, obviously a mega corporation. They have four or five divisions, um, Stanley and Black Decker and a bunch of others. And um, and uh they have not fallen yet. And so Starbuck has is going after them. And let’s hope, hey, anybody at Stanley, Black and Decker, you want to come on the podcast and tell us why you believe that it is important to take people’s identity into your hiring practices and support the LGBTQ community.
David:
Why, why does the caramel macchiato guy want to get rid of all of this stuff? Like, what is what’s the point for him?
Gavin:
For him because because he’s probably getting YouTube clicks and being paid by other corporations, but he’s a super political guy who wants to fight what he sees as wokeism, and that he thinks that um that companies, I don’t know, he’s justifying it by saying they should just be thinking about their bottom line and their their customers, not their hiring practices or not their commitment to social justice.
David:
So yeah, well, it’s also it’s it’s the the you know the the privileged point of view of saying like it should always be about merit and ignoring how anyone got anywhere.
Gavin:
Yeah, okay, totally. So anyway, Stanley, Black and Decker stay strong. I bet I’m asking our listener to tweet at you, and um, and I bet we’re we’re gonna take on Joe Starbuck ourselves. Let’s do it. Can that be our new uh mission? Sure. Okay, anyway. So speaking of flamingos, hey Brett, shout out. Uh, I bet Brett was actually referencing Curtis and Arthur.
David:
Yes, Curtis and Arthur.
Gavin:
Oh, yeah. They are two flamingos males who teamed up at the paint and zoo in Devon, Gloucester, England, and they hatched an egg, and they are currently fostering a baby flamingo.
David:
That’s the liberal agenda right there. Totally. Making flamingos gay.
Gavin:
But also as if they weren’t already.
David:
Right? They’re like, they’re like in releve wearing pink all day. I mean, come on.
Gavin:
But what’s also hilarious to me about that is that the zookeepers are like, yeah, this isn’t news. Like, this happens all the time, particularly in the bird kingdom, apparently. But um, yeah, they it’s not a big deal, but still let’s celebrate Curtis and Arthur. Congrats, guys. And then finally When are peacocks coming out?
David:
Wait, can we stop? Because if we talk about like which birds are the gayest, it’s like, oh, penguins, they’re they’re they’re gay, they’re raising eggs. You’re like, penguins are just like they don’t seem very gay. Peacocks are arguably the gayest and like bird. Like when are they gonna come out?
Gavin:
Yeah. Well, I mean, uh, of course, also in the avian world, it’s always the males that are the flamboyant ones, right? Because they get to be pretty, and the the poor females are like dressed in brown all the time, right?
David:
Or the woodpecker, like that’s a gay animal if you’ve ever asked me. Anyway, sorry, moving on.
Gavin:
Please. So speaking of woodpecker, sort of, and flamboyance, do you know the names Clara Devine and Monique too soon? I do not. Well, there are two drag queens in um New Hampshire who are now rich. There was a Republican State House member who was introducing a bill that was, of course, about like library safety, and obviously this is going up after the um uh drag queen story hour, and he specifically name-checked them. Let me name check him, by the way. His name is David Love.
David:
Ironic. The irony. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gavin:
He was name-checking these two queens, Clara Devine and Monique Toussoon. And guess what? They went after his ass and sued him, and two years later, they both got 100k. So yeah. Think of the wigs that he just bought them. Think of the wigs. Not no doubt about it.
David:
Thank you, David Love, for the wigs.
Gavin:
Thank you for spreading that love. And now having to spread your money because your priorities are in the wrong fucking place.
