DOD199: The Smiths Take Manhattan

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 honor dependent. 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.

0:00:29 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's something, something New York, New York. I'm not sure. I've joined as

0:00:35 Thomas: From New York. It's, yeah, I don't know.

0:00:39 Tom: Hosted by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:43 Eli: It's me, Mary Poppins, the greatest nanny of them all. Yes, you've

0:00:48 Tom: I kind of had you pegged for more of a Mrs. Doubtfire. I got hard Mrs.

0:00:55 Thomas: I I thought thought that was the voice you were doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, we agree. We're have that in the contract. Tom and I are revising your joke by a two vote majority that you're doing. You're actually doing Mrs. Doubtfire. So if if you could please take that again.

0:01:08 Tom: We've got a buzzer system that's just between the two of us. If both the lights light up.

0:01:10 Eli: If Counterpoint, I stole the podcast.

0:01:13 Thomas: Eli loves joke critiques. It's his favorite thing.

0:01:16 Eli: It's my favorite. I love it.

0:01:18 Tom: Are his favorite. I send him a list of AI generated notes on his comedy after every show. And that way we both kill ourselves. It's great. Yeah.

0:01:26 Eli: That's true yeah no everybody wins that's

0:01:27 Tom: Yeah, it's nice. It' really

0:01:28 Eli: Real it honestly feels that's what my audience relationship feels like right now it's just I get ai generated but it's not a good a it's like da vinci 2 right it's when they were like the new chat bot can say motherfucker yeah

0:01:43 Tom: Speaking of AI, I got and ad in my feed the other day for like a wearable, this is fucking crazy, for like wearable that you can get that is an always on AI microphone that connects to your chat GPT and basically transcribes and then summarizes your life so that if you are in classes or go to work meetings, things like that, it does all of that work. And at first I saw it and I was like, well, that's the creepiest possible thing, but I was maybe the kids in college.

0:01:53 Thomas: Oh my god. Holy shit. Huh? Yeah.

0:02:12 Tom: Would benefit from that. And then Haley and I talked and immediately we were both like, well, no, but like the act of taking notes is actually a really important cognitive learning step that like helps to solidify information.

0:02:19 Thomas: And I never did it. Yeah?

0:02:22 Tom: And I thought to myself, well I'm always in fucking meetings and taking notes and maybe this would be useful for me because I'm forgetful. And when I was like, it's also unbelievably creepy, like unbelievably creepy.

0:02:35 Thomas: First thought was that's unbelievably creepy. Then I was like, I almost just as a goof want to do it and then like not look at it until like, I don't know, 50 years from now. And they just have my whole days like transcribed.

0:02:45 Eli: Well, it's also just wildly inaccurate, too, right? Because like, yeah.

0:02:48 Tom: Oh, is it?

0:02:48 Thomas: It is.

0:02:49 Eli: So here's the thing, right. To remember that AI hallucination is still a tremendous percentage of AI. Right. So if it hears the wrong thing, if it says we're going to the grocery store to get Fred, it will not go. Oh, it probably means bread. It will go Fred. And then it will look at all your conversations and be like, well, Tom does have an uncle Fred. Remember to pick your uncle Fred up at six o 'clock. So you'll be sitting there at the fucking airport because your microphone moved a little too much. Like it's nowhere close to useful. We use it because were misbehaving on the Zoom at one of the colleges I teach at, literally.

0:02:56 Tom: That's fun.

0:03:29 Eli: Now you have to have the AI companion on, which means every. Time I use zoom I get an ai summary and like a fucking half listening teenage son was like hey dad whatever um so I guess you're like teaching or something also they programmed it to suck your dick I don't know when somewhere between three it's

0:03:50 Thomas: Yes. They absolutely did. No, I already know what you're you're talking about. I said this the other day. I remarked the chat GPT is too nice to me now. It's too positive. I've said this on no way. I don't know if you heard it, but you probably don't listen. It's okay. It is fine. I do not listen to every one of your shows. It is okay. We do not have to get into it. I was thinking, so I got some info from GPT and I was like, this is too nic. Bit was like if you know everything in the world and you are talking to some idiot like me, you ought to be a little condescending. I Like, I don't think it's, you not realistic.

0:03:58 Eli: Too positive it's

0:04:06 Tom: I'd even listen to this show. Oh, you want like a, like a dominatrix AI. That's what you want. You want one to, yeah, you won't want to like step on your balls a little, you know, like, yeah.

0:04:22 Thomas: No, I'm not saying that. That's a good bit, but I'm not saying that. No, I want

0:04:27 Tom: I get it.

0:04:27 Thomas: A condescending professor, you know, like it should be like, okay, you're asking me, all right. So the way it works is, yes, it precisely, Tom, because right now it works like gentle parent Eli Bosnick. And I'm like, I don't trust anything gentle parent Eli Bosnack says. I'll be honest with you. Nothing he says has got to be

0:04:44 Eli: And Max Bosnick both. Yeah, no, it's if you open your feedback with what an awesome idea I'm like, and then you're like, but actually don't stick a fork in a socket. Like it's, but It's like an over -eager actor because you'll be like, hey, drop the bit. And then it's like, oh, you want it mean, baby? And so it turns into step on your balls. And I'm like, no, don't step on my balls. Just be a computer that contains all the world's knowledge. You know how you're a computer?

0:04:52 Thomas: Something's wrong there yeah

0:05:13 Eli: That contains a scan of the whole fucking internet. I would just like you to regurgitate information in as basic a form as possible. And it's, like, we're best friends. And, I'm, like. Stop. And they're doing it because, look, it's a fucking buyer situation, right?

