DOD261: Does Inclusivity Have Limits?

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 under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's not sure exactly what this episode's about. I'm Tom Curry, I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Eli: Hello, Tomifer.

0:00:39 Thomas: It's like he doesn't even listen.

0:00:40 Tom: I mean,

0:00:41 Eli: Well, he blacked out what I was saying.

0:00:41 Tom: I, you know, I think the episode's gonna be about hockey for some reason, or maybe Trump, I am not sure, exactly. Maybe BAFTA, I not sure that any of this has anything to do with parenting at all.

0:00:48 Eli: We might get to hockey. We've got a we got a little smorgasbord.

0:00:56 Thomas: We got a lot of stuff to talk about. I'm excited.

0:00:58 Eli: Yeah, a lot of stuff.

0:00:59 Thomas: We have so much stuff to talking about. I don't even know which thing for the pre -show banter we should even pre - show banter about. I don' even know.

0:01:05 Eli: Well gentlemen, let's let's start with what's going on in my life right now because I am here in the center of Snowmageddon, 17 inches of snow last night. Quadruple what you were used to. And they have closed my son's school for today and tomorrow. They are talking about closing it for the entire week to which I as a parent say no you cannot I will not allow it you must take my son back from me after this second day and they say to me Eli the roads are dangerous it would literally cost lives to which I say which

0:01:16 Tom: Braggy. That's braggy.

0:01:46 Thomas: Which ones?

0:01:47 Tom: Lives.

0:01:47 Eli: Lives that's

0:01:49 Thomas: That is what he said. He had this conversation on the phone with us on the line. It's exactly what he's said.

0:01:55 Eli: So I'm here in snowmageddon we'll see we'll check in next week we'll find out how long I was alone with my son If he is on the next episode, instead of me talking about how his father curled into a ball under the kitchen sink and died from nine straight days of nonstop parenting, then you will know exactly how that went. But gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than trying to get a simple day of peace in the middle of a bomb cyclone?

0:02:24 Eli: Why, it's the auto ads. Ruining your podcast experience like a canceled day of school brings joy into child's hearts. Hey, I'll get right back to the pitch in a second. Can we talk about what an amazing job our parents did hiding from us that they hated snow days?

0:02:24 Thomas: Yeah again, can't comment. No idea. Yeah.

0:02:42 Tom: No, my dad went to work on snow days. Like if I had a snow day, my dad was like, cool. I still have to go to work. Have you ever had to explain to your kids that your job doesn't have snow?

0:02:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:51 Tom: Well, probably not. Like my job doesn't, doesn't work.

0:02:51 Thomas: Yes. That I have had.

0:02:53 Tom: I don't have a job. I'm like, I still have to work, dude.

0:02:55 Thomas: Whenever they're off, they're like, why do you have to work?

0:02:58 Eli: Yeah, constantly.

0:02:58 Thomas: I don't get it. Yeah, yeah.

0:02:59 Eli: Believe me, I explained that all the time. I explained it 48 minutes ago because we were in the middle of playing and I was like, sorry, I gotta go talk about jerking off into panties. And hey, if you'd like to hear what I had to say about jerking into panties, why not head over to patreon .com forward slash dear old dads bringing it back to the pinch where you'll get a commercial free version of every show with a little parenting story at the end as well as a monthly bonus episode. This month, we talked about sniffing panties. We talked about podcast drama from the days of yore. And I truly,

0:03:00 Tom: Yeah, like I'm still leaving, dude, I gotta go to work. Yeah yeah.

0:03:09 Thomas: Hey. Mm -hmm. Yep.

0:03:32 Eli: Truly broke Thomas's spirit with a little update on how everyone's doing.

0:03:38 Thomas: Good updates. Finally broken.

0:03:40 Eli: It was a breakfast club close that nobody wanted. And Thomas received it involuntarily. And you can get all that over at patreon.com/dearolddads. like news of our former enemy's success to Thomas' psyche, rip into it.

0:03:57 Thomas: Fun.

0:04:04 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:04:05 Eli: All right, guys. I don't know if this is going to be the main topic of the show, but it is the hot topic of right now. The people are talking about it and I cannot think of three less informed douche bros to weigh in than us. The guy who shouted the N -word at the BAFTAs. Let's talk about it.

0:04:23 Thomas: Lydia informed me last night.

0:04:25 Eli: Mm -hmm. Okay. Okay, there's a Tourette's Syndrome campaigner named John Davidson.

0:04:26 Tom: I don't know what happened, so you guys have to give me the juice here.

