DOD48: Which One Is Your Favorite

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that knows its place and its first. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Thomas: First place, woo! This is the one about competition again. We're gonna do competition, right?

0:00:43 Eli: Re-adjudicating that episode. Yeah, I don't know, when I had a kid that I knew instantly that I had been demoted to second place. As I watched my wife hold this, I was like, ah, god, there's that amaz- Do you know that great Gary Shandling joke where his friend has just had a baby?

0:00:53 Tom: I already can answer that as no. Like, it doesn't matter what you say next, that answer, my answer is no.

0:01:01 Thomas: He had some good ones I don't, I'm not super familiar, but I watched a little bit of his show, which was great.

0:01:06 Eli: Yeah, he had an amazing joke. He's like, yeah, my friend just had a baby, and he's like, yeah, I see her look at the kid, and I don't know, I feel like she likes the kid more than me, and I said to him, yeah man, that's her son, you're just some guy she met in a bar. I love that joke so much, they

0:01:18 Thomas: Yeah, that's good boy. I know this is not the topic, but, um, when it comes to coming in first and all that, have you had to do, oh, okay, Eli, you only have one kid, you lucky son of a bitch, uh, Tom, do you have to deal, my kids are in the phase where everything is a stupid, stupid competition that then devolves into a fight, and they kill each other, they'll be like all right, we're walking back to the car, I'm gonna win, I'm, and I don't, I'm not encouraging, they just do it, it's a natural kid thing for some reason, I, I know, like, you could argue that the competition's in my genes, and it may, and it might be, but I think this is just a kid thing and a sibling thing.

Oh my god, can we do a sibling show coming up, because I am struggling with some sibling stuff right now, among, yeah, Arlo and Phoebe, it's just, it's killing me, but, topic for another other day. But yeah, like they're always trying to, and I have to just say every time, it's not a race. It's not, right to the point where they start like parroting me, like before I say it, you know, like they

0:01:34 Tom: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

0:01:43 Eli: Just do it right, right oh sibling rivalry, the episode

0:02:19 Thomas: Already know.

0:02:19 Tom: They're mocking you ahead of time. Dad's going to say it's not. I'm dead. It's not a race.

0:02:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then they do the classic kid thing where whoever's losing comes up with the different way that it was a race. You know, I always love that. No, it was you have to get your first clip in your car. That was the race you had. That that was, I won that.

0:02:31 Eli: Right. The

0:02:37 Tom: You see, if the goalpost is over here, then I did actually. Okay.

0:02:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:41 Eli: That's that's crazy thing about these kid races, right? Because like that would be bad enough if they were just racing everywhere all the time, but they'll just make up an insane game, right? The first one to be the first, want to put your hand inside your cup wins. But Then the other one who didn't invent the game and therefore obviously lost begins hysterically crying.

0:02:52 Thomas: Yeah,

0:03:00 Eli: And you have to be like, hey man, like you didn't consent to that race, just chill out.

0:03:07 Thomas: They take on the mindset. Like I've prepared my whole life. I trained, I trained for the cup competition all my, all my life and I lost. I choked my big moment.

0:03:12 Tom: You also have to explain to him, like, God, the stakes couldn't be lower. There's nothing to win, guys.

0:03:18 Thomas: Oh my God.

0:03:21 Tom: What is I win?

0:03:19 Eli: There's nothing there's nothing here

0:03:22 Tom: You win what? You win nothing. None of you win anything. There's something here.

0:03:21 Thomas: If there, look, another Fucking name for parenting might as well be, you try to explain that the stakes are fucking nothing. Like that's, that might as well be at my stage of, you know, age three and five, and Arlo, by the way, turn in four very soon, a couple weeks, uh.

0:03:38 Tom: Holy, I, I actually. I agree, I think that should be like my my my motto for parenting.

0:03:40 Thomas: Yeah. Jesus.

0:03:43 Tom: Parenting, the stakes couldn't be lower.

0:03:44 Thomas: Christ. All day. And again, this will.

0:03:46 Tom: That's. So. When.

0:03:46 Thomas: Okay, we'll put, I'll put it in the sibling rivalry one, but all day that doesn't matter, you take that one, you take that one, it's fine, they're both Lego, you both have a Lego, that's it, like, and it's like, it's just bloodbath that I have to try to say this is fucking nothing, this is nothing, this isn't all, all day, oh, it's the worst, they're.

0:04:02 Tom: When I was growing up, my brother, so my kids are too far apart for that to really be a thing, so like, my my boys are eight years apart, so they didn't really, you know, exist in the same plane at the same time, right? Like, and there's that big of a difference, like, that's just, is an eight-year-old gonna, you know, race a baby for they, you know, in a lot of ways, like, eight years apart is essentially like two only children, um, ways.

0:04:24 Thomas: Looks.

0:04:24 Tom: It really is because they don't, they're not in the same milestones that are anything together, not competing for the same interests or toys or whatever, but my brother and I are only like 15 months apart, so, I have a brother, I never talk about him because I forget he exists, and we're not close.

0:04:37 Thomas: Like someone forgot to wear a glove during. The handshake, that, uh.

0:04:42 Eli: Wait.

0:04:43 Tom: But. My. My brother Bob and I, when we were kids, I remember, like, going to my dad and being like, my dad would give me some chore, right, I'd be like, you know, clean the fucking bird cage.

0:04:50 Eli: Wait.

0:04:50 Tom: Or whatever, fucking horrible.

0:04:51 Eli: Wait, I'm.

0:04:51 Tom: Chore.

0:04:51 Eli: Sorry.

0:04:52 Tom: It. Was, uh-huh.

0:04:52 Eli: I. Just, just got a delayed moment, Tom.

0:04:55 Tom: Uh-uh.

0:04:55 Eli: Did.

0:04:55 Tom: No.

0:04:55 Eli: You just tell us you have two brothers, okay?

0:04:58 Tom: I have one brother, I. Have One. Brother.

0:04:59 Eli: I. Had a horrifying moment. Where Tom was just like, oh, there is one other brother, but I've literally never.

0:05:04 Thomas: Oh. It. Wouldn't.

0:05:04 Eli: Mentioned. It in my entire.

0:05:05 Tom: Well. Well. I I.

0:05:05 Eli: Life. Fun.

0:05:06 Thomas: Surprise.

0:05:06 Tom: I. Don't. Know if I've. Ever, I I used to have two two stepbrothers and two two stepsisters, um, in addition to my biological brother. But then when, when I moved away from living with my mom, I didn't, I hadn't seen, I never saw them after.

0:05:17 Eli: Fun. Fact, they're actually still.

0:05:18 Thomas: Me. I. The.

0:05:18 Eli: Your step siblings.

0:05:19 Thomas: I just the other day, uh, told Tom that he is a lot like Ron Swanson in a certain way and which is a reference I don't think you don't know Parks and Rec right Tom oh

0:05:26 Tom: That. So Oh, I love Parks and Rec.