0:05:09 Thomas: Yeah watch a movie chat gpt come on yeah yep there's no in between yeah yep

0:05:29 Eli: Why is Twitter for racists? Because racists love Twitter. They show up to the Twitter store more times a day than you and I do. Similarly, guys who want to fuck their chat GPT show up and I go in and I'm like, how do you spell horse loof once a day?

0:05:45 Thomas: It's what what the fuck

0:05:51 Eli: To pronounce pun that is about boats and also freezing in cold.

0:05:56 Tom: Now I know how you write your citation needed puns okay all

0:06:00 Thomas: You need chat gbt to say eli stop trying uh and uh or sorry eli stop trying heath sorry tom that was a huge insult heath and cecil are way better at puns

0:06:08 Tom: No I I don't pretend that yeah yeah

0:06:11 Eli: Exactly. Don't even bother.

0:06:13 Tom: I gave up even trying to be punny with those guys yeah that's not

0:06:15 Thomas: That's the smart that's right way to do it that's the right way I

0:06:16 Eli: Well I I needed that hard life advice from Chad GPT and I didn't get it.

0:06:20 Thomas: I'm not even a pun he's puns were so good they kind of converted me to enjoying a pun because he had tim smell research was the that's That's the most brilliant pun I've ever heard in my life. Was that three years ago or something? I still think about it. So good. Anyway, is

0:06:29 Eli: It's incredible. Yeah you you know, you can fuck your chat GPT now. Do

0:06:33 Tom: Wait you can fuck your chat gpt

0:06:36 Eli: You guys know this?

0:06:38 Thomas: That what it's trying to do to me? Is that why it's so nice to me all the time now?

0:06:40 Tom: What oh

0:06:42 Eli: Here's the problem, right? Cause the robot is now training itself on conversations with the robot. And like I said, the people who are fucking the chat GPT do it. I noticed that it had a temporary window and I was like, why the fuck would anyone need an incognito chat GP T window? So I was, like, Hey, why does chat GPG have income? And immediately nine news articles popped up that were like, hey, they made it so you can fuck it. Now, if you want to fuck it, you can.

0:06:58 Tom: My god wait

0:07:08 Eli: Fuck it.

0:07:08 Tom: What do you mean so now it talks dirty like that's what you're saying like now

0:07:09 Thomas: You have an incognito chat GPT window.

0:07:12 Eli: Yeah, it does whatever you want it to do.

0:07:14 Tom: I thought they had it like programmed so specifically so that it wouldn't do that stuff didn't

0:07:18 Eli: It'll It won't do kids or violence or non -consent.

0:07:22 Tom: It'll do sexually explicit stuff

0:07:23 Eli: Yeah, sure will.

0:07:24 Thomas: Now, is it the same thing where the window is just so that, I don't know, your other AI girlfriend doesn't see it? Versus is the company, they're still saving all that shit, right? Like they're still, I imagine.

0:07:25 Tom: World we're in oh

0:07:36 Eli: There's no fucking. There's no shot.

0:07:37 Tom: There's no way they're letting that

0:07:38 Eli: They're not saving it. There is no fucking show.

0:07:39 Thomas: Just clarifying for everybody.

0:07:38 Tom: Go there's I do have a video that I took the other day. Do you guys have like a...

0:07:44 Eli: Be very careful,

0:07:46 Thomas: I was going to say, where's this going?

0:07:46 Eli: Tom.

0:07:46 Tom: Nope.

0:07:47 Thomas: Where's this going?

0:07:47 Tom: I have an Alexa. Do guys have Alexas in your house? Do you have any kind of that nonsense in your House?

0:07:51 Thomas: I got rid of that shit. I hate it.

0:07:52 Eli: Have them in my eyes.

0:07:54 Thomas: Okay.

0:07:55 Tom: Excuse me? You have Alexa in your eyes?

0:07:57 Thomas: Don't you have the Google Glasses or something?

0:07:58 Tom: You have the crazy glasses.

0:08:00 Eli: Wear the smart glasses all the time.

0:08:01 Tom: So we were in the kitchen. I don't know why we were doing this, but were talking about what dog or cat tastes like with the kids. They want to know what dogs or cats taste like. So we asked Alexa, and I have a recording of this. We hey, what does dog taste like? And Alexa's response is that dog tastes a lot like humans.

0:08:04 Eli: We're fucking.

0:08:23 Tom: I thought, okay that's kind of a weird of comparison, you fucking sick ass cannibal in my kitchen. Then if you ask Alexa, Hey Alexa, can you lie? Alexa just goes boop and turns off. It's like, yeah, I'm not even going to address that question. Alexa's gotten creepy is what I'm saying.

0:08:22 Eli: Huh

0:08:22 Thomas: That's, yeah, not at all creepy.

0:08:45 Tom: Like Alexa's just straight up like, Yeah,

0:08:46 Eli: Yep it's all creepy I

0:08:45 Thomas: What AI is Alexa now? Like, what is that? That. I don't, it's been so long. Alexa is like quaint now.

0:08:51 Eli: It's a proprietary it's got its own yeah

0:08:54 Tom: It's powered by like pure evil or something.

0:08:55 Thomas: Old bullshit, right? It's not like the new generation

0:08:57 Eli: It's old bullshit it's not good yeah no and

0:08:58 Thomas: Of amazing. Yeah.

0:08:58 Tom: I am sure it is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It is. Certainly was something with my with my 10 year old son when we're like kind of joking around about what dog and cat tastes like. And Alexa's like, oh, yeah, dogs taste like human beings. And like you're like, man. And then if you ask it like what humans taste like, it's like well, humans taste Like pork. I'm like you could have said dogs taste Like Pork. That would have actually been a way more not insane comparison.

