DOD150: Are We Allowed to Reinvent Ourselves?

Transcript

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

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad. That's my thing. I know now what I can offer you that no one else can. Complete and utter dependence. I'm a man. I'm sensitive. I need to feel loved. I need to be desired.

0:00:22 Clip: Telling is the only part of being a father that I enjoy.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's just trying to be a hair better today than yesterday. I'm Tom Curry, I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Thomas: The apple corporation has some notes on your intro tom they yeah we just got an email oh

0:00:39 Eli: Hello? I'm so sorry, uh, Tom. If you're listening on the Apple apps, it's actually supposed to say, um, it is a juicin' day for that sweet, sweet AirPod buzzo. Um, don't know what that means.

0:00:56 Thomas: Wait I could so patreon

0:00:57 Tom: I don't... what?

0:00:57 Thomas: Is using the apple store as a pretense to screw us over could I use it hey oh got an mail guys from apple store they say rip into it can't use it anymore none of their apps can have rip into to it

0:01:07 Eli: Here's, is the thing. Thomas, here, first of all, rip into it will never die. That's why, RIP rip into it.

0:01:12 Tom: Did we trademark or copyright that yet?

0:01:15 Eli: We, you can't copyright rip into to it because it is the motto of uh st luke's charity for wayward boys but after that when they're done using it yeah um it's it's very upsetting it's true no so I actually used this on a plane the other day exactly what you're talking about so they got on and they were like hey everybody the overhead bands are all full so we you gotta check your bags here because we're fucking liars and they Were checking everyone's bags and they came up to me and

0:01:11 Thomas: What

0:01:15 Tom: What did... we've

0:01:23 Thomas: What the fuck are you talking about what

0:01:44 Eli: They were like oh I gotta check your bag and I was like oh I'm so sorry but it's policy we're actually not allowed to check check our bags and she was like fine see if they have room for it in there and they did they were just like oh it's a policy yep didn't ask my answer was gonna be Eli Bosnick yep but here's

0:01:45 Tom: We're liars.

0:01:53 Thomas: Wait policy of what you just use the it's policy wow yeah

0:01:53 Tom: Wait, what? You just said it was policy oh not you use the you're not allowed to beat your kids here thing whoa

0:02:04 Eli: Here's a thing airlines are so used to that fucking I'm a good member of the Nazi party apologetic bullshit that they were Like oh you too huh well if If it's the policy, I mean, that's why we stranded that single mother in Florida while her baby was dying. So, yeah, if it's a policy, I guess there aren't rules.

0:02:20 Eli: We don't have to put you on a plane and take you to a place because it's the policy. So, yeah, if you have a policy just put your bag on the Lithuanian woman next to you.

0:02:25 Thomas: What do you do when there's two competing policies I don't know how you would ever yeah you

0:02:30 Tom: You a policy off obviously you have to have yeah it's

0:02:32 Eli: I Yeah, it's more turgid.

0:02:32 Thomas: Have to find a third party that has a policy that says like a tiebreaker policy so

0:02:37 Tom: Got to get to a policy thunderdome is what you've got to do and you gotta it's obviously two policies enter one policy leaves it's that thing yeah

0:02:39 Thomas: Here's the weird thing there's no way we can not talk about because I gentlemen so I we record on monday early in the morning just fucking early ass in the moring you guys have no idea oh you're on east coast so you know it seems like it's not early it

0:02:51 Eli: Crack a noon. Yeah. Hey, what time is it on the west coast they're uh fucking

0:02:58 Thomas: I can't even and 5 a.m. I can't even, I don't even know. It's so early. I can't see the clock's too dark. I don' t even know so dare

0:03:01 Eli: Is that it I recorded on thomas's time last week for the first time and realized how not early it is because you have to podcast listener you get thomas at a fucking a game hey what's going on it's me the t -dog rip rip rip rip into it when he first gets on the line with us he's like a cartoon bear being woken up by a friendly skunk just no or

0:03:24 Thomas: You? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, to make matters worse, here I am trying to, you know, I procrastinated a little last night but by procrastinating, I mean played with the kids and actually tried to, You know, have a family and that kind of thing, which it, yes, yes. Literally. Yes. And then I go to start to, OA because I got an OA due and I get five minutes in and I hit a fever and I start fucking like not being able to do it because so that sucks because I really had to get this episode out. And So I took a bunch of ibuprofen, slept for a bit, stayed up all night, finishing it, not all night stayed up until like three finishing it. And Then I get woken up by by Screamy Smith, uh, still screams for every second of every day about anything. And no matter, I'm, my body's somewhat used to it. Screamly wakes me up and then I wake up at about 7am and I'm like, well, I can snooze a little bit until our early recording time of 10am. Uh, I get an email from from Patreon saying that, hey, you um, guys as app developers that you are, you're now subject to apple's app rules because you guys are all app developers and we don't have to talk about it now but like you one of those things where you're like oh guess I'm not going back to sleep so I've been on a couple hours of sleep and I'm exhausted and that's

0:03:39 Eli: They call it in the smith household wasted time

0:04:38 Thomas: That's gonna be how I am

0:04:39 Eli: The only way that I sort can of uh it forward to those in the list audience who aren't victims of patreon the way we are victims of patrion is if you work in computers or computer programming you know when someone pushes code without proper authorization and you shut down all the airplanes in the universe that's what it's like to be a podcaster on patreon except it's just a douchebag in a stupid hat right it's not a company it's not a thing a guy named jack who I have spoken to quattro the timos just occasionally walks into the room in what I assume is a bathrobe and he's like hey guys what if we don't let people watch videos I'm gonna skateboard out of here zoom and

0:04:55 Thomas: We all saw that a second ago yeah oh wow oh

0:05:26 Eli: Look I love you all so much but you boycott too easy you boy caught too fast last time these idiots came up with a bad idea we had like 10 % of our patrons who were like in strong solidarity with the sexy foxes I will will takeaway the way Eli's son eats relax okay just relax they're probably going to take it back. If they don't take it back, we'll tell

0:05:46 Thomas: Don't fucking boycott patreon I love that hey in solidarity we're gonna um get rid of your income and you're like cool man

0:05:48 Eli: Please don't do anything.