0:04:34 Thomas: Is he like pro or again? No, I'm just kidding.

0:04:36 Eli: He is anti -Tourette Syndrome, pro the people who have it. His documentary, I Swear, it is called I Swear, won a BAFTA or was nominated for a BAFTTA. And so he obviously attended the BAFTAS. Now, before the BAFTAS started or during the BAftas at some point, Alan Cumming, who can I say? I know it's not his fault just the worst possible host for this moment right sexy fucking traitors hello my lovelies is the opposite of the guy who you want to have to come out and explain that there's going to be a person who might shout during the show and that's a part of it please be understanding of their medical condition because you know he had to put an out -and -coming twist on it I haven't seen the clip but you know we had to be like now listen up my lovlies someone might scream the n -word and it'll be jordan and let's all keep it really sexy so

0:05:22 Thomas: I doubt it.

0:05:29 Tom: What?

0:05:31 Thomas: I kind of doubt he did that, but that's a good bit.

0:05:35 Eli: He did a little warning at the beginning what most people do not understand about tourette syndrome if you are not aware so tourettes syndrome it usually presents itself in the form of small tics or words sometimes swearing there is a much much rarer form of Tourette's syndrome called corpophilia or corpOTourettes I found a bunch of different language used around it and I don't I don't want to use the incorrect medical term because it's like a real thing where you say the things you're not supposed to say. Right. So the Tourette's syndrome presents itself as the worst thing to say at any given moment. And what happened last night or the other night, I'm not sure, whenever you're listening to this, is just as Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were in the middle of presenting an award. He very loudly and very audibly screamed the n -word yes

0:06:15 Thomas: Well, several minutes ago. Yeah.

0:06:27 Tom: Oh, my God. Wait a minute. So this guy was there because he was going to be accepting or was nominated for an award?

0:06:33 Thomas: For the documentary about the very thing that's causing this.

0:06:33 Eli: Yes so the reason I want to talk about this is actually because when you read any conversation about this online because look the answer to this is a reasonable wow what a horrible thing to happen to michael b jordan and delroy lindo I hope they knew what was happening at the time what a terrible moment to interfere with their lovely moment of getting an award. Man, it's so unfortunate that this guy had this thing happen to him. I bet he was mortified. Why didn't the BBC bleep it out? They bleeped something out. That's the weird thing.

0:07:10 Thomas: Yeah, they bleeped something about Gaza, but they didn't bleep this. Yeah. Free Palestine. Yeah.

0:07:13 Eli: They bleeped out a free Palestine. A dude dropped a free Palestinian and they were like, gotcha, radio delay. This dude threw out an N -bomb for all the world to hear and they Were like, let him cook. Did they think he was going to be like, N -word? Is never acceptable to say in this situation. Like, what did they think?

0:07:36 Tom: Like, if they had bleeped it out, it would have been an entire non -issue, right? Because the only people that would have heard it were the people that were there. There well like but like there's not all told that many people that are there right like even if you like said it at the academy awards like at the end of the day there's a handful of people there compared to the number of people that might be viewing it

0:07:57 Thomas: Sorry. Tom, cell phones have been invented. It's the year 2026. We have to do this every once in a while, guys. Yeah. You're okay. You're going to be okay. Well, you're not okay. But the year is 2026, there's cell phones. There's no such thing as like, well, we cut the feed on NBC. CBC or whatever, the net channel three. So no one will hear it. Like that doesn't exist anymore. Like someone would have heard it. It's also, it's just deeply sad and unpleasant that Michael B. Jordan, like these accomplished black people have to, while they're presenting, have a slur shouted at them is, is yeah.

0:08:04 Eli: Except

0:08:29 Tom: Of well yeah no no of course it is I'm not suggesting that it's not what I'm saying though is that like if the bbc had done their job I mean it's also 2026 if you go to a concert now for the most part Right. And I would assume that the Baptist could do the same thing and probably should. They give that like bag to put your phone in that renders your phone not usable during the presentation because you don't want a bunch of assholes using their phone and filming stuff and whatever. Like I would presume. Right.

0:08:55 Eli: For Ellen. Sometimes Ellen's taking the world's most famous selfie.

0:08:58 Tom: So that that renders that first point entirely moot like that just goes away. And then if the BBC does their job properly, then you had a moment. It's unfortunate. It''s explainable. Nobody intended any harm, but it doesn't like become this sort of hyper visible moment. It just flatly doesn't need to be like the the visibility of it is the biggest problem here. Not somebody's like medical condition.