0:05:31 Thomas: You love okay there's literally the Ron's the later season joke where he has the brothers that are working with him in his wood shop or whatever and he's Like, and. She's like, oh yeah, you're one brother or whatever, he's like, yeah, one. And there's like another guy. In there that just, for no reason, just never tells her that he has another brother. So.

0:05:38 Tom: Yes. Yes. Yeah. I.

0:05:49 Thomas: Tom.

0:05:49 Tom: I feel Ron. Like, I, I. Get that, yeah, I actually, I love Ron Swanson enough that my office, before COVID, in my office, if you watch that show, there's a picture in his office of just bacon and eggs, and I had a framed picture of just bacon and legs in my house because it's just, it's great. But when I was a kid growing up, my my dad would give me some chore, and I remember this, was, "What's Bob doing?" That was how we would be, like, well, what's Bob's chore? You know, what does Bob have to do? And my dad had zero patience for that at all. If you.

0:05:50 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:06:19 Tom: Went to my dad and were like, if my dad was like, I need you to clean up dog shit in the backyard or like do this, you know, other chore. And you're like, Well, what'S Bob doing, he'd be like right now, then Bob's doing nothing, you're doing his chores, ask me again. And I'd be Like, Oh, fuck. And then you had Bob's chores.

0:06:33 Tom: And you're like, well, guess I'm not asking about Bob's chores again.

0:06:38 Tom: So my dad put the kibosh on a lot of that sibling rivalry stuff pretty heavily right away, he didn't, that he didn't tolerate that shit at All.

0:06:33 Thomas: I remember you telling us early in the show that he was like, all right, you now no longer know each other.

0:06:48 Tom: So. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, he separated us for weeks at a time, one. Time because.

0:06:53 Thomas: He sent tom away to the you know like the the secret garden where she's got to go to that weird, yeah, it's just some weird thing.

0:06:57 Eli: Exactly. There's a boy that no one sees. Yeah, exactly, except it's because his brother once didn't properly say thank you for a wooden duck. It makes total sense. Also, we're just going to pass over the fact that Tom thought his steps, his blings ceased to exist when he moved away. No, I'm pretty sure if you leave a zip code, the people who came out of the same vagina as you, they get sucked back in through a time core. Okay.

0:07:02 Tom: Oh, Why?

0:07:26 Tom: To be fair, to be fair, they were mine. They were my stepfather's kids, so they weren'tt, they weren' t my mom's. They weren't, they weren't from my mom, they were my stepdad's kids, so Well, two of them are dead, so two out of the four are dead at this point, two. So of two of em didn't make it, but the monkey, the great monkey took em, yeah.

0:07:32 Eli: Yeah. That's better.

0:07:34 Thomas: Yeah, so they are, they are all gone now. Oh, okay. Yeah. The the great monkey wars. Yeah. Make

0:07:45 Tom: It happens the great, great, yeah.

0:07:45 Thomas: It out of there.

0:07:43 Eli: Great monkey was I I told her not to go from monkey to hippopotamus. But she wouldn't listen.

0:07:51 Thomas: You know, I did want to point out that the Q and A went up for patrons, by the way, apropos of nothing, the bonus for the month went up, it was a lot of fun and uh, just want to remind everybody, you, Eli, um, I don't know if you have anything to say about this, but patrons don't have to listen to the ads that we put in. Do you have any thoughts on that

0:08:07 Tom: Is that. Better I don't know if that's better, though.

0:08:08 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:08 Eli: You know, a few months ago, and I think I've told this story already, my son got hand foot and mouth disease, and while he was sitting in my lap sort of burning away with fever, it occurred to me how lucky I was that he wasn't dying, but if I had known there were going to be drop-in ads to this show, I perhaps would have sacrificed his life, which is why it's so important to sign up for Patreon.com. The Patreon version of this show—don't think of it as an ad-free version, think of it as a version of the show not riddled with the STD of capitalism.

Capitalism, the herpetic sores of greed that interrupt our every sentence and jape. And maybe you're thinking, oh, Eli, well, do you choose those sponsors? Nope. Do you get anything from those sponsors, maybe a free T-shirt or some free wool dash? No, we know nothing about them. Did you just get an AT&T ad? Sure. Was it a Christian college? Sorry about that. They list a different category so we can't eliminate them. We have no control over the herpetic source, much like the vile syphilis that it is on your ear experience.

0:08:27 Thomas: Now I'm just imagining the typical herpes commercials which are like couples walking around around the beach, you know, and being like, I'm living. But do that, but for podcast ads. You know, like they have earbuds in, I'm leaving with my podcast ad, and then Eli, like, comes on with a knife and murder. No, you're not. Oh,

0:09:29 Eli: Absolutely.

0:09:35 Tom: My sincerest hope right now is that immediately before or after that rant there was a fucking commercial for herpes meds we have to get a sponsor a herpes sponsor

0:09:42 Eli: In between each word. In between Each Word.

0:09:40 Thomas: I will put one, I'm gonna put one in right after this yeah so Patreon.com slash Dear Old Dads if you would like to avoid herpes and listen to the monthly bonuses, and by the way, the additional stories at the end of every episode are so much, there is so much dad lore, Dear Old Dads lore, that are in those stories, so highly recommend, and now here are 1700 automatically inserted ads, so

0:10:05 Eli: Terrible. The worst thing that's ever happened. Welcome back to the show. Wasn't that nice? Wasn't that fun? Fun, aren't you still in the experience of enjoying Dear Old Dads after hearing that fucking Hershey's chocolate commercial or whatever was inserted into your brain by the mega lords, he

0:10:23 Thomas: So Tom, I was gonna try to transition by saying, between you and Bob, who do you think was your dad's favorite? I knew it. I was gonna, I didn't even need to make the joke, I was gonna joke, he probably, like, put a plaque, like, carve, hand carved a plaque that said, said, "my favorite is Bob," parentheses, just making sure, Tom, you understand that means not you, end parentheses, yeah, three,

0:10:23 Tom: Answer. Yeah, Bob, because my dad said so. So, yeah.

0:10:41 Eli: Wrote

0:10:41 Tom: Yeah. Now, I think it's changed as we, we became adults, but when we were kids, I, I'm fairly certain of it, and the idea of favorites is interesting, I didn't know my dad's favorite was my brother until we were, I don't know, like 12, 13, some, 14. somewhere around there, I don't remember. I had no idea I

0:10:59 Thomas: Until he told me on my third birthday, until my birthday cake when

0:11:04 Eli: It on, he wrote on my seventh birthday cake. It was weird that he, that

0:11:07 Thomas: Yeah. I wondered why it said happy birthday, Bob's brother. That was a weird, that's

0:11:14 Eli: Was a weird one. Yeah, cool.

0:11:12 Tom: But he just very casually mentioned it one day, like we were talking, I remember, remember what we're talking about, it was really funny, though, and it didn't hurt my feelings at all, I didn't care, but he just, I was, I remember being so surprised because he was like, he mentioned that, like, Bob was his favorite, and I was like, wait, really? He's like, yeah, we just have a lot more in common, and I thought about it, and I was like, yeah, you do. And I, I was like, yeah, okay, that makes sense to me.