0:09:21 Eli: Alexa was like what are you afraid of tom yeah I

0:09:28 Thomas: We're still in the pre -show. We didn't even mention the trip to New York and the Eli watching my kids, which we're We're going to talk about major teasers.

0:09:31 Eli: That's what we're gonna talk about but guys, you know, the only thing worse than the coming AI apocalypse and all the people who are going to get vaporized because they think saying please and thank you was a quote waste of money. Why? It's the auto ads, which are at this point algorithmically inserted into your podcast feed. So if you'd like to know what the concept of money is. Thinks you are, essentially, it's the ads they sell you. In my case, Verizon ads in Spanish. In your case, perhaps hair loss or some testicle stuff. We'll never know. But you can get rid of that truth. Headed over to patreon .com forward slash dear old dads, all spelled out. Little is a dollar, you get an extra bonus episode every single month. You get behind the scenes parenting stories. And on the day that Tom finally wanders into the ocean and disappears beneath the waves, we're going to live stream it for you with Patreon's brand new live stream feature, baby. Yes, it'll

0:10:11 Tom: Testicle stuff.

0:10:36 Thomas: I'll be honest. I thought that already would have happened. Like Eli and I were planning to do this episode alone because we had it marked down like Tom surely forested. We both drew like a forest in the calendar.

0:10:46 Eli: The tom walks into the ocean pool is so far outside of where everyone bet now it's crazy it's

0:10:52 Tom: I do keep rocks in my pocket just in case, you know? Yeah, but yeah, it's just a good thing. We're not coastal. We are not coastal, so that's helping.

0:10:55 Eli: You walk

0:10:54 Thomas: Can't hurt. Have a bid as to which biome you're going to walk into. You know, it could be a forest. It could be, uh, yeah.

0:11:01 Eli: That's what we had to change it to yeah walk in the straight and narrow plath

0:11:07 Thomas: What?

0:11:08 Tom: That's actually a really good pun. That was a good pun!

0:11:09 Eli: Plath poet killed herself rocks in her pocket thank you take that cecil and heath you motherfuckers patreon .com forward slash dear old dads

0:11:11 Thomas: She did. Oh, I don't know things. Just got back from the New York trip and the marshmallow man or the, No, the Pillsbury Doughboy watched the kid. What? There's this. Is that what that is? I don't know. Are you doing? Should I start the story? I don'T know what's happening.

0:11:28 Eli: Ho, ho, ho. It's me. Start the story, but I'm going to interrupt with different characters till I land on one.

0:11:36 Tom: It is not.

0:11:44 Thomas: So, just had a New York trip. There's, plenty to talk about in addition to Eli, poor Eli, amazing saintly Eli will say watching the kids for us. So we could have a nice date. Uh, it was so nice that Eli did that. Uh and I'm sure he has all all kinds of embarrassing things to say. So first off, amazing trip, 10 -year anniversary. Can I just say, boy, do I love being married to Lydia. 10 years, unironically, like, I'm not a big do that stuff, public display of whatever thing. But hey, this show is the best place for me personally to do that. The most meaningful for me. I love Being Married to Lydia, we had our 10 -Year. I It's, am excited for another 10. At least. Yeah. I don't want to go. I'll, I don' want to come, you know, one at a time, but no, uh, but it's, I truly, it

0:12:24 Tom: Want to commit to my

0:12:26 Eli: Was such a nice shout out until you said you weren't ready to commit to your marriage.

0:12:27 Tom: Wife too hard.

0:12:28 Thomas: Is, I just want to say it's great being married.

0:12:34 Eli: Is what Tom thinks of us being poly. Just so you know, you just proved Tom right in his own head.

0:12:37 Thomas: I just, I just wanna say being married to Lydia is the best thing in the world. And every single day I'm like, this is great. It's fucking awesome. I'm so happy about it. And so we did a trip about it. And also Arlo's sixth birthday. That was super cool. That big boy. And, and we did some Easter stuff along the way. It was a great trip as a week in New York. First Here's thing I want to say. Traveling with kids is hell and it's the worst and it is horrible, but it also, our kids are so good. They They, really are. They're both the worst and the best at the same time. Do you guys feel that? I just feel that all the time where I'm like, they're so good and yet also in a moment's notice, they turn into crazy people that I just it's horrible and I want to die but they're also so good one thing that I've been meaning to mention just even before this trip about remy like just just to mention is he has an out of nowhere intense elevator phobia and

0:13:28 Tom: Good to find out when you're in New York.

0:13:30 Thomas: 100 we found it out on the last trip when there wasn't a ton of elevators involved, but just in the airport, um, to get to like the, you know, the third floor or something. And I, it was so funny because he, I've never seen anything like this. Like I've never, I guess I've ever seen a phobia. He's not diagnosed with anything. That was just what I'm calling it because for lack of a better word, back when this first happened, it know. It was in the the airport and we had to go just you know one two floors and he lost it like just as a baby like he didn't even I didn't understand at first what was happening because he was that small and the first time I was like oh maybe he's just upset about something and then the next couple times he did the same thing where like the the guy loses it like at a level of awareness of elevators too too, that was crazy relative to how little he is. So it was like, I was like this seems like an actual phobia, like there's something going on with this guy. He the minute we go near an elevator, he starts screaming and latching on to us, you know. And here's the thing. We went to New York and stayed in a hotel on the 15th floor there. There's not going to be any other thing besides like the elevator is going to happen. There'S going to BE no like a couple of times we're like, let's do the stairs. There's like one floor, like just avoid this. Wasn't going to happen. It's a 15th floor. Like we're not, there's nothing else we're doing.