0:05:47 Tom: Don't stop using patreon yeah I'm so offended for you that you are now bankrupt yeah great thank you don't do that what

0:05:56 Eli: And it's always meant well. I really know that it's meant well and let me be clear. They're not doing anything problematic, right? If you want to go and boycott someone who's doing it's not a problem. They didn't fuck a shark like Jimmy John, right. They're just a normal idiots doing idiot stuff. Jimmy

0:06:06 Thomas: I'm tom do you understand half the things eli says what

0:06:09 Tom: I don't ever understand anything he refers to what

0:06:11 Eli: John of Jimmy John sandwiches fucked a sharp. And if you're You're telling me right now I want

0:06:15 Thomas: The fuck are you I

0:06:15 Tom: Are you saying right now you can't fuck a shark I'm

0:06:17 Thomas: Know

0:06:19 Eli: John fucked a shark and then compose compose that apology right now, Tom and Thomas?

0:06:24 Tom: I'm literally jimmy john I'm gonna fucked a shark all

0:06:29 Eli: Did it autofill?

0:06:31 Thomas: Some guy fucked a dolphin right I don't know about sharks that

0:06:33 Tom: Right the first thing that comes up is a very questionable reddit that I'm not clicking on

0:06:38 Thomas: From user eli underscore bosnick fucking a

0:06:41 Tom: There's a vice article from 2017 did the founder of jimny john sandwiches get naked and hump a dead shark and there is a picture

0:06:48 Thomas: Dead shark don't bury the lead come on wow this

0:06:52 Eli: There's a photograph.

0:06:51 Tom: He is on top of a shark I'm not there's

0:06:57 Eli: He wearing any clothes, Tom?

0:06:58 Tom: A dead ass naked man is on top of a shark I mean

0:07:02 Eli: Fucking that shark, Tom. I

0:07:01 Thomas: Is important I'm pretty glad we stopped the show for this because it is actually important of

0:07:08 Tom: Right so I happen to be like a little bit of a weird shark nerd no I no I've

0:07:11 Thomas: A shark fucker

0:07:13 Eli: Happen to fuck the occasional shark. Honestly, Tom, not the top ten weirdest thing I've found out about you if you fuck sharks.

0:07:20 Tom: All right if you're gonna fuck a shark first of all he's on its back you can't take a shark from the back I'm just saying like that's That's not anatomically possible. That's also like their skin is covered in something called dentricles, which are basically like tiny microscopic teeth. You can use shark skin as sandpaper actually. And in, in Japan, ancient sandpaper was made out of shark skin. So it is that rough.

0:07:29 Thomas: You got any missionary oof so shark fucking goes back a long way is what you're saying it is

0:07:46 Tom: Like I'm just saying, like, if you fuck a shark, like you've got some problem, you're going to have a chafey bad time. This is like sex on the beach. Like it's a lot of sand in places you don't need this is a bad this is a bad day he's

0:07:57 Thomas: Though and this is true the only way tom can come anymore so

0:08:00 Eli: It has been fucking the shark so

0:08:01 Tom: Need a lot of stimulation I'm his tan lines we do also have to talk about this man's tan lines they're very very upsetting

0:08:06 Eli: Very upsetting yeah it's he's I want you to picture jimmy john because everyone's like oh I didn't realize jimny john was like some kind of ripped like surfer bro or wild adventure guy no this man was pulled right out of the boardroom right stripped of his three -piece suit that he wears to school every day and then fucked a shark that's the tan lines are appropriate for what you you were picturing when I say CEO of Jimmy John's. Now, for those at home, I do have to point out, it's not Jimmy John. It's a police officer from upstate New York who had to go on Barstool Sports and be like, I'm the one fucking that shark.

0:08:43 Eli: It is not Jimmy Johns. But for, again, think about this. 2017, you're Jimmy Johns, you are worth $1 .7 billion, right? You make delicious sandwiches which is that make you fat, right? You have lived a pretty decent cancel -free life. You're not an asshole. Your charity is like checkers or some weird thing. And then your Tom walks in and is like, hey boss, everyone thinks you fucked a shark. And that becomes not your day, not your week. Your fucking financial quarter becomes, how do we, it's not though. I'm not, it'S just

0:09:18 Thomas: Okay, okay.

0:09:19 Eli: A fat white guy.

0:09:20 Thomas: I did not think that the key was going to be mistaken identity. I thought the whole thing was, no, I didn't inhale. You see, like, it was just, like I was skinny dipping. There was a shark. I wouldn't get hard. On a shark you know I thought there's gonna be a lot of those like explanations you know from the guy like I'm not even interested in sharks I've yeah but

0:09:40 Tom: I wouldn't even Even fuck a shark is what I said. That's different. It makes it different.

0:09:43 Thomas: No instead we get some guys like oh I definitely fuck that shark but I just want everyone to know i'mnotjimmyjohn

0:09:51 Tom: Would you ever set the record straight if you were the shark fucker and somebody else was taking the heat for it?

0:09:55 Eli: It's it mcswagon would a

0:09:56 Thomas: For a fee that guy how much did that guy get paid by jimmy john billion shark bucks

0:10:00 Eli: Billion 1 .7 billion dollars yeah a

0:10:03 Tom: He's getting a lot more than free smells for life. I'm just saying.