And I, and I, I will say, I have kids and I have favorites, and I think, absolutely, I think your favorites can change over time, and this is something that people feel, I think, a lot lot of, like, weirdness or shame or guilt about, his parents, and I hate, I hate the shame and guilt that goes along with parenting, that, like, there's a lot of this shit I think with parenting where people are, they think they're supposed to feel a certain way, if they feel anything less than this, like, perfect platonic ideal of being a parent and how they feel about it, that they're doing it wrong, and they should feel shame.

Like, fuck that, that's nonsense. I, part of what I want to do this show for is to dispel that, you can have complicated feelings about being a dad or a mom or whatever. And I think one of those true things, at least for me, is like, yeah, I absolutely have favorites, and they change from time to time, as well.

0:11:21 Thomas: Even better.

0:11:24 Eli: Yep.

0:12:20 Tom: But yeah, I enjoy some of my kids more than I enjoy other kids. And I, I think that's really fucking normal and true because like I enjoy some people more than I enjoy other people. All my friends aren't the same friend. All All my other family members aren't the same. Like, I love my kids, but do I enjoy spending time with them all exactly the same? I don't.

0:12:45 Thomas: I think the key is not in the feeling, you know, people as parents, and just as people, are going to feel a lot of things that could be shameful things that maybe they shouldn't feel ashamed of, because it's just a feeling, it's what you do with the feeling, and I think maybe not telling your kid about your favorites would be, maybe, because, like, unlike with your friends, like, if I, you know, if I told Eli or Heath or Tom, like, hey, I actually like, um, Heath better than you, you know, like, I'm not responsible for your mental, like, like, upbringing and shaping, as you're, like, your emotional growth as a human.

And then I tell you, like, yeah, you're not my favorite, you're just not my, you know? So it's, uh, I think, I think it's more what you do with it. I think it's going to be pretty inevitable that, you know, maybe you have, and I don't even know if I want to say favorite, because, and this isn't just me trying to soften it up, I'm not going to pretend that, you know, there aren't different interactions with, with different kids. And when they're, when your kids are my kid's age, it really does change, like, like, every fucking week, you know, cause they,

0:12:58 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

0:13:00 Eli: You right on the head there, T-Dog.

0:13:42 Thomas: They just go through these phases where you're like, Jesus fucking Christ. Like Phoebe will go through a week where she is just impossible. And it's just, it's so hard. And then like, or maybe not a full week, but it'll be day to day too. It'll be like one day it's like, well, this is impossible. This is a, it is apparent. It's amazing. You're like, wow, someone designed like a video game to frustrate me as much as possible. It's like the AI is designing Phoebe's brain to do the thing. It's, like, chat GPT 7.0 is, like. What will be as hard as possible on Thomas and Lydia's psychology? Ah, got it. And it's just tantrum after tantrum. But then, like not always tantrum she's got to hook you in with some good behavior. And then lose it for a really bad reason in a way that makes you feel horrible. You know it's great.

0:14:27 Thomas: It's really creative. And so it's going to change here and there, but for me, I was, when we first started talking about this my kids were one and two, so uh, now that we're finally getting to the episode, the thing I thought about was, Phoebe has, I'm not going to say favorite, but has obviously been clearly, like, it was fucking obvious based on how I talk, the one I'm more focused on, but a lot of that is, is just language stuff, and I was thinking of a hypothetical, like, if you had two clone of kids, like, they were both equally amazing, they both have these characteristics, but one tends to express themselves a lot in words and one doesn't, it's going to be hard not to gravitate toward the one who expresses themselves in words, even if it's not like, oh, I like you, but it's just like, there's more to interact with, there's more to think about, there's, and it's hard because Arlo was really, I, yeah, I wouldn't say non-verbal, but he's, you know, he's been slower than Phoebe to express himself, and now he talks a mile a minute, nonsense words, and I love it, but, like, it was hard because I couldn't really feel like I connected with him as much, you know, or had as much to think about with him, because I didn't know what was going on in his head.

0:15:40 Tom: One thing I want to seize on there, Thomas, is that part of what you're identifying is that you you personally enjoy and connect easier during a certain age or stage of development. And other people I know love when their kids are pre-verbal babies, that's the happiest they are as parents people. And I've, I've met and talked to a bunch of people like, Oh my God, the best part of being a parent is in that like little tiny baby stage. And that's part they like the best. And as their kids get older.

0:16:06 Thomas: As someone with a three-month-old, I can tell you no, the fuck it isn't. I got

0:16:08 Tom: Yeah.

0:16:09 Eli: It's those people are fucking insane, those I

0:16:12 Thomas: Spit

0:16:10 Tom: But, but you guys all know those people. I, yeah,

0:16:12 Thomas: Up on four times this morning while I was trying to sleep.

0:16:16 Eli: I have two of those in my family and who just very proudly, vocally have been like, babies are the best, aren't they? And I'm just like, you bought baby chicks as a kid, didn't you, and then it turned into a chicken and you threw it in the trash or the garbage compactor. This is this is the baby chick version Of parenting interesting.

0:16:31 Tom: That's, That's. Oh, shit.

0:16:27 Thomas: Yeah exactly yeah yep what you know what You know and This is Eli. This is not a joke. Early on in the Trump administration, I read something that was about, you know, because for a while it was about like, hey, what's the fucking diagnose the narcissistic whatever the Trump is. And by the way, that was a lot around the same time as realizing some of the same qualities my dad had as those, although covertly instead of overtly, like, uh, like Trump.

But, um, they said that sometimes, or, and this could be bullshit, uh, Stormy Decisus write a comment because, uh. Stormy is a psychologist who, uh, who just did an episode with me on SIO. Um, who also loves Dear Old Dads and writes great comments on our show. Um, let me know if this is bullshit, but I read that sometimes either narcissists or psychopaths or whatever really love animals and babies because they can exert full control over the cute, like, like, animal baby phase of things, but then when they grow bigger and they can't exert their control and this thing has a will of its own, then they have no patience for it.

0:17:25 Tom: Well, that's that's the most depressing possible explanation for why I do.

0:17:30 Thomas: Oh, I'm not saying everybody who loves, no, no, yeah, no.

0:17:31 Tom: No, I know you're not. I know. You're not, I know, but I do, like, I do think that there's, first of all, I do, I do think that that there is a lot of people who harbor a lot of guilt, not just about their behavior, but about their feelings as parents, like we're, we're sort of indoctrinated that we're supposed to feel certain ways. We've talked, talked about this on the show before, like when your kids are first born you're like, oh, I'm expecting to feel these big feelings, and what if I don't, and then you feel guilty about them. I think the same is the same thing is true of like your kids during different stages of development and like ages of their lives and like personalities as they emerge. I think people feel a lot of guilt. It shouldn't affect how we behave, right? With, I agree, like we shouldn't tell our kids you that

0:18:12 Thomas: Yeah. Tom, I bet you'll agree with me on this, that guilt over your feelings, probably not productive. Do your best to manage that. Guilt over what you do with those feelings, people may disagree with guilt it. Is useful. If you feel guilty because you did a shitty thing as a parent, sorry, that's good even though ultimately it might not have been under your control, but feeling guilt is the motivation to try to fix that, Eli.