0:14:46 Thomas: And so here's, was worried. I was like, this is going to be intense. The time we left this trip, by the time we were leaving dude was so good in the elevator.

0:14:57 Eli: I trapped him in there for a couple of hours and just sort of let him ride up and down.

0:15:00 Tom: There you go that systematic desensitization

0:15:01 Eli: Yeah, it really helped. It worked. It was pretty great.

0:15:05 Thomas: He no, this is, you know, I don't want to turn this into what, you know, John hate or somebody will be like, that's why you know trigger warnings and throw your kids in a swamp or something. I don't, it's not that, but like, it is true that I think there are some problems that avoiding them doesn't help and just makes them worse, you Know, and, and this one, we couldn't not do it. But the important part was we approached it with empathy and weren't like, Hey buddy, shut the fuck up. You know, we, what I started doing was, Hey, buddy, focus on on the display of the floors. And I was like, let's count. Ready? One, two, three, and started doing that. And like, we had to do it like, you know, 10 times. And every time we rode, he got a little bit better. And then he does the thing. And again, I just, I think this might've been when I posted, you one -of -my weepy dad posts that I do from time to time where I'm just so fucking proud of these kids. Cause the, the time where you see your little kids, your little, where they, are having such intense feelings and you see them them try to manage their feelings. It's genuinely the most like inspiring thing where I saw and like one time in the elevator where we were still working on it. Go in and he goes, he looks and he points up at the floor display. He's like, yeah, and the floors and the one, you know, and that moment where you see him like battling through it and doing the thing that we're going to do to get through it, but still like clearly he's experiencing like intense feelings. That to to me, is the most inspiring thing. Like, I think the things that kids go through are actually harder than the things we go through. Like

0:16:29 Tom: Are they're crazy hard yeah well

0:16:31 Thomas: The level of intense feeling that that gets, kid you know, just like at this thing.

0:16:35 Tom: Think about an elevator if you're a kid like like we know what an elevator but think about oh we're just gonna get in this room and the

0:16:40 Thomas: This death box.

0:16:42 Eli: Then you'll get out and be on a different place.

0:16:44 Tom: Yeah, like it's a small room where you can't open the doors yourself. They close different than every other door you've seen. Now you're sealed in. It shakes and it shimmies and it moves and it just transports you to another space. Oh, it is also small and you have no control over it and can't leave.

0:17:01 Eli: Hurt your ears sometimes. Yeah.

0:17:03 Tom: Yeah, it's actually more crazy that we do adapt to things like elevators and escalators

0:17:06 Eli: That Yeah, we should all be weeping in the elevator.

0:17:09 Thomas: Still be, every Every business, like, fucking office elevator ride.

0:17:09 Tom: And shit. Yeah. Now I'm afraid of elevators. I've talked myself into this. Now I'm scared of elevaters.

0:17:17 Thomas: Ten executives getting. Oh, here's our elevator. Okay. So as the quarterly number.

0:17:24 Thomas: And then you ride for ten floors. And then. So anyway, as I was saying, the quarterlies do look bad.

0:17:29 Eli: I'm sorry. Panic fucked you in the Elevator there. That was just a all

0:17:33 Thomas: Everyone's just shit their pants.

0:17:36 Tom: Are to just accept a world without context for them that they just have to implicitly trust. I don't know why you're afraid of that dog that's five times bigger than you. Oh, he's afraid of dogs. That dog like think about how big like a labrador is if you're four you

0:17:52 Eli: Dogs are Clifford the big red dog. Yeah kids like that book because it's just a revenge on adults for all the dogs that they're exposed to.

0:17:54 Tom: Like like if like if I saw a Dog that was face level tall and somebody was like oh but he's a sweetheart I'd be like I don't care I literally don't Yeah.

0:18:07 Eli: Cool. Every day? Always? You've

0:18:10 Tom: And we're doing that to kids constantly with all kinds of shit. Like, oh yeah, go in that room. You don't understand that you can't get in and out of, it takes you to a different place. You can't control, but Hey, you know what? Press a number. That's fun. Like it's a lot, man. It's a fucking lot.

0:18:10 Eli: Seen the future?

0:18:23 Thomas: At the same time there's then the normal amount of kid or you know regular quote -unquote amount of kids anxiety about stuff and then there is Remy which was truly a level that was like it was so confusing that I didn't figure out what it was for a while because like he was so again he was little that you don't know what they're noticing or not the elevator. Like this dude goes into fight or flight like crazy. And I felt bad because I was like, have no experience with that level of phobia. I was thinking, are we dealing with this for life? Like, is this a, like, I'm just, I don't know. I've never seen anything like I have to look, I Have two basket case kids before this kid. And I've Never seen behavior like this. Like that's how, you know, like that's how alarming it was. And and we got through it and we like, I guess the right kind of exposure therapy, just on a small parental level, not like a, You I'm not know, a fucking doctor or anything, but like, I guess the right amount of helping him through it, you being patient with him and also finding the way to distract him and give him an active thing to do. And we also learned that he can almost count now, which is impressive. I didn't know he could do that. He's probably delayed

0:19:20 Thomas: With it, to be honest with you. But for us, from our perspective, it's like, holy shit, this kid can almost count to 10. It's awesome. So

0:19:26 Tom: How much relentless shaming did you use? Like, I just am curious. Like what? Like yeah.

0:19:29 Eli: Lot, made a whole documentary about it called The Coddling of the American Remy and it really... really got through to him and helped so much. No, I mean, look, here's the thing. Remy is the fucking drama, right?