David:
So let’s give the people something they can actually use instead of us monologuing for 30 minutes about our personal lives that doesn’t matter to anybody else. So let’s talk about a dad hack of the week that I saw on TikTok. Yes, TikTok, my favorite place in the whole world for everything. Um, so uh this woman’s name is Kelsey Pomeroy. I’m gonna try to get her on the show, but she does uh a lot of like parenting content. It’s some of it’s funny, some of it’s very useful. Her thing, which I’m going to implement at our house and I will update you on, is this when you’re at the table for a meal, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you can only talk to me, the parent, if you’re sitting at the table. If you get up and wander, fine. But you cannot wander into another room and say, hey dad, can I have you get no response. Yeah. Now, as soon as I saw that, I’m like, I’m doing that because my kids cannot fucking sit down while they’re eating a meal. They’ve got to be doing round off back hand springs as they’re eating the chicken nuggets. So I am starting to do this. We started last night and they were really pissed at it. We said, I can’t hear you until you’re sitting in your chair. And so I’m gonna give it a week and I will report back in two weeks at our next next episode if it’s actually working. But yeah, we’re implementing no talking to parents unless you’re sitting at the table.
Gavin:
So that is not the exactly the way that we have done it, but I definitely have kids who need to tap dance the entire time through meals. And I have definitely said, like, listen, you can leave the table, but if you are going to talk to us, I mean, this is exactly the same thing. Um, you have to sit. But I will say sometimes they just they do have that energy. And you just think, why are you constantly saying, sit down, sit down, sit down? You’re rocking the boat. So um, but the compromise I have made is that one, also there’s no farting at the dinner table. You can learn to control it. You can fart all day long the rest of the time if you want. And I will let you do it at breakfast. And I will even let you stand up and tap dance for breakfast as long as you do eat. That is fine. But at dinner time, we are going to pretend to be civilized beings. You’re not gonna burp, you’re not gonna fart, and you’re not gonna tap dance. And yes, if you have to tap dance, you can go into the other room. That’s fine. But also take your plate. And it works. Dramatic pause. Dramatic means. I mean, I see we it’s, you know what, we’ve grown out of no, we haven’t grown out of needing to tap dance and stand around and stand on your table and squat on your, or rather, stand on your t on your chair, squat at your chair, move around. I don’t know. These dad hacks, this is so this is all just to let you know that you’re not the only one suffering under the same delusions that parenting is easy and goop is achievable.
David:
Well, you know what is also not working.
Gavin:
Do tell me.
David:
Our top three list.
Gavin:
Gatriarchs, top three list, three, two, one. Excellent, excellent, excellent. If nothing else, we’re really good at transitions. We are good. This week, this week is um top three things that keep you up at night. I have to say, I have thought about this more than just 15 minutes ago, and I am excited to hear what you have to say. But mine are number three. Did Mark see me? Like when I was driving, when I was at the grocery store and I saw my friend Mark and I waved at him, but he didn’t wave back. Like, did he see me or did he not? And then later I saw him inside the store, I saw him from across the aisle, and I thought, should I text him? But like, why didn’t he wave back? Like, did Mark see me? This is really compelling content, Gabe and Number two, why am I never invited everywhere and is everybody else having fun without me? I mean, really, everybody else is having fun except for me. Uh-huh. And this is why I don’t go on social media, honestly. Um, so is everybody else having fun? Why am I never invited anywhere? Number one, is my teen gonna yell at me when I wake her up in the morning? Is she just gonna immediately be angry and yell at me? And by yelling, I’ll even use her definition of yelling, which just means having a stern tone of voice. But is my teen gonna yell at me?
David:
What about you? What keeps you up at night? All right. Uh uh similarly to one of yours and number three for me. Is someone mad at me? I I always assume somebody’s mad at me. Someone. Someone’s mad at me.
Gavin:
You don’t even specify it.
David:
I was worried Mark was mad at me, but you someone it could be the guy who honked at me at the intersection. It could be my my childhood friend from fifth grade who haven’t talked to. Or are they still mad at me from the time whatever? Yep. Um, is someone mad at me? Um, number two, this is your in your wheelhouse, but it legitimately keeps me up at night. How can we possibly battle willful ignorance and cognitive dissonance?
unknown:
What?
Gavin:
That’s legitimately you have reached your your SAT words for the week.
David:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We we are freaky Friday. We are switching bodies. Okay. I I I got cognitive, like I watch these, you know, Jordan Clapper silly daily show interviews with Trump people at Trump rallies, and I it I don’t see it as comedy. I see I literally go, how is tragedy? Not that how can we battle like uh you know opposing ideas or whatever. It’s like, how do we battle willful, willful ignorance, cognitive distance, not just like, oh, I’m dumb or I’m uneducated or I think differently than you. Willful ignorance. Okay, that’s number two.