0:18:21 Tom: Is yeah Oh yeah, I'm, I'm like, I'm a, I don't, I'm not one of those guys, is like, yeah, guilt is always a bad thing, like guilt is, I don't think anger is a bad thing all the time, like, yeah, a hundred percent, like these things can be motivating forces that help us grow, so like a thousand percent, but if it's over your feelings then like, yeah, man, like fucking throw that away. And here's a voice right now on the radio telling you it's okay to feel, like, you have a favorite. And I'll tell you guys all, like, I have absolutely had favorites. I have favorites for my kids. Absolutely. And I'll tell you too, different, it's with stepkids and biological kids.

0:19:07 Thomas: Who's your favorite of Tom's kids?

0:19:10 Tom: Yeah, you got to answer it now.

0:19:11 Eli: Obviously it's Aislan, it's obviously Aislen, come on, super easy, Aislin, I did a napkin magic trick for her she like Aislon

0:19:16 Tom: Everyone says

0:19:12 Thomas: Yeah a hundred percent okay one two, three, Aislan we said at the same time I'll edit something

0:19:19 Eli: Yeah obviously the other two are just surviving, they're just trying to make it out

0:19:20 Thomas: Yeah

0:19:20 Tom: Aislinn, but different too. When like you, when you've Got a mixed family, when You've got an integrated family with biological kids And stepkids because like, then there's a bunch of Other feelings about like, Hey, what if I like one Of my stepkids more than a biological kid? Like, how would I feel about that? Like, there's A lot of stuff that like goes into That stuff.

0:19:43 Thomas: Yeah yeah can

0:19:44 Eli: That's that you're not allowed, you're actually not allowed to like us dead kid obviously

0:19:46 Tom: I feel like that's not allowed to, too. And I, and so, like, if you were to ask me who are my favorites, in my head, without even thinking about it, I divide the four kids into my biological kids and my stepkids and I have two answers. And that's a weird space, but it's a true space, and I don't know that, like, I don't know that like people feel comfortable really having permission to say that out loud and to talk about that.

0:19:59 Eli: No

0:20:10 Thomas: I tell you something though, this, I, and this may be something, again, I realize there are a lot of things I do that are a result of me having had to spend, I don't know, 15 solid years of working on myself, like actively every single day, and there are a lot mental things I did that I, some of them I actually think are pretty cool, I've never talked about them until, like, you know, some, some therapy I did with Lydia, and I started, and just some, some conversations we've had, I will, I, start talking about the things I do in my mind to try to, you know, not be shitty and try to be a better person. And I think loving anyone, you know, your partner, your kids, I don't think it's a passive thing. I think it is an active process, it. And for example, I've told you, you guys, you, you guys know the dirty inner shitty me who has the first shitty impulse that's selfish from my dad.

0:20:57 Thomas: And what I do to try to negate that is I actively kind of meditate on certain things. So like give an example. My psychology is such that when I, I don't know, I walked downstairs and Lydia has left food out because she just leaves food out. And it's just, I just, it frustrates me to no end. I don'T know why it makes me very mad. And my first impulse is how dare you leave leave food out in my house. I have told you so many, you know, just the awful, like fucking shitty prints from the, you knows, 17th century. Like you would deign to leave food in my, and then my brain, in my brain I'm like, fucking you're an asshole.

So don't stop that. And then I, then because I can't help, but still have some like negative feelings. And I don't mean like, oh, I hate it. Just like, I feel a little negativity from it. I actively then start meditating on what I love about Lydia or like what she does for me. So I'll think like, okay, she left food out. I'll put the fucking food away. And this is something I imagine that is just not a battle that other people have to face, but like, I have to fucking fight these battles all the time. And I'll think like. You know what Lydia also did was fucking nurse our baby all night last night. That's

0:21:35 Tom: Right

0:21:39 Eli: Well it

0:22:11 Thomas: What she also did. And I'll have to meditate on it. And, and it's, works like, it really, I spend so much time, and it's pleasant. It's nice. I love it. Like, and I, and I do it a lot when I don't have to, like, I just find myself like thinking like, you know, what I love is how Lydia does such and such. And I just, I've just fucking love it. Like it's great. I love Lydia so much. And, and I do the same thing when I'm feeling like I'm, you know, maybe loving one of my kids more than the other too much. I'm like, you know? And then I just ponder like the other kid, like, you know what I love about this kid, not to, I don't want to name it, is when they do this, and I really love how they do this, and I just kind of focus and meditate on them a little bit in my mind. And I do think that's something that you can do. You know, it's an active thing. Loving is an active thing.

0:22:56 Eli: Sounds to me like you're describing sort of a self-invented cognitive behavioral therapy, uh, because, as someone who's been through a ton of CBT, a lot of what you're talking about is learning to interrupt your own patterns and, uh, question your own pattern, question your inner voice, and a lot that is based in CBT stuff. So yeah, yeah, that's, that's awesome. I love that. I, that voice continues while I do the right thing. Right. So if I cared about the food being away, my inner voice is like, you peasants would dare to ask me.

And on the outside, I'm like, hey, sweetie, when you get a, say hi, hi, one second. And I'm doing the wave because she's got her headphones on. Hi. I'm so sorry, sweetie. I'm going to put the food away. I just wanted to make sure if you're going to order food tonight, just let me know what you want. And I'll put it into, and in my head, I'm like, how dare you? Well, and that's, what I've found is I just have two lives, the one that's inside and how I feel, and then the outside one, how I behave. I've been told that's great and will never result in anything bad. So we're throwing out all sorts of options here.

0:23:01 Thomas: Yes.

0:23:44 Thomas: Sweet.

0:23:49 Tom: No

0:24:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:00 Eli: And, and, and, oh, actually, you know what? I just realized we had another, other perfect uh top bottom middle in here because Tom feels exactly the way he says he feels at all times

0:24:06 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He sees the empty, the food that's out. And And what Tom does, he goes, oh, the food's out. Let me just put that away. And that's all that happens. That's all the fucking happens.

0:24:14 Tom: I don't I don't, I'm not that, no, I'm, I'm perturbable, but I, I actually agree, like I have a similar, maybe not as like conscious, Thomas, but like there's, like, a principle that I hold all the time that I think about, and that is that, like, if you want to be more in love, you should behave lovingly.

0:24:18 Eli: My internal

0:24:35 Thomas: Yeah. It was one of your essays, I think, for the vacation post. And I listened to it. I was like, holy fuck, Tom. I've had a lot of these same thoughts. It was really well stated.