0:09:23 Eli: Can I put even more of the blame on the BBC here? Because the statement they gave coming to say later feels like the N -word pwned the libs. Listen to this. This is the quote. Tourette's syndrome is a disability, and the tics you've heard tonight are involuntary, which means the person who has Tourette's syndrome has no control over their language. We apologize if you are offended tonight, end quote. Which, that last thing feels like, sorry if you can't take it, you liberal cucks.

0:09:50 Thomas: That doesn't make any sense.

0:09:50 Tom: Audition yeah that's no

0:09:52 Eli: I want to be very clear. No way Alan Cumming wrote that backstage. There's no way Alan Cumming was sitting there fucking stirring a cocktail with his nightcrawler tail and being like, I need to tell these liberal bitches to calm the hell down.

0:09:56 Tom: Good yeah honestly this seems like such an enormous failure mostly of bbc because the guy didn't do any like was he not supposed to attend the award show like he's maybe gonna get an award

0:10:18 Thomas: I would argue maybe. Yeah, Yeah, I think if you saw it, fine, I guess I'll be the Eli of this one. I think you have a condition such that you would shout the N -word at black people while they're presenting an award or receiving an award. I wasn't sure which, but I think that's maybe, maybe you shouldn't go to that event. I don't think that's something you should do. I don'T know. I think THAT'S too much of an imposition on other people, personally.

0:10:41 Tom: Look I don't actually fully disagree with that at all but I feel like there's a way to handle that situation maybe he didn't know he's gonna set maybe you know like Like, yeah, right,

0:10:48 Thomas: Oh, yeah, that'S not defending how anyone handled the situation. Yeah. Yeah. And here's the thing. He, uh, I saw also that he left after that and no one asked him to leave. He just left afterthat. Cause he, yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. Oh, I have all the empathy in the world for that guy. I don't.

0:10:59 Tom: Sure, it'd be mortifying, yeah. I can't even imagine, like, yeah but I kind of felt this as soon as you described it, like I felt the same way you just described, Thomas. Like, I don't understand why you would go if you knew that like you might do something intentionally or unintentionally that would just embarrass the shit out of you and everybody else. That is confusing, right?

0:11:12 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, well, and traumatically, traumatically. So like, it's not, it's, not like, oh, that's somebody, you know, as, as a IBS and pass some gap. That's like traumatic stuff yeah yeah

0:11:31 Tom: Yeah, but like genuine, like even if it was just gonna traumatize me, right. Like if I had a medical condition where it's just like, you know what? But I might uncontrollably shit myself today. And, like, that's nobody's fault, but certainly nobody wants to smell that, and I don't want to have to deal with it, and it might be embarrassing to me. I'd be like, hey, I will attend virtually. Put me up on the big screen, right, and I can zoom into this thing and wave, and we can have that nice delay that BBC will inexplicably ignore.

0:11:56 Eli: Your Zoom is on radio delay too.

0:11:58 Tom: Yeah. Holy shit.

0:11:59 Eli: You got your wife there with the censor button yeah so the interesting thing is right because the good there's bad conversation right which is not worth having which is the like he shouldn't have gone anywhere and also he's racist secretly because that's a thing that happened because of his disease that's not a thing that happens so there's a lot of stuff that's not worth Having a conversation the conversation that I think is interesting the reason why I wanted us to talk about it experts though we are is that what the the entire documentary is

0:12:13 Tom: That's not how that works, yeah.

0:12:29 Eli: About is that you cannot remove yourself from society if you have this illness the whole point of the documentary is actually not like hey I'm sorry I swear although he obviously is it's like you need to learn to let me live in a space where I might shout something inappropriate and what I think is really interesting is that this incident is a really good counter to his documentary if

0:12:53 Thomas: I don't really agree with that

0:12:54 Tom: I was going to say, like from what you just described, he left he left he wasn't like yeah my documentary I mean I'm gonna really stick to my guns here and stick around he

0:12:59 Thomas: Yeah yeah he left yeah

0:13:04 Eli: If someone was making that argument to me I would say absolutely with fucks and shits which is what the documentary is about right so like there's lots of moments where he's he's like saying fuck and suck a cock in front of kids and they're like he says suck a cop in front and I'm like first of all suck a cuck in front of kids already a conversation worth having but second of all the argument I would present if I were a good thinker like thomas's would be yeah but what if you were like going to scream the n word at a person of color wouldn't

0:13:17 Tom: Left nope no sorry

0:13:23 Thomas: Yeah that's already a little too far for me at an award yeah yeah

0:13:38 Eli: That be something where you would want to take those precautions as opposed to like asking the people around you to adapt

0:13:45 Tom: Wow his whole documentary was about a thing that he when it happened to him was like oh actually I've just I'm going to

0:13:51 Thomas: Well, yeah. I mean, I, I think what Eli's. Yeah. No longer for. Yeah, geez.