Gavin:
All right.
David:
Number one, the thing that keeps me up at night, and my husband will laugh because he knows this is so fucking true, is that house I should have bought. I have almost bought three, uh, there are three, but really there’s two that I for for it doesn’t matter why, we just didn’t pull the trigger on. And I think about those houses four times a day. And this was years ago, Gavin. I think about those houses when I have to drive past them, my stomach is in nuts. Like, I don’t know why, but I’m like, I I we we’ve missed the boat. We’ll never get a house like that ever again because you know the market’s crazy. So, number one, the house I should have bought. So, what is um next episode’s topic? I am so excited about this one. It is really weird, but I don’t know why. I was just inspired. What are your top three favorite movies starring a lesbian? So it could, it does it’s not a lesbian character, the actress has to be a lesbian. And it doesn’t have to be the star star, but they’ve got to feature a prominent role.
Gavin:
Yeah. Okay. Uh great. Can’t wait. So we are so lucky today here at Gatriarchs because our guest is nobody.
David:
So, my something great is we went camping this past weekend. And I went What? There, wait, there’s an asterisk on camping. And by camping, I mean we went to a campground that has really nice cabins. Now, they’re not like bougie, they are just like prison-style cots. Yeah, they’re spiders, prison-style cots, no air conditioning, but there is an attached bathroom and there is heat if you need it. So we went because this campground does year-round camping activities. Um, it’s really cool. It’s about an hour and a half from us, but it has themed weekends often in the summer. And one of the themed weekends is LGBTQIA family weekend. So it’s gay families from wherever. And we were gonna go to uh family week in P Town, but it was so expensive and it was so far away. I just kept thinking, I can’t be in a car for eight hours with my two children. Like I just would die getting there. So we were looking for other things like this. We found this. So we went, it was so lovely. It was the campgrounds are awesome. Um, it was our kids were great. We met these other gay families who were super cool and we hung out with all weekend, and our kids started to become friends and we would eat dinner together every day. It was just it was exactly kind of what you want in like building a gay family community that’s where your kids are friendly and and them saying, Oh, like my dad’s uh isn’t a weird thing that kind of peaks you like they all they uh can all say that. Um, and it was so it was lovely, and we did you know hiking and a plate of the water and canoeing, and they had this big thing where they you get on this like basically a giant human slingshot, it shoots you out over the water.
Gavin:
And I want to do a giant human slingshot, so although when I dislocate my back in it, because you have to get one of those like harnesses that basically not the circulation that you’re familiar with, David.
David:
Correct, and not that exactly, not those kind of harnesses, but like I was losing uh blood flow to my penis for a good hour afterwards, but it was totally worth it because it was so fun. But anyway, it was it was just it was a it was a great weekend, and it was um the kids were awesome, and it was a rare moment where I was like, oh, this was actually kind of fun spending time with my family. It was actually kind of fun. We met the most amazing the dads and and moms and stuff. So anyway, it was actually family camp. Yeah, that was my something great this week.
Gavin:
So, on my end, I attended my PTO meeting last night for the middle school, and you were talking about your PTA, right, last year or last week. And um, I was just reminded shout out to all the people who are too busy to do PTOs and PTAs and still do it. Because this is the only time in your life, in like a seven-year span or whatever, that your kids don’t mind if you’re basically around in high school, you’re not around. I mean, but it the the middle school PTO, you don’t actually do anything on um in the classroom, but you are committed to being there and you get FaceTime with the principal, which is fantastic. And I am way too busy to do it, you’re too busy to do it, everybody in that room is too busy to do it, but we do it. And it is um something great to just have those that volunteer camaraderie, but then try not to complain about how tired and busy you are because nobody wants to hear it. So um, my something great is like getting involved, PTOs, PTAs, right? Nice. And so 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 VaughnEverywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge on nothing. Please leave us a glowing five star review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, and we’ll slingshot you next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.