0:24:36 Tom: Yeah, yeah, and so I think that love is a verb, and we have to act on it, and like – and so that's something that I've meditated on a lot, and it's something I've tried to live. And so – but, you know, like I'm perturbable. Like, I'll get fucking grumpy if something's not the way I want it as well. So like, it's like, I'm not, I am not like a heart on my sleeve all the time guy, like, absolutely not. Like if I get grumpy, I'll be like, oh, should I shut the fuck up? I probably should, probably should shut the fucked up. I've got a voice, it's like, maybe shut the up about this, like maybe this is your shut the fucking up time, that's maybe what this is. So no, I don't know, it, it doesn't, it does not fully top Tom and

0:25:20 Eli: Voice has literally never had anything nice to say, it's just a, it's just a demon growling vile sexual thoughts at all times, so exactly

0:25:31 Thomas: I want to fuck that food that she left out. Oh, God, it looks so.

0:25:33 Eli: Yeah it was just don't talk, he's just like rub it all over your body and then call someone a Nazi on Twitter, and I'm like, oh myself, oh me, you rapscallion, those aren't the lines we wrote for us to say right now, uh.

0:25:53 Thomas: Uh, so who's your favorite of your kids, Eli?

0:25:55 Eli: Definitely Match the pug for sure, Match the bug, uh, potty trained really quickly, speaks more than her brother does, um, way less expensive, which is crazy because she was, was pretty expensive she was pretty pricey, but it turns out her brother's got her beat

0:25:57 Thomas: Uh, yeah. Uh. Yeah, she was pretty fucking expensive.

0:26:03 Tom: Wait wait a minute, you spent money on a pug, it wasn't a rescue, you intentionally got that dog, I'm kidding, oh my

0:26:18 Eli: Tom, if you knew how much money I spent on this fucking pug, you would excise me from your life like an unthanked duck carving, if you knew how many people you would excize me from my life, how much money was spent on my pug, my pug's insurance, her health insurance is more money than most, most people would spend on owning a pet every single month. Every single month matches my favorite.

0:26:48 Tom: God, so Madge is your favorite, Madge's out we're

0:26:51 Eli: Obviously.

0:26:45 Thomas: No,

0:26:52 Tom: Thomas, and like, I want to know, like, do you guys know if you were your parents' favorites? Well

0:26:57 Thomas: We were all equally my parents' not favorite. That's pretty, that's, that doesn't make sense. That's not a question of it.

0:27:00 Eli: Yes.

0:27:01 Tom: I guess you've got two you've two answers But Thomas, you've had, because you had a mom and a dad, I only had a dad, so like, I know my dad's answer, I don't, I don't, my mom is not a factor, so like, like, I don't know if she had a favorite.

0:27:05 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:12 Eli: You in order to have a favorite, you need to not be Godzilla on the inside. So Tom doesn't count his mom's opinions.

0:27:16 Tom: Right. Well,

0:27:12 Thomas: Right. The monkey. Monkey It's the monkey Yeah Yeah Uh, Tom, it, it was the monkey. It was the one she gave all the booze to. That's how you know the monkey was her favorite so

0:27:22 Tom: That's it. That was her favorite. That was their favorite. Yeah. But, like, did your mom have a favorite? And then did your dad have a favor? Do you know?

0:27:28 Thomas: Let me think. I, I think that my, my dad's favorite was probably my older sister, and then I think a little bit my younger sister. Um, I could have been up there, was, cause I was very good. I was incredibly good at predicting my dad's behavior and understanding everything he said and meant all the time. Cause that's what, cause I'm smart and that's what my psychology demanded I do. So I would understand what he was going to joke about or say before he would say it, you know, and, and it was, it was funny. Like, I loved it. I enjoyed it. Um, and he, I think he really appreciated that.

Cause, you know, why wouldn't you, I'd love it. I've had a son that like loved all my jokes and stuff, but I think that if I, and I don't know if this is good content or anything, but if I had to guess, I would say that given the nature of my dad's kind of narcissism, I could imagine that he would have a way harder time if I did something he didn't like or didn't want me to do than if his daughters did. I feel like if his daughters did, there'd be a lot of like more under, you know, does that make sense?

0:28:03 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:25 Thomas: Like he'd probably be like, oh yeah, they get, yeah, it's a little bit of a sexism thing, but a little little bit of a, you know, just, he's a man and he, he would probably like expect different things from me. And I think that I started doing things that he didn't like, not like, you know, I did fucking theater. He didn't, he didn'T like the, oh my God. I never told my opposite of your theater story. Did I Eli?

0:28:25 Tom: They'd get a little more grace than you would get. Yeah.

0:28:27 Eli: Yeah.

0:28:46 Thomas: Oh my, You know what? I think I'd better. This going to give a content warning here before I tell the story. I'm gonna use a word that I wouldn't otherwise use because I think it is actually important to communicating the story, but Eli famously, if you're a new listener, has a story of how his dad wanted him to wrestle and he was wrestling and Eli sucked at it or something, or he was good in practice, and then you didn't want to do it and you started doing theater, but your dad being such a supportive amazing guy cheered just as hard for the theater and was doing like sports level fucking come in with a foam finger, you know, cheer for your, for your theater.

0:28:46 Eli: No, you haven't.

0:28:47 Tom: No. What?

0:29:23 Eli: Yes.

0:29:23 Thomas: Uh, right, is that uh pretty accurate retelling of the story?

0:29:23 Eli: Yep. And Never missed a show I was in, his entire life.

0:29:29 Tom: That's amazing.

0:29:26 Thomas: Oh, Okay. Did he go, all right, you say never missed a show, does that mean he went to every night or just saw the show once?

0:29:30 Eli: Uh, When I was doing stuff in high school, he went to every single night, um, which was often.

0:29:39 Tom: Every night?

0:29:39 Eli: Every single night, he went every concert, everything ever, um, and then every show I did in New York.

0:29:46 Tom: I'm the worst.

0:29:46 Eli: He came to multiple nights of like, he would, he would drive all the way from Binghamton, three and a half, four hours, see me in a show, and I would say he would do that like two or three times throughout a run.

0:29:57 Thomas: You Know what's great is, know the process I described a moment ago of me beating the shit out of myself, there's also a bit of an inverse where I think about that, like I imagine okay, what if Phoebe was doing anything, or Arlo, or any of my kids was doing a theater or doing a show or doing whatever, and my first impulse in my mind is oh, all right, I'll go see it because, you know, it's my dad, like, oh, he would, you know, not want to fucking take the trouble, and then but because it's something thing that actually my nature is different, it goes the other way where I'm like, wait, no, actually I just want to go see it every night.

It's not like, it's not a battle. I'm like, I just actually would love to go See My Kids show every single night. Like I would fucking love that because I love my kids. So there is a nicer version of that for me because I realize sometimes like, oh, I still have that shitty voice, but it's like a suggestion, a really bad bad email suggestion where it tries to suggest the reply for you. And you're like, no, that's not, why would I say, fuck you? I'll only go to one of your shows. Maybe. Why would I, why would you say that? I'll, I'll just say, yes, I would love to go to every single one

0:30:29 Eli: Yeah, yeah,

0:31:02 Thomas: Of here.