0:19:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:41 Eli: Cause I spent not just the five hours alone with the kids. I got to spend the whole day. And Remy, is that beautiful age where the tantrums are so fucking funny. And Thomas, I know they're not funny to you because, okay, good.

0:19:50 Thomas: It's hilarious. No, no, they're funny. His are actively funny.

0:19:54 Eli: Ancient Shakespearean. He like throws his arms out in front of it. It's so fucking funny.

0:19:58 Thomas: Untimely death. He's do. Yeah, it's nuts. So glad Eli got to see it because he was in a particular that mood for this trip. He he decided it'll be over nothing. It'll beover. Someone has a chip that he wanted to eat that is art is like I grabbed a chip to eat, you know, and he'll decide I'm dying if you don't give me that chip. Then he'll start, Eli, go ahead and describe what he does. It's incredible.

0:20:22 Eli: Well, so this is the crazy thing that Thomas has never described. Thing that he's never described is that his son has the voice of Harvey Weinstein.

0:20:24 Thomas: Lights go up. Oh, well, he's a little under the weather. He doesn't always sound like that. So he, oh, weird.

0:20:34 Eli: He's never not sounded like that when I've been around him and I've the vocal

0:20:36 Tom: Let's just assume Thomas is lying right now. That is better.

0:20:39 Thomas: No. He actually, he had so many fits too. That might have been it. Like that trip was just so many hits. Yeah.

0:20:45 Eli: The vocal strain was getting because what was so funny is he

0:20:47 Tom: He do his warm -ups before? Like, was he... No?

0:20:49 Eli: Did not. He needed to blow into a straw.

0:20:50 Thomas: I level with you? Phoebe has has smoky voice a little bit and I think it's because she's so fucking crazy I mean then I wonder you think about the girl in high school who had the smoky Voice which is honestly kind of cool like you're like yeah I'm kind of into the smokie voice is that because she was always so anxious she never stopped yeah no

0:20:55 Eli: They both do. Well was having a fit all the time. Yeah yeah yeah.

0:21:10 Tom: That or the Marlboro Reds. I think it might be the Marлboro RedS.

0:21:13 Thomas: Those are fine I think those are good for her oh

0:21:15 Eli: Because Remy had obviously not done his vocal warmups, not blown through a straw in a water glass. And so instead of having a toddler tantrum, he would have like a vocal strain tantrum where he would be like, hee! He would just like squeak slightly and then the rest was silent because the vocal cords weren't doing the work for it.

0:21:31 Thomas: I love that one yep yep

0:21:32 Eli: So he'd be like hee, and it was, oh my God, it was really hard to, like the thing you're not supposed to do when they're that age is like laugh at them. But again, it's so. It's silent film levels of hilarious. Yeah.

0:21:39 Thomas: It's so funny these are objectively funny silent film levels of hysteria And then it's break dancing. I'm not even joking in the slightest. Eli backed me up. He starts throwing himself on the floor. He has injured himself a lot. Like it's gotten to the point where I'm like, hey, buddy, you can't just throw your head around in a tantrum because you're going to crack your noggin. But we can't stop him. Like he just keeps doing it.

0:22:05 Eli: Was going to save this for when we got to the Eli's Mary Poppins part of the show, probably going to be a two -parter just so we can talk about how great I am. But we opened the Eli watches the kids session with Remy being not happy that Lydia was gone.

0:22:09 Thomas: We're there close enough that

0:22:19 Eli: Yeah, he wasn't. No, you could fuck yourself. He was like, yeah, no, the Thomas can get going.

0:22:18 Thomas: We left. Yeah, I just let it, you know, that's fair. Good, good, good point.

0:22:24 Eli: He heard that opening thing about how it is to be married to Lydia. And he was like fuck. Yeah. Why am I stuck with you fatty? Get out of here. And so one of the things that kept happening is he just kept ping ponging himself off surfaces, right? He'd have a tantrum and then he'd start and he'd be like, all right, one last good little silent scream. And then I think I'm going to be over this. And he just fucking rock his head back into the wall.

0:22:38 Thomas: Fucking nuts. Flop. Yeah.

0:22:53 Eli: The whole And time, my brother in Christ, for the first 40 minutes of that babysitting session, Arlo and Phoebe were playing Switch in the other room, and me and Remy were just watching Remy fight the Invisible Man. He was just like, get him off me! Get him off of me! And

0:23:09 Thomas: So true. Oh my God. That's exactly what it is.

0:23:11 Tom: Does he do that thing where he tries to hold his own hand back from his face like a claw, you know?

0:23:15 Eli: The pen is blue.

0:23:15 Thomas: It's exactly what it is. And it gets to the point where you're actually worried there is an invisible, like it got to the point where it's so good you're like, I might be like there might be.

0:23:16 Eli: The pen is bloom. I picked a side, yeah. Money on an invisible Remy that was beating the shit out of him. And I will say, Phoibster came through with the thing. So Phoebe is very shy. And I also suck visually, right? Like, no one's ever seen me turn a corner quickly and been like, ooh!

0:23:29 Thomas: I love Phoebe. Eli is the elevator of people.

0:23:43 Eli: Exactly. No one sees this physical body and goes like, good times are in their way, right, it's like... case scenario, someone died on the JCC basketball court and the rabbi is there to do the last rites. That's the best possible scenario of me in any circumstance. So she's a little weary of the boss, right? And I get it. I fucking get it, that's cool. I'm being chill, right, I get that.

0:23:51 Tom: Same.

0:24:07 Thomas: I'd be worried if she weren't I

0:24:08 Eli: Out there, they want me to do magic, right. And they have that beautiful, yeah.