0:10:05 Thomas: He got

0:10:06 Eli: Hundred percent and

0:10:07 Thomas: Paid so much chum I don't know he's

0:10:10 Eli: Guys if you haven't seen look up jimmy john statement or jimny john press conference uh it's fucking great because it'S TIM WALLS RIGHT AND AGAIN JIMMY jump's not a bad guy like everyone who's a billionaire is a bad guy yada yada right but like generally speaking right among billionaire right aside from the fact that he shouldn't have accrued that much wealth he should spread it out among the populace which matters right just tim walls right he'S just a guy and too many people liked his subs and we gave him a mathematically impossible amount of money but he'S JUST A GUY you know this guy your dad was friends with this guy he was like yeah he's the head of jimmy johns and you were like nice to meet you mr johns and then you fucking went and played on the swings right and he's just there being like um there's a not nice picture uh but I it's not me and also eat fresh

0:10:23 Thomas: Not a bad billionaire like think

0:10:55 Eli: Or whatever our fucking catchphrase like he's just and it's also hey it's the only thing anyone will ever care about jimothy john for the rest of his fucking life they'll be like jimmy john's item one guy who made sandwiches item two fucked a shark question mark the

0:11:14 Thomas: Sucks so bad for Jimmy John is he definitely has people listening to this podcast and he's like, God damn it. Tom and Thomas didn't even know we were so successful with this campaign to erase this from people's memories.

0:11:23 Eli: Fact that you didn't know is insane to me because that's the yeah this

0:11:25 Tom: This is seven years old, too. Like this is like what it's like he's like okay I think we finally got the fuck the shark thing in our rear view are we good are we getting oh god it's back

0:11:30 Thomas: And then the light goes off on the desk. Fuck, sir. Somebody's ripping into it. We got to check out what this is.

0:11:38 Eli: I can't imagine what it's like to have a lived conscious experience where you haven't been walking around with the knowledge that jimmy john's 2016 was ruined by some guy who kind of looked like him yeah

0:11:50 Thomas: It happened in 2016. Oh, I'm sorry. There's a few other things that happened that year that, you know, kind of got distracted me a little.

0:11:56 Tom: I did have I did other things competing for my time in 2016 for sure hey is there anything worse than getting blamed for fucking a shark is

0:12:03 Thomas: Fucking a shark.

0:12:01 Eli: The best then fucking a shark being jimny john yeah being

0:12:06 Thomas: Is there anything worse than having a nice consensual fuck with a shark? Talk about shark

0:12:10 Eli: To fuck a shark and then still

0:12:08 Tom: There any worse than these tan lines I don't think

0:12:12 Eli: Still getting in trouble with it. Yeah, exactly. No, it's the auto ads. The auto ads interrupting your sexual experience of the shark of this podcast. But you can make those go away over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dance all spelled out. Yes, we still want you to support us on Patreon. And we want you not to listen to anyone who tells you otherwise unless, unless they are us. Hey, you know what? No, don't change anything about your experience at Patreon. Don't do anything if you are currently giving us money on Patreon. Take your phone, snap it in half over your knee, download every episode if you have to. Don't change that. But hey, if you're not giving us any money and you'd like to start, because I have a feeling we're going to need you to start when Twitter gets a hold of this one, you can support the show for a little dollar over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads. You'll get extended commercial free versions of every show, little parenting story at the end bonus episodes we got through an entire AMA question sheet and we've done movie reviews and I did dinner party questions which many people are calling the greatest bonus episode

0:12:25 Thomas: Week. Yeah, and don't use the app.

0:13:25 Eli: Of all time it was a year ago it was different time a different place and we didn't know about Jimmy John fucking that shark check it out over at patreon.com forward slash deer

0:13:25 Thomas: That was like a year ago. Could do it again, though. Yeah. We need money. Don't make me put on a sexy shark outfit and try to be a sex worker and try to get a billionaire to, okay.

0:13:41 Eli: That's so appealing don't make

0:13:44 Thomas: Maybe I do want to do that, but okay.

0:13:44 Eli: It sound of awesome you can

0:13:45 Thomas: I can also do that and give us money on Patreon.

0:13:47 Eli: Also go to onlyfans.com slash dear old dads sex tree shark dance patreon.com forward slash dearoldads re -e -e e -e e -ep into it yeah it's the best part of the show it's best part everyone turns it off after that you know the little iTunes

0:14:04 Thomas: It's Lydia's favorite thing, by the way. She loves it so much. Eli has stolen both our wives, Tom. He has, he's done it. The memes and the rip into it. He's got them.

0:14:14 Eli: First he

0:14:11 Tom: I know had to rip into it

0:14:15 Eli: Came for the memes then he came for the rip into it haircut

0:14:19 Thomas: We had such a delightful, nice, wholesome, interesting episode plan. And then Patreon had to go and ruin it by fucking that shark or whatever happened in the first act. I don't remember.

0:14:28 Eli: My god I wish Jake would fuck a shark that would be the best part of my year every year if that could just be the surprise one year cuz every year it's got a little present hey Eli what if you couldn't make a living anymore surprise mm

0:14:32 Thomas: Jack, Jack Conti or whatever. The best thing about Jack Conte is he started as a YouTube musician, right? And he had these he had an interesting idea that was like, well, do you do a video song where it shows you playing all the instruments? And it's like, oh, OK, cool. That's a cool idea. The songs kind of suck though is the thing it's like yeah that's that's great I like seeing you do the instrument but the songs themselves are just real boring man they're just real real boring but that's jack for you and now he's a bajillionaire ruining our lives okay um so I wanted to talk about something and we it was inspired by a phoebe thing but also I thought it would be a good chance to do not exactly a parenting one because you want everyone want to listen to the show I do anyway um fuckers and non -shark fuckers alike and I think this is also

0:14:57 Eli: -hmm it's bad personally I don't want racists to listen to our show but that's just me Thomas. Um, maybe I'm crazy. Check out my new Patreon, The Better Dear Old Dads. Losing it, folks.