0:31:03 Tom: Oh my god, I'm The Worst. It wouldn't even have occurred to me to go. Like, if I had a kid that did stuff, I think I'd go see their play or whatever. I don't know that it would even occur to me to go every time, though. I'd be like, I saw that. You did great.

0:31:14 Eli: So So, Amazing. Side note about this, about him always coming to everything, one of the things about my dad is my dad hated horror movies, these, hated them, he hated pop scares, he hated scary things, he hated like graphic violence, he thought that all was really disgusting and it upset him and it gave him nightmares, like he would just, he just absolutely fucking hated it, but when I was eight I was in Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, which is a horror play, right, it's a murder mystery play where everyone's getting murdered throughout the play, the exact opposite of what my dad wanted to see, and if you've seen most productions of it, it's also full of like pop scares and gore and all that stuff, and my dad came to every single Production, just hate, a white pale sweaty, he'd just be like and

0:31:14 Tom: Ha, ha, ha. Aww. Oh, man.

0:32:09 Eli: The best part was I was eight, so I literally only came out at the end, I come out the end, the final moments of of the show, someone comes out and it's a child and it is her dead younger brother, and so she shoots herself in the head and that's the end of the show, and so he would watch this entire play to watch me stand there and do nothing, and then he'd be like, you did good standing there and doing nothing, how many more of these motherfucking shows are in there?

0:32:10 Tom: Ha, Ha, HA.

0:32:33 Thomas: All right. Work smarter, not harder. I think there's a, there's an compromise to be made here. He could just come at the end and pretend he watched the whole fucking thing.

0:32:39 Eli: Yeah, Hello,

0:32:40 Tom: That just reminded me, this is actually like my dad, and I never did anything because I wasn't interesting when I was a kid, but like my dad, for one time he took us to Great America, like my dad hates fucking roller coasters and all that stuff, this is kind of similar, just I just forgot about this until right now, but his company had rented out all of like Great America, so there's like Six Flags over Great America out here, his company rented it for the day, he took took us to Six Flags and I was a fairly young kid and he, and I wanted to go on a roller coaster, roller coaster, not the little kid rides, my dad does not like roller coasters, it may, they make him sick and he did, he said pick any, any roller coaster I'll go on one roller coaster with you and I picked the American Eagle which is like just, you know, it's a big giant wooden roller coaster shakes like crazy, probably couldn't have picked a wrong coaster and to my my dad's eternal credit.

He said, okay. And he got on and we waited in line. We got up. He rode that coaster. He got off that coaster, he threw up in a garbage can and sat down with his head

0:33:12 Thomas: Please tell me you went on top gun.

0:33:24 Thomas: Fuck that thing. Fuck that thing, uh,

0:33:38 Tom: Between his knees and did not ever complain once about it. Like he was just like, yeah, you want to go? I'll go. I can't do two. I think he could not have done more, but he did. And I just, I forgot about that story until right now. But yeah, my dad, my dad did that for us. I remember.

0:33:37 Thomas: Wow, yeah, wow. That's nice. That is an example of that your dad isn't actually Hitler. He's a, he's, he, he- he's Goebbels.

0:33:57 Tom: No, he's a sweet guy. Like, yeah.

0:33:59 Thomas: No, I'm just kidding.

0:34:00 Eli: We're, we're dancing over the beginning of the episode where Tom's dad was like, yeah, no, you're not my favorite, you're what, eh, I,

0:34:07 Thomas: He's a mixed bag. He's mixed bag, yeah.

0:34:08 Tom: But Not favorite doesn't mean you don't love them, it just means you're not number one, like you could be a close number two.

0:34:13 Eli: Assume, you're quoting him Right now this is what he said to you, exactly word for word, all right.

0:34:16 Thomas: This is more of the

0:34:17 Tom: This is What I tell my kids, like, you're a close number two, yeah.

0:34:23 Eli: Thomas, I'm, I'm, I'm on eggshells here, what did your dad do? There's

0:34:26 Tom: This

0:34:26 Thomas: Yeah. So I, um, you, to set the stage, I was more, so to speak, I was, he obviously was more of a sports guy, he's the sports guy, um, he helped my sisters pitch softball, like he would catch for them to pitch forever, and they're actually really good at softball, they're really good pitchers, he tried to do that with me, but he also did a thing where he just never explained anything, like he would just expect that I would know how to pitch or something, and just would like, and I'm, again, I'm a great athlete now, but I was a late bloomer, and part of it was probably related to this, like I had no confidence because he didn't fucking help me at all, he'd just be like, okay, do this, and if I did it wrong, and just was like, no patient, he was like, all right, so he's, I'm not, not helping you with, you know what I mean? And so he would, I would pitch with him, and it, I didn't find out, this won't make any sense to you folks probably, but I was practicing pitching with him for a while.

0:35:18 Thomas: I don't have any idea because I'm a, it was a kid and I don't know how long, but it fucking could have been a year. I, for all I know, or it could have been a month. And at a certain point, somehow we realized I was holding the baseball with my whole hand. This doesn't make anything sense to, to you.

0:35:32 Tom: I'm like I'm waiting for the the punchline I know, that's a punchline yeah are

0:35:33 Thomas: Okay. So do yeah

0:35:33 Eli: No, you nothing, it hovers just above the hand it's, a it's telekinetic thing, you had to get mad enough your hair turns blonde

0:35:39 Thomas: And you roll you roll a d20 so

0:35:41 Tom: You supposed to use a hook of some kind, or an apparatus

0:35:46 Eli: You tie a rope around it, no

0:35:47 Thomas: You haven't at least you don't have, at least, enough, I don't even like baseball, but you don't have enough familiarity with baseball to to know, the typical pitcher picture of a pitcher holding the ball is the two fingers, like hold, you don't know that, you hold, okay, the way a pitcher throws a ball, I

0:36:00 Tom: I love you, Eli. Eli, Right now, we are just on a call, but I can fucking see you, buddy.

0:36:01 Eli: I have no idea, man. What soulmates. I'm

0:36:06 Thomas: Okay

0:36:06 Eli: Your favorite child right now I'm

0:36:06 Thomas: I like this is so funny. I, I actually want to Google, like, pitcher holding baseball, and show you just,

0:36:13 Eli: Not gonna click whatever you send me, just so you know you could you yeah you could be like this will save you'd be like, quick quick, Arlo's choking, and he needs you to look at this picture of a guy with his fingers on a baseball, and I'd be like, ah, it's a good thing he wasn't the favorite.

0:36:13 Thomas: It's, you know, no, I just,

0:36:14 Tom: I don't want to learn this information like I just, and I as soon as you tell me, I want to forget it, I want to not know, I'm

0:36:28 Eli: Am I right? Oh, there, it is I'm looking at it, there.