0:13:54 Eli: He withdraws the documentary from its nomination ah fuck

0:13:55 Tom: Leave right I just feels it just feels like like I feel like if he really meant it he just stuck around I'm

0:14:01 Eli: Guys the camera pans over to him in his arm and his arms are all cross in front of him not going anywhere right

0:14:03 Tom: Not even lying like if it was like really meant it'd stick around yeah it's like wait till I drop the next one like what yeah

0:14:12 Thomas: I think that there's with any disability, there might be feelings people have of like, here's a day I can be around people and here's a day. I can't just for not, you know, not for the same reason, but like for different reasons that I don't think that invalidates his thesis. If it's like in general, we need to make sure to be able to like be inclusive as much as we can. But also, it's not like that's unlimited, right?

0:14:35 Tom: I don't disagree with that at all I guess I feel like if it depends on how binary his document as it was described just moments ago to me I haven't seen the documentary of course you don't remove yourself from society with a capital S but also like maybe there are parts of society where today is not your day day right if you're having like a high verbal tick day maybe you know you have to skip your daughter's dance recital and like genuinely that super sucks it super sucks but like you can't go to the kindergarten dance recitel and start hurling slurls at little

0:15:08 Thomas: And shout slurs.

0:15:04 Eli: We really hope you'll make it to the little ladybugs dance recital I'd love to I'd like to what races are present at the dance recitle

0:15:19 Tom: Kids and that and like I I want to acknowledge it like that sucks and it's super unfair and nothing about that is okay okay nothing top to bottom everything about that is just complete ass but it's like I know that like this guy obviously feels terrible because what had happened he fucking left so it's not even just that like he doesn't want to hurt other people but like he understands he doesn'T want to hurt himself and like ostracize himself even more I don'T know like it feels like don'T go don't go today

0:15:51 Thomas: At the same time, I think definitely I'm 100 % on board with the idea that we need to be inclusive. And also, I'm sure if any of our kids have any sort of disabilities or any sort of, you know, neurodivergence, for example, that all my kids probably have, that would would make them hard to be around sometimes we wouldn't want to feel like that means they don't get to participate in society and so I I do and I'm not arguing with tom I'm just saying like acknowledging like that that's the thing when when eli said like conversation is dead or you might have said that before recording but yeah like that'sthe conversation I would have about it is yes absolutely inclusivity 100 I'm all on board with that but there are obviously lines Where it's like, well, okay, the good of this one thing is not worth the harms of this other thing. That's just how life is. I don't think it's particularly hard to be able to draw that line. But I think the problem is everyone's a fucking idiot and can't handle the fact that you can have a point of view that's not going all the way over to one side or the other. Or, I won't say that, our idiot digital environment is designed to only show you the

0:17:00 Thomas: Worst views that go to one side or the other. I think there are plenty of people who have nuanced takes on this, but we only see the worst ones.

0:17:06 Eli: 100 and I also think I think the bbc's behavior here is a really good example of a problem I see in college a lot right which is that like a lot of my fellow teachers are fake woke because they're terrified of their students and so they do it wrong and they get in trouble and then they're like I'm adolf hitler now right we were talking about this a little bit on the bonus episode but like something that I see on a pretty regular basis is like the administration right will release a statement that's insane this happens on if you listen to where there's woke which I do uh this happens all the time right which the administration will release this sort of nonsense gobbledygook response to what is obviously a pretty straightforward situation and then that makes it 10 000 times worse

0:17:19 Thomas: Mmm, right. Oh, God, yes. Yep, 100%. Aw, yep.

0:17:51 Eli: Like the samantha fulnecki situation the girl who wrote like jesus instead of her psych paper and then the college was like we believe every student has the right to worship christ of nazareth and we're like dude what the fuck are you talking about I think this is a similar thing, right? Which is that the BBC probably had a conversation about inclusion where they were like, well, I think the wokest thing, stares around the room nervously, is to ignore the N -word.