0:15:36 Thomas: Well they they feel like subjecting them to auto adds is I'm doing activism actually so um So Phoebe was getting haircut the other day. And Lydia, I guess, was showing her pictures. Like, she was trying to decide what haircut she wants. And this for me, this is such a heavy, scary concept to think about. Like Like a girl's haircut is pretty important to that. Like that's their whole look. That's going to be their thing. She's getting, you know, she's going into second grade. She's gotten to the point where it's like more, a little more conscious of what she, you know? Like how she looks all the time. I mean, she already very, let's face it, extremely conscious of how everyone looks at her all the time, but like it used to be when they were five, you just chop their hair off with some fucking lawn shears and no one cares. And it's cool haircut done. Done. Now it's like, she's going to care if she gets a bad haircut. Um, and I also have zero input. I don't know how to help. I own hair is just an accident. Like somebody gave me a haircut and it looked fine. So that's what I do. And so I got nothing, but Lydia was showing her pictures and Lydia shows her, she tells me, she'S like, Hey, Phoebe might want to get this side cut thing. And I'm telling Lydia, I'm looking at Lydia. I'm like, you mean the haircut that I've wanted you to get since 2013 because somebody I don't know the dragon tattoo lady I don't somebody had you know that side cut that's

0:16:56 Eli: Are you talking about an undercut?

0:16:57 Thomas: Like the undercut whatever that thing is like there's different versions of it I love that haircut it's the best and watch your uh lips when eli bosnick um if you can't tell where this story is going and so this is a haircut it'S like the it'S the best tom you would you would like it I don'T know what the fuck Eli's talking about some weirdest

0:17:00 Eli: Jesus.

0:17:08 Tom: Wait what is it

0:17:13 Eli: It's a complaint about our podcast, The Haircut.

0:17:16 Thomas: It's you know Stormfront from the boys yeah you know she's really hot yeah it's the best and so I thought that was funny that was like Lydia never had the guts she never had to cojones to get the undercut despite me saying like yeah you should do it just do it doesn't matter just do it and then like she's gonna have uh Phoebe do it but at the same time it is like objectively the best haircut in my opinion and so it was like well that's cool cool. I felt weird. Doesn't that feel weird? Like she's going to have Phoebe do something she has the guts to do. And then I realized like, gosh, it's such an opportunity as a kid to you get to decide what your look is. If you have some amount of self -confidence and also control over your life, which I didn't as a child. And that gets to be your look. Like you get to just look cool. And let's say your whole thing. And I was wondering if you guys ever had that, like starting a new job or moving as a kid or anything where I realized one day when I transferred jobs and I think it was Lydia as well. No, that's right. Lydia was getting like a promotion. She's leaving the office, going to a new office. And this was actually, I think the undercut came up. I was like, Hey, you should do the undercut now. Cause Hey, day in new office. No one knows that you didn't always have that haircut. They just think that's you. They're like, wow, look at that undercut lady. She is so hot and cool. Like, did you guys ever do that? Did you ever have a feeling of, oh, I can remake myself or whether it's as a kid or as an adult, like a thing you thought like, oh this is a chance, a clean slate to try to like just adopt a new thing, you know?

0:17:20 Eli: Yeah, Google undercut, Tom. You'll see it.

0:18:41 Tom: I talked to the kids like especially the the older boys um and I talked or nanny about this too because she kind of has become like one of the kids too we talked to like I think you get certain opportunities in your life for exactly this this kind of invention and reinvention. And then as we get older, you if we settle into sort of, depending on the jobs we settle into, if you settle into sort of like the routine kind of life, it can be harder and harder to make those sort of big resets. We have like these times in our lives that are really opportunity based to do that. Like I tell the kids all the time, like, look, you you've got this window right now where you get to decide who to be. And like a through line in my entire like the blogs that I write for the boys, like a through line throughout all of them is like like intentional about that decision making process, because you've got this opportunity when you're young, especially to make conscious choices like I want to be a guy who's into this. I want To be a Guy Who Has This Look. I the difference between being sort of like accidental people people and intentional people

0:19:50 Thomas: I'm an accidental person for sure, for sure. I just imagine Eamon being like, hey, okay, I want to wear this fedora. You know, never mind. You actually can't reinvent yourself. You're who you are. You already are. No fedoras. Of course yeah I look great you

0:20:02 Tom: And I'll just yeah get an undercut instead so no absolutely not but nanny is going through a time in her life right now where she's going to have to make some pretty important life decisions we talk to her about these kinds of things and she's very likely to like leave and move to california and all this stuff. And I'm like, you got to go. I'm you don't do it now, other forces in your life will constrain you from doing it. This is the only time. I think it's really important to train the kids also to sort of recognize those opportunities because we pay bigger and bigger prices for them when we try to like seize those same opportunities as adults, depending on our life

0:20:40 Eli: Yeah. No, I think that's a really great idea. Some of us never change in any way, shape or form. We were a kid with messy hair in pajama pants and that hair fell out of our heads. So that was kind of a change.

0:20:52 Thomas: Remember remember that dating profile where you have cards and yeah you

0:20:58 Eli: And I didn't change. I'm the same person, identical person. Yeah, I would. If were some horrible tragedy to take place where I once again have to be on a dating profile, I'd be like, well, I probably need one with a sweet fan of cards so everybody knows to get good and gushy before our first date. You know I would hate for anyone not to understand yeah rawr I wonder if he knows about the sandpaper thing there's a lot of appeal there um yeah no I mean I think it's uh it's so funny because I had the exact opposite thought of like when you said like she was showing her pictures I was like god imagine making a choice when you go to get a haircut right

0:21:00 Thomas: Did that is still you that's true actually cut to a shark swiping left yeah yeah exactly same

0:21:41 Eli: My My haircut process since I was a child was just, can you make me look less bad? You know how there's a scale of bad to good that hair can be and nothing else? I'm in bad right now. So much so that an adult or after the age of 18, myself, has brought me here to pay you whatever you ask. I have no idea and I've completely forgotten what you charge. But please take me from the bad part of the spectrum to the good part of the spectrum. And they're often the first or second time they see you, they're like, what do you want? And you're like from bad

0:21:41 Thomas: Same. Yep.