0:36:28 Thomas: Just, I'm putting it in the chat. Just look at the fucking picture. It's fucking whatever.

0:36:33 Tom: Gonna learn something, I don't want to know God.

0:36:34 Eli: There he is.

0:36:36 Thomas: Just look. Look at the picture. This is what I'm, that's

0:36:37 Eli: Yep. Four fingers on one side, two on the other, whatever the fuck it is.

0:36:36 Tom: He's not throwing the the ball he's but it's behind his back he's I thought he was hiding it so that nobody knew he had the ball so it was a sneaky pitch

0:36:44 Thomas: How they throw it though. Well, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:46 Eli: Oh, you got to hide it so they don't know you're the pitcher until it's too late.

0:36:49 Tom: All

0:36:49 Thomas: Yes. We need to do a whole, okay. A whole monthly bonus could just be Thomas explains sports to Eli and Tom. That would be fucking great. We can get Heath in here too, if you want.

0:37:01 Eli: Here's what we do. We hire two minor league baseball teams, right? But we just line them up across from each other and then me and Tom have to position them for a baseball game and tell them how it works.

0:37:10 Tom: Right. Which one of you guys is the knight, which is the bishop. All right, I, I know, okay.

0:37:18 Thomas: In this picture. Yes, the pitcher is holding the ball behind his back, but that's how he he throw, like when he throws it, that's the hand, like your two fingers are on, like you're essentially throwing it with your two finger and there's different grips for different pitches. So curve ball, two seam, four seam, fastball, all that shit. And when you throw it with your whole hand, and like, like a meatball and you're, you know, like, you're just fucking surrounding the thing. The only reason you would do that is to throw like a change up. Was god, do you know what a change up fucking

0:37:44 Tom: You're Saying Things.

0:37:44 Eli: No. No. What Are you doing man. Stop.

0:37:45 Thomas: God Damn it Okay.

0:37:45 Tom: Like Like Throw A Chain, I don't, don't even know what to change up, but what is a change up is that where Your oil's over 3,000 miles and you gotta throw a ball at it to get it to change.

0:37:48 Eli: I'm gonna talk about magic moves. What are the fucking

0:37:49 Thomas: A Fat Okay. A change-up Is

0:37:55 Tom: What

0:37:55 Thomas: Okay. Though man, I'm, I promise I'm not gonna do too long, two seconds. The whole thing of being a pitcher is you try to look like you're throwing the same pitch as much as possible, but they do different things in the air because of the spin or the whatever. A fastball go, you know, 100 fucking miles an hour if you're a good MLB pitcher. A changeup might go 85 miles per hour.

0:37:55 Tom: Yeah.

0:38:14 Thomas: And that That difference in speed is so insane to look at because you have to be, it's a 2.1 reaction. So like you're already almost swinging when they throw it. And if you don't know a change-up's coming, you swing like an hour before the ball comes and it's really, so the point is I was throwing like a change up, like a slower pitch grip the whole time because I had no fucking idea. No one ever told me. Like you just, no one bothered to say, all right, son, here's the basics. He might've done that with my brother, but I think my dad had one of those in him. My dad had like one round of, all right, son, here, I'll teach you something. And then like he had four kids, though, actually had five kids, a stepbrother or half-brother or whatever that moved out. I think, and he had no more of that. Like, I think you explain something probably to my half-brother, to Sam. And then to me, he just, he just expected I somehow knew that genetically or something.

0:38:14 Eli: That's slower. Oh.

0:39:03 Thomas: So anyway, point is, bad sports experiences with my dad. And I eventually asked him that I could not play baseball anymore, more. So that's my backdrop, I was still doing sports, I still liked sports, but in high school I saw a play, and uh, you know, that's the same reason perhaps a lot of uh boys in high school went and saw musicals, uh, there were a lot of really good, good looking girls In there.

0:39:24 Eli: Knew you were gay. Oh. Yeah, your thing.

0:39:26 Thomas: No, there are a lot. Oh, that's I look, I was in the country. So they're, they're all closet. All the, all the gay boys at that time were all closet, like literally it's funny to look back and realize like, oh, that was obviously a closeted gay kid, but I had no frame of reference at all. Cause that was just like a conservative raised in a tiny town. And then in retrospect, I'm like, Oh yeah, duh. Cool.

0:39:48 Thomas: Anyway. There were a lot of really good looking girls in the show. It was, oh my God, Eli, you're going to love this.

0:39:47 Eli: Yeah. Is it a picture of a high school girl. Man, because I really can't do this.

0:39:54 Thomas: No, no.

0:39:55 Tom: I'm not clicking on that link, I told you already, send me another baseball.

0:39:58 Eli: Oh.

0:39:57 Thomas: Why don't, Eli? If I'm getting Eli back in it, Eli if you can guess the fucking worst show for my high school to have picked to do musical wise, my all white high school in.

0:40:10 Eli: Uh, the Wiz, the Wiz. There.

0:40:13 Tom: Wait.

0:40:13 Eli: It is baby.

0:40:14 Tom: What

0:40:12 Thomas: Yes, you guessed it. Oh my God. You got it. Yes. Yes. Well, I thought, you know, I thought you might guess a couple others first, but no, you can first try. They literally did the whiz without a single black person. Now, the music director was black. So I feel like that gives them a bit of a, like maybe he chose it, but like every kid in it was white.

0:40:14 Tom: What

0:40:31 Eli: That's that's a great prank from your music director. Can I just say he just gets a bunch of white kids up there and he's like, yeah, no, good, start singing, singing in the voice to the voice. Do the voice. I'm just going to be filming this in case you ever grow into adults, and this is very cancelable behavior. I

0:40:31 Thomas: Oh boy. Yeah. Oh my God. You're totally.

0:40:34 Tom: Oh. My god. God. I don't

0:40:49 Thomas: So that was the one I went and saw and I knew nothing about theater whatsoever, but I saw and I noticed that there was all these really good looking girls and the main guy's is always the problem in theater. The main guy was very average, was just like in terms of his talent. And I was like, I can sing. I can fucking sing like whatever. I'm I'm an OK singer. I wasn't really that good, but like I was relative to, you know, where I was.

So the next year, the next season, whatever it was, I was like, I'm going to fucking I'll do this. I'll I'll be on stage with all these good looking girl. It'd be great. I can sing.

And so I did and I loved it and I did my first show and mom to her credit was gonna see it, you know, like a normal parent, and I think my brother even came and saw it for some reason, you know, my brother was pretty supportive, uh, maybe because he knew my dad wasn't, you know. So he came and sought, I think, and then somehow, and this sucks because I tried to ask my brother Sam for his version of this story,

0:41:46 Thomas: But he due to, I don't know, 20 years of, you mental health battles and life and kids and everything. He had no fucking idea what I was talking about, which was, which was interesting to me. Once I tell you this story happened was somehow my brother or my mom convinced my dad to come see it. And this wasn't the whiz. This was the next one. Something's afoot. Do you know that one Eli? Really good.