0:24:12 Thomas: I did I I built you up yeah I was like eli will do a magic

0:24:12 Tom: Did you prep him for that? Did you pump him up?

0:24:16 Eli: They were very excited for me to do magic. And I did, I'll get to that when I got to it. Um, like, they were like a little impatient for the magic while Remy fucking head butted the door jam six times in a row. So they kept kind of wandering out and being like, is now time for magic? And I was like, I don't know, man. Do you see how your brother has himself in a headlock? Like probably not yet. Right.

0:24:25 Thomas: Is he done yeah

0:24:38 Tom: But they're just like, that's just what he does. Like, they're like, I don't care. Nobody cares. That's standard shit.

0:24:42 Eli: Live here man you

0:24:39 Thomas: It's it's true it's through uh they're like that's remy that's him

0:24:44 Eli: Were you adapted the dark I was born here and I was like so what what a mom and dad usually do because the other thing is like remy's not an autistic kid having a meltdown which I have a ton of experience with he's

0:24:54 Thomas: He's not that's the fucking weird thing yeah yeah

0:24:57 Eli: A little neurotypical man he's The minute Remy can get outside a TGI Fridays and fight a single dad, he's going to be fine. It's the fact that he's in that little boy body right now that's the problem. But the minute he's at a hockey game, fucking jersey off, taking some goalie to pound town, it's only going to go up from there. So I'm like, hey, what usually works? And she's like, um, usually someone just distracts him. And I was like, with what? And

0:24:59 Thomas: What oh man wow yep

0:25:33 Eli: I am a screen crazy person. So I forgot that that's a really good tool, but I do have something.

0:25:33 Thomas: Wait he wasn't wearing his screen that we strapped to his face weird must have fallen off before we left

0:25:40 Eli: He was not wearing his, his VR glasses. Perma. Yeah, perma.

0:25:42 Tom: Tablet feed bag, just like, yeah.

0:25:45 Eli: So, so I pulled out fucking, uh, don't let the pigeon run this app on my phone.

0:25:51 Eli: And instantly it's, so you guys know, don't let pigeon drive the bus.

0:25:51 Thomas: That is sounds great yeah is

0:25:52 Tom: Fuck is that? No.

0:25:56 Eli: You guys don't know, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus?

0:25:58 Thomas: It a book a kid's

0:25:59 Tom: I haven't had little kids in 300 years, man. I'm an old piece of shit.

0:25:59 Thomas: Book they

0:25:59 Eli: It's a book. It's a great read at any age.

0:26:02 Thomas: Didn't have buses back then eli

0:26:04 Eli: It's great. It is true.

0:26:05 Tom: Didn't have pigeons back then. It was fucking pterodactyls. Are you kidding?

0:26:08 Eli: Weren't allowed to let the pigeon ride the bus when Tom was a kid was very different and we don't talk about it anymore.

0:26:12 Tom: They could ride, they just had to sit in the back.

0:26:14 Eli: Had to sit in a different place. So it's great kid's book where the pigeon wants to do all this crazy shit and you're supposed to have the kids say no to him. And it's a lot of fun. It's very fun. So there's an app where the pigeon wants to randomly generated stuff. And so I get rent. I'm like, huh? And then of course, instantly fucking power of screens, baby. Like Tom, Tom, speak of the truth. Cause it's just like, it was hypno toad. He was just like and I'm done.

0:26:23 Thomas: Gotcha. Love it. Yeah.

0:26:40 Eli: Fucking instantly done. And I like literally lure him into the living room. And then him and what was great is again, Hypnotoad, him and Phoebe were both playing it. Phoebe liked pushing the buttons. He liked pushing buttons. God, she did such a good job. She's at that fucking age. It's so, how old is she?

0:26:39 Tom: Good

0:26:41 Thomas: Oh, so good. Seven.

0:26:57 Eli: Seven? Yeah.

0:26:59 Thomas: Going on 40. Yeah.

0:27:00 Eli: The thing about seven is you understand that you're supposed to let your younger siblings like take all the turns and do all the stuff and have all the things and it fucking sucks, but you don't have the maturity to quite do it yet. Like you have the conscious knowledge. Yes, he is. How old's Remy? 48.

0:27:07 Thomas: This is a very Phoebe problem. Yeah. This is very Phoobe. Yep.

0:27:23 Eli: Two right remy is two so he should be able to push the button every time we can't take turns I like I watched her do a good job with that even though it was so fucking hard um and then me and me and remy shared some chips and guacamole he saw me having some chips in guac and he was like chips and I was like fuck chips

0:27:21 Thomas: God. Two. He's only two. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Oh, there you go. Food is also the other screen for Remy. Yeah.

0:27:42 Tom: Her. I feel like I'm digging Remy. Like, I like this.

0:27:43 Thomas: He is. God.

0:27:44 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:45 Eli: It was exactly what I knew he needed. I was like, you just don't have a fat parent. Get in here, kid. And he called guacamole gugamug. So he'd be like, chip! And I'd be, like...

0:27:53 Tom: That's the only thing I'm calling it

0:27:55 Eli: He'd be. Like, chip. And I'll be, there you go, buddy. And, he'd, like, gugamuk. And be, you want guacamole, too? And, be, yeah. And so, we just... This kid ate an entire... I want you to picture, like a measuring cup of guacamolian chips. Is what this kid ate. And just... It two kids. I'll talk about this when I get to like the full word tale, although I've almost already done all of it. But the two older siblings fell asleep really fucking quickly. Like were exhausted.

0:27:55 Thomas: So cute. My God. Yep, I'm

0:27:55 Tom: Now forever. So, yeah,

0:28:19 Thomas: That was weird. Weird.