0:22:15 Eli: To good, please.

0:22:15 Thomas: Don't know, man. Yeah, I know. I hate how they ask me. I don't, dude, I don' know. Does the auto mechanic ask you like, hey, what, how should I fix your car? I don't know, man, tell me what the fix is. I don't know. Do it. Forever

0:22:18 Tom: Did

0:22:26 Eli: You get in there, you fix the car, you charge me. And that's, and that is why we, after that second time, when you just start taking me from bad, the good, you will be my barber until the day one of us dies. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited because my barber is healthier and younger than me. So she will literally be my barber until I cease to exist. And you know what? Maybe afterwards she does a little touch -up for the funeral. That might be fun. Huh?

0:22:50 Tom: I ever tell you guys the story about the barber my dad took us to for like a million years let me tell you a quick barber quick story my dad had a barber no this is this funny that probably doesn't help okay so anyway my

0:22:58 Eli: Second, let me be prepared. Okay. Oh, God. I'm not less nervous.

0:23:00 Thomas: Boy I think if you go to the card I made go to the orange code I think based on that last

0:23:08 Eli: Orange coat. Coat orange. Coat Orange. Yeah.

0:23:09 Tom: Dad, this is yellow. I promise this is code. It may be even like, just like a dark green, dark

0:23:13 Eli: Don't know what the coat should

0:23:10 Thomas: I'm getting to red if he says yellow magenta I'm more in magenta now

0:23:17 Tom: So my dad had the same barber. He a barber named Ted that he started going to when he was a very, very young man. He was like a teenager. And this is when we lived in Chicago. So we used to live by over by Midway airport. And that's he went to that guy forever. Then And when I moved in with my dad, my dad took us to Ted, like, right. You You know, like you just take your kid to your barber. He took us to Ted. Ted was not a good barber. Ted was an objectively terrible barber. So my dad, when we were kids, my dad would come in and he'd be like, yeah, we're all getting the same haircut. My dad was in born 1947. They gave every boy the same exact haircut from 1947 to 1958, right? So got dad's haircut.

0:23:51 Thomas: They had one haircut it's been amazing when scientists discovered a second haircut must have been pretty big big news. Nobel Prize.

0:24:00 Tom: Wasn't by Ted, I'll tell you that. That ted did not make that discovery the discovery ted made was that every time you cut hair you could with the scissors clip our ears with the scissors not occasionally guys every time one of us or sometimes all of us who are sometimes two out of the three of us would walk out with a band -aid on our ear because ted would snip our fucking ear with this is every time my dad thought this was was the funniest fucking thing right when he he would get caught he'd be fucking bleeding or whatever and he just thought it was hilarious so we were just sort of like you know my dad was like hey I need you to sit quietly sit still get a haircut you know he was not like really putting up with a lot of like squirming from kids and like complying complaining so like we would sit there and

0:24:34 Thomas: That's so funny. It's really funny.

0:24:44 Eli: Being a child. Yeah, sure.

0:24:46 Thomas: Yeah, I need you to not move while this guy assaults you with scissors. Thank you. Yeah ears falling.

0:24:49 Eli: Stabs you.

0:24:50 Tom: There'd be like snip snip snip slip snip and you see the hair falling and And you'd be like, ah, and then, you know, like a little piece of your ear would come off and you'd be like. Ah, do you be all quiet? Like, okay, just, that's probably normal. I and like, you're kind of bleeding and it's like, Oh, got got little Nick there. And he'd take out like some horrible thing and put it on your ear that stung like a bitch. And then, bothered by his lack of competence at hair cuttery at all.

0:25:15 Thomas: You would have to not be bothered to continue to saw actually stab kids cut off kids yeah jesus

0:25:18 Eli: To be that. Yeah yeah.

0:25:20 Tom: So my dad built one year for just as a joke he went to the halloween store and he got a bloody ear and he like made this wooden plaque and he put the bloody ear on the plaque and it said ears lowered 25 cents and he gave it to ted and ted hung it in the barber shop where like blood collected like a fucking abattoir on the floor from all because presumably he didn't only like nick the curry family

0:25:37 Eli: Hell yeah.

0:25:38 Thomas: Christ oh

0:25:46 Eli: Right. It wasn't just the curry men who got the treatment. Yeah yep.

0:25:49 Tom: Everybody was no like shortage of business my dad went to this guy for haircuts until this fucking guy died my dad moved I'm not exaggerating he moved out of the city 40 some miles into the suburbs anytime he needed a haircut probably only car we're going to see ted we drove our asses an hour and a half one way to go see ted until that fucker died my

0:26:07 Thomas: God jesus

0:26:12 Eli: Obviously. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna find a new barber.

0:26:16 Tom: When he died I was already like this was only a handful of years ago maybe 10 years ago that this guy died my dad's like hey uh ted died and I was like I were you still going to ted and he's like oh yeah like what are you gonna do and he said I I don't have any idea I

0:26:23 Thomas: Christ have

0:26:32 Eli: Gonna never get my haircut again.

0:26:32 Thomas: Ears yeah

0:26:33 Tom: I don'T KNOW WHERE HE GETS HIS HAIR CUT NOW I know someplace presumably that that doesn't butcher your face when you're trying to get hair an job

0:26:40 Eli: You think your dad like finishes the haircut at the place he is now and he's like I'm sorry I got kind of a weird request. Will you Will you stab me in the ear with those scissors? I'm just, um, I miss an old friend.

0:26:48 Thomas: I wonder if that's how your dad could tell how old each of you was just like count the notches in the

0:26:57 Eli: Count

0:26:56 Tom: Just count yeah count the notches in our ears like rings

0:26:57 Eli: The nachos. Yeah, exactly. Like they do with seals and sharks and shit. Yeah, Exactly. We've been tracking the curry boys for a while now. Maybe that guy had a YouTube thing like that lobster guy was like, Oh, this is a big old fucking curry I got right here. We're going to give him a snack.