0:42:07 Eli: Don't know. That one there.

0:42:08 Thomas: It's a, it's a good show for a high high schoolers. Well, actually, murder mystery. It's not unlike, actually it might be kind of based on that Agatha Christie one. It is very similar to that now that I think about it.

0:42:09 Tom: Know this. Oh.

0:42:19 Eli: You go.

0:42:19 Thomas: Interesting. Anyway, I was in that. Somehow they told my dad to go. I don't think I was any part of this because I already had all my inbuilt expectations for my dad. So I was just like, yeah, he won't go. He doesn't like it. Why would he go? I didn't even think about it. Didn't occur to me to think he should go. Wasn't a minute of disappointment at the idea that he wouldn't go because I so internalized his every fucking will that I was like, yeah, he wouldn'T go. Why would he fucking go? Why would you be interested in that? But they convinced him to go for some reason. I don't know why. And he went and I did the show. And what he said to me after, when I went into the lobby, you know, to do the meet and greet and all that shit and everything. Oh, good job. Every other parent is like, good Job.

0:42:19 Eli: Right.

0:42:32 Eli: It's the best. Oh.

0:42:58 Thomas: He said, he said, oh, well, well, you are a fag.

0:43:02 Tom: That's what He said to you? Holy shit, why?

0:43:03 Eli: Right.

0:43:04 Thomas: Yeah. And here's the thing about this. This had no effect on me. Like to the point where I actually didn't remember that. And it was my brother who told me that, reminded me that it happened. Back when we first started talking about how shitty my dad was. So like when I was like 21 and out of college, I remember it sometime then when my brother had his daughter. Daughter, he, that's when he really started being like, all right, our dad is a piece of shit. I just had a kid and he didn't even like call or come or do or say anything, didn't do anything. And I was still a bit in the mindset where I was like, well, yeah, why would you, why Would he do that? Okay. What, what do you, yeah.

0:43:47 Tom: Would you acknowledge Your grandchild.

0:43:49 Thomas: Why are you complaining about?

0:43:46 Eli: Why Did you know your kid

0:43:50 Thomas: Yeah. What are you?

0:43:51 Eli: Finishes doing their first big experience, you call him a slur. This is just standard stuff. Oh, it's because he didn't call your baby a slur, is that why you're mad, you want to be you, how

0:43:53 Tom: That's probably why they were upset, you got it. Eli, that's it. Yeah, what slur would you have preferred for the baby? Do you have baby slurs picked out when you pick out your baby names?

0:44:00 Thomas: I I'm No. I think he should have

0:44:07 Tom: He

0:44:07 Thomas: Said like, oh, you're not gay. Because you did have a bit, yeah, um, but No, like, and I'm not joking, this isn't a bit, like literally that's the mindset, and I bet a lot of listeners will relate to it, that's the mindset you start to get with with someone like this, with a narcissist, like like all your all your thought patterns have to revolve around the other other person because they're this fucking, you malignant presence that's domineering everything. And so I was just like, yeah, why would he come?

0:44:10 Eli: Old old were when, when you did this first play? God.

0:44:37 Thomas: 15, I think.

0:44:38 Eli: God, that sucks so hard. That sucks so hard. It sucks at any age. It just sucks so hard, right?

0:44:45 Thomas: Yeah. And I remember when my brother started, you know, having this attitude about my dad, I Think the way I remembered it, and it sucks that he he doesn't remember. Cause I really wanted to ask him or get his story. The way I remember him telling me was that he started kind of confronting my dad and maybe it was just before this, I don't know, but confronting my Dad about, yeah, I dunno, being a piece of shit, I guess, or something. And I think he brought up that example of like, you know, why did you, like, why didn't you tell your son? Like, Oh, I, you guess you are a slur. You know, like why, why'd you do? And And my dad's response was like, well, yeah. What, what else, what do you expect me to say? Like, what are you, what, like he didn't understand, like, what else would I say in that? Yeah.

0:45:28 Tom: Couldn't even comprehend the yeah.

0:45:28 Eli: Had No. Idea. What the other expectation would be. Yeah.

0:45:30 Thomas: Like, yeah, like

0:45:30 Tom: The right Well, clearly if your son is into theater, then you obviously you call him a slur, that's that's what you do, right?

0:45:36 Thomas: I don't know what you expect. Me to say. And my brother said, I don't know. Good job. That's that's my recollection of that story. And I think it's pretty, but, but the other point I want to make about it was clearly I'm my dad's favorite.

0:45:52 Tom: So then right.

0:45:53 Thomas: Other I want to make about it. I swear I didn't remember, or it didn't affect me at the time. Cause I, I knew my expectations. My expectations were, yeah. Why would my dad care? Yeah. Why do you care? What is it? It didn't, but like, I don't know that that means it didn'T affect me. I think that that means the damage was already done. You know, like that was already long.

0:46:02 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:46:12 Tom: You were already emotionally disinvested enough that like it was like, oh yeah, whatever, fucking I'll throw a baseball with as many any fingers as I want, dad. Okay.

0:46:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, to the point where I did not know that, remember that happened until my brother told me that story subsequently. I was like, oh yeah, he did say that. I guess that was pretty shitty. And now as a parent, I'm like, what? What are you? Okay.

0:46:27 Eli: Yeah. See

0:46:32 Tom: So I made a note that that's not how I should talk to my favorite kid, so that's what I made to note yeah, don't yeah,

0:46:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:39 Eli: Yeah. No, the second kid, you can probably call a slur, but keep it, keep it to an old one, like wop, you know, some something, uh, maybe one for the Irish, mick, you know, throw that in there if you can, I, it's, yeah, it's, you know, one of the feedbacks, one of the pieces of feedback that we get about this show, or that I get about the show quite a bit, we got it at QED, um, and then I got it the Seattle live show that just happened in the timeline that we're in, um, is that one of things I love is that listeners listening to this show recognize that that their dads are shitty based on the stories you tell, Thomas. Like, several people will be like, yeah, man, I love Dear Old Dads. And I'm like, oh, it's so much fun to do. And they're like, no, here's the thing, though. What I realized is my dad fucking sucks. And I's

0:46:46 Tom: Jesus.

0:47:24 Tom: Oh.

0:47:24 Eli: Like, yeah. Yeah, whatever gets you there. Gentlemen, before we go, important question. Did you know that windmills work better when you play music for them? Yeah, turns out they're big metal fans.

0:47:24 Tom: God.

0:47:43 Tom: Just

0:47:45 Thomas: Yeah, uh,

0:47:50 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle and the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite dilf, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022, all rights reserved.

0:48:28 Thomas: Um, are you guys still there? Did I lose you? This is too boring, but sure, fine, yeah, You're back now. It's coming to the theater part, I promise.

0:48:30 Eli: No, we're still we're still here. I, I fell asleep when you were describing the difference between a change up and a fastball, but I'm back now. You

0:48:30 Tom: Yeah, yeah,