0:18:04 Tom: Right that's nothing yeah

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0:18:30 Tom: Isn't the thing to do and I like is to say all right like I need some accommodations and it is reasonable for me to say I have this disability or I havethis like this this neurodivergence or whatever it is and I'm gonna I would like to attend this event I'm going to talk to the organizers and I am going to say hey you know here's what might happen let's talk about what those reasonable accommodations might be

0:18:52 Thomas: And it might be a room very nearby. Yeah.

0:18:54 Tom: That's everybody's responsibility that's the organizer's responsibility right yeah everybody had a responsibility here to acknowledge that there were accommodations which would be necessary and fruitful for everybody if they were addressed ahead of time and instead it sounds like nobody did that and it went poorly and then the bbc was like air it that's cool which seems fucking insane that seems like every part of this seems like wildly preventable and we know about accommodations like if you have a kid like all of my kids have some amount of accommodations in their classrooms rooms because they all have some 504 or IEP. They all have 504s or IEPS plans. All four of my kids. It's not like we live in a world where accommodations are a

0:19:36 Eli: Aislinn yells the N word all the time. We can't stop her.

0:19:46 Tom: Rarity and workplaces have accommodations, right? Like we are constantly working in this sphere. It seems insane to just be like, yeah, let's not have that conversation ahead of time. Let's nobody open that conversation ahead of time.

0:20:00 Thomas: Well, or they had it badly. I think Eli nailed it with the like, I think I underestimated because my bias is toward since I say things that I actually believe, I tend to assume too much that people say things they actually believe. Which is really stupid on my part, apparently.

0:20:15 Eli: That's crazy. Why would you do that? Yeah.

0:20:15 Thomas: There's way too much fake wokeness and people just expressing beliefs that they don't actually hold. And this is just a case of it sounds like that sounds plausible to me. I don't know. I haven't I don'T know that I have all the information on this or, you know, another thing that can happen to give some amount of credit is if you have some people within an organization who might be cool and some aren't. And then the compromised thing that comes out of that is bullshit, you know, where it's like, well, we've got some people who are right. Some people are wrong. Let's compromise and put out a mealy mouth bullshit like that can happen to just on an organizational level. That's another thing. Yeah.

0:20:48 Eli: It always happens on an organizational level. And you can and it is incredibly frustrating to people who are not those levers of power because the thing that they came up with was awesome. Right. And then the dean comes out and they're like, you'll notice I'm wearing a dashiki. My name is Richard Crowland, the 37th. I'maring a dashigi in that little hat thing. And I'm here to talk to you all about Kwanzaa. And that is not what the department proposed when they said, can we celebrate Kwanzea this year or whatever the case might be?

0:21:08 Tom: To bring it to parenting, like because two of my kids are now in college and they both have gone through the high school experience with 504 plans or IEP plans, we've had conversations where we've had to tell the kids like, okay, like once you are in college, then when you move into the workforce, you have a responsibility to advocate for yourself. Like nobody is going to be an advocate for you proactively. It's nobody else's responsibility As an adult, like you have a responsibility to advocate for yourself and to know what accommodations you have a right to, and then to ask for those reasonable accommodations in the workplace. And like, like genuinely, this seems like a textbook example of somebody not doing that, not saying like, Hey, let's put an accommodations plan together so I can attend this event. Like regardless of the, like the wokeness, like, I do wonder if this isn't like a, a honestly like a good example to be like hey here's what happens actually if you don't if you know right well if you Don't Advocate for Yourself is my is like what I'm saying like that I think like people put a lot of onus on the organizers sometimes but like we also have an onus as the people like as adults being in the world and like we I talk to the boys about this all the time like you're going to go into the workforce and nobody's going to know and they're They're not responsible for caring about this more than you care about it.

0:22:21 Eli: A hundred percent. If you don't make accommodations for a person with a disability, I also want to be. Yeah. Mm hmm.

0:22:48 Tom: Like you have a responsibility to advocate for yourself. And if you don't do it, it will not happen. And you can't blame other people for it. Like you've got to be your own advocate. And like I think there's a sort of like reactiveness or like,

0:23:00 Thomas: I think there's a fine line there. Yeah. I understand people being sensitive to that being something that someone would want to say if they don't want to make accommodations. You know, it's hard because it's like I kind of see both sides of it. Well, I, I Think that's something that people would offer up if they're the kind of people who don't want to have to make accommodations or something like it's the kind of like that I think people are sensitive to hearing that because like wait it shouldn't be on my kid the difference between my kid versus like someone with power like it should be more on the person with power to be accommodating and so I I think yeah sure yeah