0:28:21 Tom: Like when you started your magic show. Are you

0:28:26 Thomas: And they booed. It was, it didn't, it was kind of, they sleep booed, they boo in their sleep.

0:28:27 Eli: They did. That's why their voices were so horror. They were.

0:28:33 Thomas: This this the Museum day? I'm already mixing up. Yeah.

0:28:33 Tom: Sure you weren't in Edinburgh?

0:28:38 Eli: This was the museum day.

0:28:39 Thomas: Got lucky because they're on Pacific time. They've been staying up till like fucking midnight Eastern time. But because we had such a big day and I think they had a few big days in a row, they were fucking gone. So they they just passed out. You texted us like, well, they're asleep. And it was like, I don't know, nine something. We're like, no, that's not surely something is wrong. Are you sure?

0:28:50 Eli: They were gone instantly. Yeah. No, he choked them unconscious one by one while the others...

0:28:58 Tom: Kids just do that shit for babysitters though like you give your kid to a babysitter and they like behave totally better and different and they fall asleep earlier and they look like sweet angels and then you parent them the rest of their whole lives and it's entirely different

0:29:10 Eli: You shat in my hand while you were opening the door, Dad, and I'd like you to... I'd like you to shake my hand and then go prepare me a meal without washing your hands or I'll cry. No. What I did is I sat all the kids down and I was like, guys, what's your favorite thing in the world? And Remy was like I like food and I always like I switch. And Phoebe was like having a panic attack.

0:29:28 Eli: And I was obviously my favorite thing is gaslighting your dad. So here's the thing. And your dad have a podcast where he talks about like the ups and downs of parenting and if you guys are really good every time he shares his real lived experience for the rest of his life I'll get to cast like him about it and they were like oh we're totally in and they all instantly just plop face down on the bed and fell asleep but

0:29:29 Thomas: Fair yeah fell asleep yeah they did the routine from sound of music where they get in the line and leasel yeah remy yeah remi

0:29:57 Eli: They, two older kids are asleep almost immediately. Right. So Remy and I stayed up for, I'm going to say an extra like 45 minutes and he understood everyone was sleeping and he couldn't power You couldn't Powerbomb his siblings. So, cause at first he was just trying to wrestle them. He would just like, he was like, okay, Arlo is asleep and elbow drop. And I was like hey buddy.

0:30:08 Thomas: Was wow okay oh yeah yeah yeah we haven't even started that'll be in time for a different show he just hits but like for fun it's a we I don't know where he gets he just decided but anyway

0:30:25 Eli: It's hit o 'clock. So I was like, hey, Remy, remember, buddy, you don't have to go to sleep, but now is the time to let our siblings rest. And what ended up happening is he switched positions with Phoebe. So Phoebe and Arlo were in the middle. And then he was just sitting next to me. I'm in my chair right next to him. And he would go, Chip! And I would hand him a chip. And I'd be like, all right. And here's the thing. I tried giving him the chip. Chip with gugamug and he was like fuck that shit I will ask for gugumug and I was at chip chip with we went through the whole thing we finished the chips I showed him back I was like hey but we're all out of chips and he goes okay night night and just literally lies back but I'm talking this level of unconscious tom curry levels of unconsciousness night night a I was of sleep than he was. But yeah, the kids were fucking awesome.

0:30:49 Tom: Love it oh

0:30:51 Thomas: That's so good no he wants the process it's about the process yeah oh my god that is so cute oh oh my God yeah that's incredible yeah

0:31:22 Eli: Arlo loves the Switch. Now, I do have some bad news for you, Thomas, which is that when I walked in the door, the first thing Arlo wanted to show me was his hours of play on the Nintendo Switch.

0:31:34 Thomas: You I don't believe you

0:31:36 Eli: I have those numbers to hand right here.

0:31:36 Thomas: He did that you Eli did it no no this is this is all hey this is this is a funny bit this is like Eli did this there's

0:31:41 Tom: We have handouts this is handouts we don't get a lot of handouts on this show I like this this is good

0:31:45 Thomas: Way Arlo didn't mention this at all to me and he mentions everything I

0:31:48 Eli: If... payment comes through in the next 60 seconds. I am willing not to release these numbers to the public. They are intense.

0:31:59 Thomas: Haven't I haven'T looked at him in a while so I just choose to ignore it

0:32:02 Eli: Man, you should go look at them and then translate them into calendars.

0:32:08 Thomas: It is somehow more time than they've been alive I don't know how we fell into a black hole at some point and they got a little time dilation that's all that'sall time's never not You think time's always the same? Come on.

0:32:11 Eli: You should figure out which months. Time stretch! Just a little time stretch. Other thing that I did is the thing that I do for kids, so pretty much all my stories. Arlo is the best, Arlo loves Switch.

0:32:25 Thomas: I'll get to Venmo or what do you want to?

0:32:27 Eli: Exactly. Uh, Phoebe was the best. Like again, everybody was amazing. The only thing left from the parenting moment that I'll tell you guys is, um, they wanted magic. And so I do this thing that I do for kids when I do magic for them. Cause like, here's the thing. When you first learn magic and kids ask you to do magic, your impulse is to do a bunch of tricks and their attention isn't fixated at all. Cause they're like, fuck you, man.

0:32:46 Eli: Everything's magic. Didn't you hear Tom describing an elevator?

0:32:48 Thomas: Forever.