0:27:09 Thomas: Maybe so when they found your body in a snapping turtle the scientists could could be like, hey, this is one we tagged. This is one of ours.

0:27:19 Tom: We just got the la's got

0:27:21 Thomas: Yeah. I think that maybe this isn't relatable to Eli because I don't know, you probably were raised with a self-esteem or something. But I've always had a feeling and I know a lot of the listeners are gonna be the same way that like, I'm not allowed to do that. You know, I don't know why. It's bullshit, of course, but it's like, nah, I get to reinvent. That's why I have no tattoos. I'm not cool enough have to have two you know who has tattoos cool people I'm not not a cool person people are like oh you get the tattoos and then you become cool yeah but nah I would know you know I

0:27:21 Tom: The ear yeah yeah I wouldn't know. I

0:27:54 Thomas: Think I think I'd walk into the tattoo parlor and they would just point at me no no no shoot go

0:27:54 Tom: Think Like the fraud alarm would go off.

0:28:00 Eli: Are you a cop you're

0:28:01 Thomas: On get Yeah. Yeah. What are you, a cop?

0:28:03 Eli: A cop here to arrest us for our cool secret illegal tattoos we give

0:28:08 Tom: Sir, tattoos are for cool people. Did you not see it at the door? You, you should be at the Jimmy John's down the street. This isn't for you here. Here.

0:28:15 Eli: I'm going to walk towards him towards you you're going to talk towards me we're both going to turn in the same direction I need you to handle that in a cool way that's what I thought get out of my tattoo parlor yeah you're gonna have to not say oh we're dancing that's right you said it all right get out of my tattoo parlor yeah um it's funny it is not relatable to me but it was very relatable tome when I was a kid because I was aware that the cool kids dressed a certain way and had their hair cut a certainway and when I was a child I uh before I hardened I was often trying to imitate that so like I remember it's so funny I Because our drama teacher in high school was like a cool guy. And I, and me. And so I was like, I'm wearing pajamas. And my parents just lived lives of the mind. So they couldn't, as much as they adored me and supported me and whatever. Like, didn't have the book on how kids have their hair.

0:29:10 Eli: Right? They were just like, I don't know, your mother dresses like that and I dress like this. Do you want either of those? No? I don't really know what to tell you. Ask around so I asked my drama teacher who was like a cool guy who dressed cool and he was like yeah go out and get some hair gel like told me what hair gel was because again no one in my family uses hair gel no one of my family uses like product right I'm sure my mom uses like lady I'm aware of purple bottles in my childhood home that I was not given access to but I don't fucking dad was like you see that big white bottle head and shoulders if you don't use it every day your your head snows and then people are like gross. So I use that one. And I was like, you got it pops. Right. So like, I had just had no idea. I remember the teacher showing me and I did it for like one or two days and I got the, I remember. And it's, it's such a mortification for me where several people were like, Oh, so you're trying to do like a cool thing now. And then I was just

0:30:03 Eli: Like, oh, right.

0:30:03 Tom: That's the problem.

0:30:04 Thomas: That's what the guy at the tattoo parlor said.

0:30:07 Eli: And they didn't mean it badly. Right again, they were like look at you truck. Cause I remember I got a button down button-down shirt like a cool button-down shirt and jeans I had jeans my first pair of jeans and I was just like these don't have a stretchy waistband what about when your tum -tum hurts and they were like I think that's just how people dress and I was like craziness right put all the clothes on I wore it to school and everyone was like look eli's dressed like a cool like eli's wearing a costume they were waiting for the bit right in the middle of the the day where I like tore all of it off and was me underneath. And I just realized like, not only do I not deserve whatever this thing is, but I'm not capable of it. Everyone knows who I am. And this is the thing, right? This is the like thing that speaks to what you're talking about Thomas, right. Because I've never felt I could change anything about myself because who I am deep inside would always leak through right could say anything at a new job

0:31:02 Thomas: There you go. You get it.

0:31:03 Eli: But eventually they'll figure out I'm me and they'll be like hey when we first met you why did you do that stupid lie where you pretended

0:31:11 Thomas: The catchphrase where you said rip into it, right? When?

0:31:14 Eli: Exactly why did you say like rip into it or care about sports or whatever thing you did like I if I don't come in exactly as I am I've just started a relationship on a lie and then the relationship is just how do I back away from the lie I told in the desperate attempt not to be me which was I will say most of my formative years right because not only did I try to take that opportunity I I took it in the most buck wild way right but no because see phoebe's doing this great thing right she gets a little cute little undercut and she gets the twitter and she's like actually it's hoopsed and you're like like oh yay right this is like adorable right she's finding a new expression of herself

0:31:35 Thomas: So you do get it. How dare you? It's not the Karen haircut. What do you think? Do you think it's that? Fucking

0:31:54 Eli: It is our generation's karen haircut absolute 100

0:31:57 Thomas: Just how dare you. How dare You?

0:31:58 Eli: But it's just fucking calling out of subway sandwich for being appropriative or something really chicken teriyaki sauce that's what that haircut is anyways the point is she's doing doing something wonderful. She's expressing a genuine thing about herself. I, besides these basketball shorts and shirts with pugs on them, everything I have ever worn that isn't this has been a lie that that eventually falls away.

0:32:01 Thomas: How dare YOU? Dare YOu? A lie. Yep.

0:32:25 Tom: Think like a really unique experience with this. So think like when I was growing up as a Gen X kid, And maybe it's maybe that's continued forward. But like, I confused very much the idea of authenticity with indifference. There was an idea, I think, that like if you were seen to care about something, that that caring reflected an inauthentic space. Right. So like that made it really hard to to an aesthetic, a personal aesthetic that looked especially as a guy that looked like you put any thought or effort into it. Right. You were you were 100 percent locked into whatever you did first, because any change would be the signal to everybody, not of like, hey, I just have different aesthetic choices, but it would be a signal to anybody that you care and caring is inauthentic or it's try hard or it's like, you know, it's not some reflection of who you actually are. So like I had this really like, you very basic jeans a concert shirt was like what I wore from the time I was like 14 until I was in my like late to mid 20s, you

0:33:32 Eli: Hell yeah, King. I was going to say until two years after I met you.