0:23:10 Tom: Oh, what do you mean? Right. Yeah. But I'm talking about like once our kids begin to reach adulthood, there's an interesting shift. Right. So like when your kids are younger, there is a whole bunch of adults that do the advocacy work for your kids. And they do all this proactively for your kids. And then there's this sort of like switchover that has to happen where they're going to be in a space now, I .e. the entire rest of their lives, where nobody will advocate for them proactively other than themselves. The school has all these systems. They have social workers and they've got teachers and they're got state mandated plans. They've got all these system in place where a whole bunch of well -meaning adults are going going to make decisions and help kids advocate, or they're going to advocate for the kids and for their needs and to try to drive their success. And then you go off into the rest of your life and all of that just disappears. It's pretty much just gone. And I think that can be really shocking for kids if their expectations are not properly sort of set and they're not properly transitioned from you've lived in a world where a lot of well -meaning adults have worked really really hard to be your advocate. And now you're going to go into the world and essentially nobody is going to give a shit whether you live or die.

0:24:40 Tom: And that's how the rest of life is going to be, you know, because it kind of is. And I think that's a really shocking transition for a lot of people.

0:24:48 Eli: Yeah, no, 100 percent. I also think that it's important, though. I'm thinking about it's crazy. Sorry, this might not be good podcasting. I have this situation with one of my students right now. Now, there's been an issue in the classroom and it's a problem. And I wrote him an email, a very nice email being like, hey, I'm not telling you to drop my class. I'm telling you your grade is really bad. And if you drop my class now, you don't get an F. And his answer was, well, I have these accommodations. And I didn't really have a I basically just got in with the accommodations office and said, hey. This is not this is not what these accommodations are and this is not what I can do. And it was tough because the accommodations office sends students to me. They know that I make a ton of effort to use the dyslexia font and that I use ADD questionnaire formatting and all that kind of stuff. I send out copies of all my notes. I allow myself to be recorded and I record myself when I lecture. So I do a lot of the stuff. It was a scenario where, and this is, you know, this is an incredibly young person, so huge grain of salt, right? Because you're allowed to also need accommodations and also be a young person who fucks up. But it was sort of this person had crossed the Rubicon of good decision making and then sort of turned around and said, well, I have these accommodations. Do those fix it? And I kind of had to be like, ah, unfortunately they do not. And so I think that's an important part of learning as well. I wanted to talk a little about what I mean by the fake woke, though, because while we are obviously trying to court the right with this new Manosphere podcast, what I mean by fake woke is not well-intentioned people doing it

0:26:32 Eli: Wrong. Wrong I mean people who do not want to do the thing and so they are very clearly doing it to the letter of the law nobody who actually cared about the comfort of their audience and this attendee had a conversation about what was going on with this gentleman's attendance right as is obvious by this episode you could have run his attendance past tom and tom would have been like I don't know I feel like maybe we have a room where someone's yelling the n -word but it's you know a little further away from the theater than the rest

0:26:57 Tom: Why? Why am I? That is

0:27:09 Eli: Well look first for those who listen to the bonus episode they know your first suggestion would be kill yourself that would be the

0:27:15 Tom: Not my suggestion. It's not my my suggestion.

0:27:15 Eli: First thing you would that's if you're if you have any mental difference tom as tom always tells his kids as they leave for school every morning Aislinn kill yourself Amen kill yourself Donovan Overdue buddy Mwah

0:27:18 Thomas: Yeah patreon.com/

0:27:18 Tom: It's never my first. It is a suggestion that is not true. Any mental difference. Yeah. Yeah. I do.

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0:27:41 Eli: But speaking of health things and shifting wildly In topic and range Tom You've got a little health update for us A Hayley watch if you will Hayley Watch Is she faking it No she's not Health watch Hayley did not love that theme song When I pitched it to her in the writers room Let me tell you she was real cranky about it yeah

0:27:44 Thomas: Gldads yeah

0:27:54 Tom: Not surprising. Surprising. Yeah, so, you know, I haven't given a whole lot lot of specifics about this for a long time because Haley it just doesn't feel like my news to give but Haley and I talked about it and she's comfortable with it and so I'm happy to kind of give people an update it's also I'm probably going to and by probably I mean definitely going to be missing some shows for probably all of my podcasts for at least a week or two while we deal with some health stuff so listeners will know Haley's been going through it health wise it's taken us a long Time to kind Of figure out what the problem has been it's been a very very difficult problem to suss out. But Haley has something called Cushing's disease. So what that means is that she's got a tumor on her pituitary, which is located sort of at the base of the brain behind the nose area. And it's got to go. The tumor's got it go.