0:32:49 Eli: Like, I don't give a fuck. So instead, what you do is you take one lame trick and you drag it out over a time period. Right. So I was like, well, we got to see if the hotel room has an invisible pocket. And they were like. Sorry, what now? And I was like, yeah, there are invisible pockets in the air that you can use correctly. Let's see if we can find one. And so I'm going around the room, and they're, what, right? All of the artifice of, like, I'm a cool kid has dropped, and there's just fucking Wonder Nation. Now, and so finally, I take, like one of Remy's stamps, and I'm like, pushing it into the air, and like, no, not there. Not there. And we're like, watching TV, and maybe when the moonlight hits by, open the sheds, and the moonlight's definitely gonna help. And then I literally do the fucking, your Uncle Tony. Like pretend to put it in my hand but don't and then touch the air and I'm like look it's in the pocket they spent I'm not kidding 10 minutes trying to get it out of the invisible air pocket

0:33:45 Tom: So I feel a lot better because I only spent seven or eight minutes and you did that trick with me so this is gratifying yeah yeah

0:33:48 Thomas: It's good. You've shown growth, Tom.

0:33:49 Eli: It's the first time and then yeah and then like 14 minutes later I pulled the same fucking kids toy out of

0:34:00 Thomas: I know I've said it before, this but is, this is I don't repeat stories that often, but this one is so funny that I'm going to repeat it. This was a while back when Phoebe was having some sort of fit. And I told her, uh, I DON'T remember if we actually got to see you or not, or if it was like a thing that got canceled, but it was a While back. And I Told her, Hey, you're going to see Eli and he knows how to do magic. I can't remember what this was. I this was back when And Phoebe was having meltdowns. Well, she still does, but a different kind of meltdown. And I remember I told her, yeah, don't worry. Don't worry, Eli is going to, and he knows magic. It's going to be super cool. And she threw tears like, he knows Magic. Can he pull a rabbit out of a hat? Because that's like the main one. That's the main ones.

0:34:39 Tom: The main one it's a good

0:34:39 Eli: It was the main one.

0:34:41 Tom: Thing it wasn't like you know can we can we do the thing with the big table and the swords and the assistant

0:34:46 Thomas: No, I just love the perfect, like first my, off, my, you're an anxious genius, She's observant of everything, but she's still at that time, like fucking, I don't know, four or five.

0:34:54 Eli: Of course.

0:34:54 Thomas: And so she's distilled everything down to what the essence is because of cartoons or something like a cartoon has a magician and the cartoon shows you the one thing that's. Yeah. She's like, because that's like the main one. I love her. She was informing me like I didn't know. Like, OK, just so you know, that's the main magic trick.

0:35:11 Eli: What we're looking for here

0:35:12 Thomas: And the fact that she was doing it through tears made it even more perfect. Like, oh, because because that'S the main ONE. So she's been waiting for magic for a while and finally got to see a sock or whatever you did.

0:35:12 Eli: Is so funny. So yeah, we did magic. Yeah, I also did a sock. I made a sock multiply. Were getting sleepy, but they had sort of all been really good. So I was like, do you guys want to see one more? And they were doing that sleepy kid thing, and so I multiplied a sock for them as well, which was really fun.

0:35:39 Thomas: Yeah. And when I asked them, it's cause I did, I was like, did he do magic? What'd he do? They're like, yeah, but it kind of sucked. They're Like, it was just like a sock.

0:35:47 Tom: Dude, I remember when you did magic for Aislinn at my wedding.

0:35:51 Eli: There you my god,

0:35:51 Thomas: At the wedding, that was the best.

0:35:52 Eli: Your wedding!

0:35:53 Thomas: So funny.

0:35:54 Tom: And she was fucking floored. Like, she loved it. She talked about it forever. Like she talked about forever after that. Like you made a friend that day.

0:36:04 Eli: Honestly, upon reflection, I didn't like that guy is how most people end up feeling about me. So I'm glad that the Smiths have have joined Jen Pop.

0:36:12 Thomas: I still remember that one, too. I was excited. That was the napkin trick. He kept tearing a napkin and putting it back together by having, obviously, a secret second napkin. But but it was. Yeah, oh, sorry.

0:36:18 Tom: That was so good. A minute. That's how it works?

0:36:22 Thomas: I shouldn't have told. I forgot. Tom still didn't know. My fault.

0:36:22 Eli: It, man.

0:36:25 Tom: I'm going to write this down. It's not tiny stitches.

0:36:27 Eli: Was gonna swim.

0:36:28 Tom: I thought it was tiny stitches

0:36:28 Thomas: Tiny stitches.

0:36:30 Eli: Been taking tiny sewing lessons for so many years.

0:36:33 Tom: Just been ripping shit up and hoping it'll go back together. I just, I got half the trick down.

0:36:37 Thomas: But what a good trip. It was so much fun. My kids are spoiled as shit. Do I less because kids get anything, that's the new line. Then they're like, can we have another New York? And we're like there's only one. Like you can't. I don't know where to go from here. So that was a failure. But other than that, yeah, yeah.

0:36:52 Tom: Take him to Chicago. Take them to Chicago though.

0:36:55 Thomas: You know, yeah sure.

0:36:56 Eli: We go back to New York? We're this place.

0:36:59 Thomas: It's really cold.

0:37:00 Eli: Cold here. Don't want to go see the bean again. I looking like this when you described it.

0:37:02 Thomas: So good.

0:37:15 Eli: Before we go, what's of the human body? Fingers. Because you can always count on them.

0:37:28 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

0:38:10 Eli: Good times are in their way, right,

0:38:13 Thomas: Married to Lydia is the best thing in the world. And

0:38:15 Tom: Going to write this down. It's not tiny stitches. I thought it was tiny stitches taste like human beings. And

0:38:20 Eli: Step on my balls. Just be a computer that contains all the world's knowledge. You you just don't have a fat parent. Get