0:33:41 Tom: That was fucking straight up like locked down and also went through like a long period of time where I didn't care at all about how I look like I didn'T care how my body looked I didn't care how I dressed I shaved my hair because it was easier than dealing with it and it's funny because like nobody ever like raised it like why are you doing this you seem like you don't you know that never happens right it never happens and it wasn't until like I got to a point in my life that really like was a midlife crisis if I'm calling it an honest thing but I called it the big reset where I kind of came to a realization that like, actually, I can reinvent any part of my life and I can reinvent how my body looks and I could reinvent the clothes that I like to wear and I can reinvent. I can reinvent everything. And that realization was really transformative for me. When you're an adult, like kind of my point before, you pay a lot of prices potentially for those sort of big reinvention moments. You pay a lot less when you're younger, which is why I try to encourage the kids to make those realizations while the opportunity costs are lower. But like, it was a huge transformative sort of understanding for me that like, hey, wait a minute, I can make all kinds of reinventions in myself. I can decide who I am in this really conscious and intentional way. And what was funny is that all the anxieties I had about being perceived as inauthentic when I I made all these changes none of them were real all

0:33:42 Thomas: Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:10 Tom: Of that was bullshit internalized nonsense literally none of that is real

0:35:10 Thomas: 100%.

0:35:16 Eli: Mean I was a little sad I saw it because I was here for the you'll have to understand tom used to look like a koopa troopa right like the first time I met tom he was just waddling towards mario right side long waiting to get hopped on and I remember specifically one time because like men don't do like the you've lost weight thing right I knew you were as fat as I'm fat and I liked that right I was like hey tom and cecil are fat I remember at one point you guys were like we're working out now and I was like yuck gross don't do that but I remember very specifically because it was when you met hayley you had the cut in your beard you know how guys have like a line on their beard where it's like a lie where the beard it's not just how a beard grows it's they've made a choice about how their beard grows and I Was like yeah

0:35:59 Thomas: Like like the edging in your lawn you know like you've actually

0:36:02 Eli: And I WAS like oh tom's like hot now uh which was reinforced by your smoking hot soon-to-be wife being like hello tom and I I was like right okay fair yep nope this is all this is ultra and it's so funny because until you talked about it on this show I think I had just changed the timeline to be the only acceptable one in the toxic male mind which is when a fat guy marries a hot lady she turns him hot right which is you've

0:36:26 Tom: Like when you and I first met in person I had had already been working out for years and had lost weight you seen me like probably on video and stuff and because I I just made a decision about I the clothes I was going to wear and I've made many what's been freeing about that and and again I do talk openly to the kids about some of this stuff is that I've continued to make other different choices I'll be like yeah actually like I'm going to try out this different look I'm gonna try out that different look you can just do that especially with aesthetic choices whenever you want and like I've thought very much about like oh actually you know what I personally like my body to look this way and so I'm gonna make a bunch of choices in my nutrition and my plans and whatever to make my body look thisway because I like it I enjoy that about myself it's I I don't know that we sort of speak as openly like in explicit terms as men to be like yeah I actually want a certain look this is something I want to look like and and he and I'll ask other people too in my circle hey where did you buy that jacket a do do you have somebody that you get your clothes from where do you shop for that and it's amazing like dudes are really

0:37:16 Thomas: Hey

0:37:28 Eli: Never asked me that tom how come you don't want my source for but you

0:37:30 Thomas: Where where do you get those basketballs which target location

0:37:33 Eli: A punk shirt guy

0:37:31 Tom: I yeah what funny though is like Like when you engage that conversation, again, all the anxieties I had growing up about like, oh, guys aren't going to want to talk. They do want to talk about it like they do. They're happy to. I've never been like, hey, where'd you get? That's a great fucking, you sport coat or whatever. Like they're like, Oh, yeah, I got this guy. He's over here. Like they do wantto talk about that stuff. They are anxious to have those conversations about aesthetics. Like I've turned my people onto my barber before. Like, oh yeah, got a great barber. Let's go. So so those are all conversations that I think we have a lot of like bullshit anxieties as men about engaging and like the way that that intersects with like our ideas of indifference and authenticity and all of it's fake. Like none of that is real. It's all bullshit.

0:38:15 Thomas: It's so funny it's when I think back I don't know how how know exemplary I am or whatever but like when I Think back it's just the cool kids did what the cool Kids did and think one time I was like, oh, I wanted to get something. They all had basketball jerseys, and I convinced my mom to give me a basketball jersey. I was, like, this is the best. This is going to be the best, a basketball jersey. And I was, like, no, this was just me, but with this article of clothing.

0:38:39 Eli: I'm just wearing a basketball jersey

0:38:40 Thomas: It doesn't really change anything. But I Phoebe got the haircut. It looks amazing, and Eli is insulting my child. And, yeah, yeah.

0:38:42 Eli: Can I'm look I'm trying to hold her in the light and look she's gonna call me out enough okay she's going to jump on the facebook group she's going to write a 19 paragraph essay about how problematic it is for me to call out her haircut so no

0:38:50 Thomas: She looks great. No she's not absolutely not it's really sexist uh because actually I all the complaints come from dudes no

0:39:00 Eli: I hate men with that haircut too don't worry buddy

0:39:02 Thomas: No it it's it so nice because like she just she looks great she loves it and I kind of want to I think tom maybe this is what you're saying toward the end there I I'm hoping to give her or to help her with the mentality that just makes that not really even a thing you know like I don't want to be so fraught like it's one thing like the next stage of progress is like well yeah it's fine you can you this you can take on a new look if it were me for example and it would still be like oh I guess I can allow myself to do it But whereas I hope that, you know, maybe my kids will just feel like, oh, maybe I'll try this different look and doesn't matter. I don't know.