0:28:51 Eli: Not the brain the tumor that's

0:28:51 Tom: It's causing no end of problems. Not the brain, not the brain. The tumors got to get the

0:28:53 Thomas: I was just thinking as he said the base of the brain behind the nose area I was like okay what is a brain I don't now I don' t know I thought I knew guys but yeah that can't be what But no, I assume Tom usually knows what the fuck he's talking about with this stuff. So I assumed I'm like, what? Maybe I don't know. Is the head actually backwards anatomically?

0:29:00 Tom: Brain

0:29:01 Eli: Not no can I say thomas I had the exact same thought where I was like that's at the base of the brain that's the front of the grain it's the front bottom front bottom words have meaning tom

0:29:07 Tom: Like under. It sort of like under the it's a it's okay the front bottom I don't know yeah so like underneath underneath so actually backwards yeah you gotta spin it around but so uh yeah so they're gonna go we're gonna head down to uh md anderson down in

0:29:20 Eli: You know how I see everything upside

0:29:24 Thomas: Doctors are just like, it's not commonly known, but the head is actually backwards from what everyone thinks.

0:29:36 Tom: Houston cushing's disease is a rare disease it's three So there's not a not

0:29:42 Eli: Down curry luck sexually transmitted

0:29:42 Tom: A high rate of occurrence. It's three in a million. It's three in a million.

0:29:42 Thomas: See, what are you complaining for? It's not like it was one in a million, Tom. What the fuck are you explaining for? Three in a million yeah yeah

0:29:47 Eli: You hear that you hear that hailey that's what you get for mary and tom put the ring on her finger and just a demon appears next to her oh hey what's going on have you met the turtle oh you gotta meet him he's

0:29:52 Thomas: You know the the christian thing about like didn't you forget to ask someone their consent and it's jesus or whatever like that's that but tom has to do that with the demon

0:30:05 Eli: Great it's but it's tom's bad luck demon yeah

0:30:09 Tom: So there there's there's not a lot of experts on this. Unfortunately, it's been a it's been a really, it's been like an unbelievably difficult road for her. So, you know, the health problems that she's had have been life alteringly severe for the last five years plus now that we've been kind of going through all of this. It's taken a long time to figure out what the problem was. We got to get down to Houston because there's like, this is where the expert on this particular surgery is these tumors are like between one and three millimeters like they're tiny little things it's like it's fucking crazy the whole pituitary gland is the size of a pea so they actually like they go in through the nose and drill out a piece of your skull and then they enter the area the whole surgery is fucking incredible it's insane you can watch it like you can do anything you actually watch these things on youtube and see them but we're very very hopeful that this this surgery, which is the middle of March, can give her some relief, can get rid of this, can stop this problem and allow her to get her health back and kind of turn things around for her because she needs it. And it's been a really intense five years for everybody, for her, for me, for the kids. It's a lot. If you've had somebody in your life who's had like a chronic long -term disabling illness,

0:30:15 Eli: You don't even know where the base of the brain is it's three in a million that's like no nobody's listening to

0:31:34 Tom: It's fucking intense. Like it's genuinely, it'S really intense. And IT'S It's pretty intense to be facing down like, hey, in a little over two weeks now, we'll be heading down to Houston to have brain surgery. That's fucking all. It's all quite a lot. And we'll be down there for at least a week, but I would guess we'll be in Houston for two weeks, possibly three. So we don't know exactly how long we'll be down there. A lot of it depends on how the surgery goes and how she feels after and how soon you can get back on an airplane. So there's a lot of kind of unknowns and variables that are in there. So if I'm not around, it's not because I'm being lazy. It's just because I've got to, you know, hang out and make sure that my wife recovers from brain surgery.

0:32:16 Eli: That all the other times he's missed are because he was being lazy though don't you know try not to confuse that with the other time he's messed then that would be confusing for you those Those were just laziness.

0:32:19 Tom: So it's all.

0:32:18 Thomas: 100 yeah I think he's still being lazy in doing this but

0:32:23 Tom: Yeah, probably.

0:32:28 Eli: Yeah, you're not getting brain surgery.

0:32:29 Thomas: Yeah but he's He's kind of put us in a position where we can't really complain about it. Yeah.

0:32:32 Eli: If she needs a Jell -O cup, she can push that button by the bed. She'll be fine.