0:39:36 Eli: It speaks to the wonderful environment because I know I know you've talked about like the difficulties you deal with with all the kiddos and and phoebe a little bit as well but like what a wonderful environment you've created that she felt the courage to do that and that she's in a safe home to dothat right because like thomas I know if you had tried something like that based right on just what you've said right that would have been the you know the joke of the year at the smith household that you dared ask for a haircut that was anything different and the The fact that you've created that environment for her where she feels safe doing that, where she feels comfortable doing that in comparison to like, even Tom, right. Who's got a really good mindset about it now has to at least acknowledge like, yeah, no, I had these deep seated fears about wearing a button down shirt and me today won't do it. I Right. Know right now we're all talking like, Eli, you can dress however you want. No, I fucking can't.

0:40:31 Tom: Well, you of speak to that also, like one of the things and I was just talking about this with Aislinn like yesterday when we went to the movies. One thing that I've written about and I've talked to the kids a lot about that I think is really freeing is like really helping the kids understand that for the most part, they are joyfully invisible to everybody else. Else you know I'll give you a quick example like aislinn had were going to the movies we just went and saw uh the new twister movie by the way literally terrible it's unbelievably bad

0:40:58 Thomas: Is that out? Oh, I can't wait.

0:41:00 Eli: It's so good, good, bad. I got a screener of it and I literally watched it twice. They do a thing where you're like, if you're a critic and you need a second viewing of this at the director's guild. And I was like, I am a critic. It's very important. I get to watch twisters twice, all

0:41:15 Tom: So she was unhappy with her look that morning so she hadn't like you to go out so she was not happy with her hair and her look and what I was explaining to her well I was like hey few weeks ago do you remember we went to the movies a few weeks ago she's like yeah and I was like can you describe anybody else from the movies that we went through a few week ago she was like no you don't remember anybody and she's like no not one person no and I'm like nobody remembers you either we are invisible

0:41:21 Eli: Covered in mustard.

0:41:44 Thomas: You don't matter, kid. Why even here?

0:41:46 Tom: I was trying to explain is like we're joyfully invisible which gives us so much freedom we think all the time that we are super visible in memorable ways that are not true and that creates this anxiety like in us that we are constantly performing for other people to see and consume and remember when the truth is like nobody remembers you just like you don't remember anybody else

0:42:10 Thomas: But you got to think like a kid, though, because what mattered to me as a kid was the 30 kids in my class that I saw every single day. That's a little different because you do remember what they wear and what they do.

0:42:17 Tom: But is different it it but I'll tell you what like you remember what they wear only in like how it intersects with you So for the most part, at least my feeling is, for the most part we remember like, oh I want to get a shirt like that remember in covetous more than we remember in critical ways what other people wear. Kids to understand that is actually really freeing. For the most part people are not, they don't remember this stuff and all you have to do to bring it home to them is ask them like, hey what did somebody in your class wear last thursday and they don't for the most part remember

0:42:39 Eli: That's so wonderful. And,

0:42:53 Thomas: I don't know man I think this maybe only applies to dudes at all I just don't think this applies to girls at all and I think that Phoebe is going to have a no I don'T I think they care way about what each other is wearing

0:43:02 Tom: You don't I I mean I know they they do care more where but like I don't think that they remember or are remembered their I think we are more self -involved and self -absorbed than we are externally involved and externally absorbed so like our worries and anxieties are about how others see us more than we're spending our time and energy seeing other people

0:43:27 Eli: And even if that's not the case, right. I love that mindset. Right. And I will say like, so for me, right, cause I'm always roasting in my head. It'S just that that's not my experience, right? I walk through life just being like, here's a mean thing I could say about that lady's outfit. Here's a main thing I can say about the guy's outfit, look at that guy's car. Here is the joke I would make about that guy's. It's just a constant, you know how people describe depression as having a person in your head who hates you? Mine is having a person in my head who hate everybody else. So like, that wouldn't work on me, right, because you'd be like, Eli, you do remember anyone from the movies? And I'd be, like, oh yeah the guy with the tooth and you'd be like all right never mind but like but my mental illness aside and I can't honestly that should be the catchphrase the second only to rip into it here on Dear Old Dads eli's mental illness aside that is such a great mindset that is such a thing and I love that you're passing that along to your kids because the truth is the most effortlessly cool people I know are the ones who are just doing their thing right

0:44:31 Eli: Way of being cool or that I will never be in a million years but want so badly and and kind of sort of see a little bit in my son right is this like not give a fuck attitude of what's going on but in a peaceful in way right because mine is so effective mine is like look I'm wearing basketball shorts and a t -shirt because I don't care but I deeply do care so please like me and don't be threatened by what I'm with but like that actual like I look nice nice, because this is what I like. That's what you're passing along in that moment. And that's what Lydia passed along to Phoebe in that moment, right? This moment that like the first person they should check in with, and again, maybe this won't ring true for anybody but me, but like the notion that the first person that they should check in to is about how they want to look and dress and feel is themselves, is such a radically wonderful gift to give to our loved ones and something that we should be trying to reinforce as dads. Hats all right gentlemen before we go what do you call a snowman with a six -pack an abdominal snowman oh

0:45:48 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 in 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

0:46:28 Eli: It is a juicin' day for that sweet, sweet AirPod buzzo. Um, They didn't fuck a shark like Jimmy John, right. They're just a normal idiots doing idiot stuff. Jimmy

0:46:35 Thomas: Tom do you understand half the things eli says what

0:46:39 Tom: I don't ever understand anything he refers to what

0:46:42 Thomas: Somebody's ripping into it. We got to check out what this is.