0:32:36 Tom: You know, for a fucking half of an eighth of a second, I thought, you know, if I'm stuck for a long time, maybe I can bring like if we just can't come home for a while. I was like, I could bring a microphone. But then I'm like, if we're down there, it's because she feels so bad we can't get on an airplane. So how in the world are you going to like do anything other than care for her? You idiot. Like, I don't even know why that thought occurred to me for a second. But like I'm so stuck on like well I have to work you know I can't take an infinite amount of time off like at some point people are gonna get tired of this shit

0:33:08 Eli: Also, I know there's not a hell, but if we were the kind of work environment here at this podcast that was like, Tom, we really need you to come in and make some dick jokes and talk about people fucking around at the BAFTA. Like, we would deserve the hell if it doesn't exist. Of all the jobs, right, where you can take time off and it truly should not matter to anybody, podcasting, we're not the daily, right? No one's tuning in to find out if we're going to war with Iran. If there's any job you should be able to take off from, it is ours. Well, we are wishing Haley the best. We hope she recovers soon. Have you thought about when the doctors open her up and they're like, oh, my gosh, she was faking this whole time. How are you going to handle that conversation well she should debate me on series inquiries only about whether or not she has a brain

0:33:53 Tom: Jesus Christ Jesus Christ there is a zero percent chance she's faking this whole time

0:34:02 Thomas: I'm not hosting that one. Yeah.

0:34:03 Tom: Yeah nope let me tell a quick dad story that's related to this though because I it really like like, grab me. So going through this process is like, it's a fucking labyrinth, right?

0:34:04 Eli: Tumor somehow I still win it's been a lot of

0:34:15 Tom: Like, it's the worst. It's the actual worst. Most endocrinologists don't know how to deal with Cushing's, so they won't deal with it. They just keep referring you to somebody else, referring youto someone else. Then there's all this testing. The testing takes, it has taken over a year to get all the testing done, and then imaging, and multiple images, different kinds. It's a nightmare. So when they finally come back, and both the endocrineologist, who's a specialist in this out of UCLA and then this guy at MD Anderson in Houston they both were like immediately like yep there it is we can get it and it was this incredible sense of like relief and then fear because it's like awesome that's the problem let's fucking take it out and it's like holy shit brain surgery that's that's a lot that's and so it's kind of you know like there's a there's a a lot of emotionality that comes with all of that more than anything I want my wife to get her life back. I want her to get her health back. I want to feel like herself again. I want it to be able to reenter all of our lives, including her own in a healthy and like physical way, you know, that she's not been able to do in half a decade, like half a decade plus. And like, so we're telling family like, Hey, here's what's going on. And we've got to go to Houston and all of this. We told my dad and my dad's fucking first response was, if you need me, I'll fly down there. I'll fly down to Houston because if you need me, if you want me there, I'll fly down. And like my dad can't just get on an airplane for three hours.

0:35:48 Eli: Fun that's a huge offer

0:35:51 Tom: Like my dad has to stand like every 15 or 20 minutes. He can't stay seated or stay standing. He's in a lot of pain all the time. And there was not a heartbeat of time between him, like hearing about it and being like, I'm going to get on the airplane. What do you need? And then like Haley's dad I told him no you know I don't I thank you you know I love you but like I can't think of what I would need and I would honestly be like I gotta take care of dad too cuz like he's not in great shape you know so would not be like a cut you know but like we told Haley his dad and the very next day Haley said like I'd like to come down for moral support can I please be there for

0:36:07 Eli: Right right yeah exactly it's not going to be

0:36:32 Tom: You so like both the dads were just immediately like yeah we'll be there for you like we'll just drop everything and we'll be there for you and I was like that's how it should be like that that's fucking good stuff right there that's how you fucking dad and it was really very moving it's still very moving to think about because the response was just so immediate and it was so unequivocal

0:36:54 Thomas: My dad's response is like, oh, I am dead. Like, fucking asshole. Idiot. Yeah. Yeah. But seriously, Tom, the world is lucky that Tom is Tom and not me because they would have heard no end to my complaining that I would have done about how hard your life has been. People have no idea. Like we joke, Tom has taken on just an enormous amount. Like it's unfathomable how much Tom takes on and still jokes and laughs about it. This has been like years right I mean just like years of everything being a lower priority than trying to figure this out for Haley and to make everything work and like you know you've put you you have been no priority to yourself and it's like been years like it's the kind of thing that like some people can do for a little while but like tom's just been this for god as long as the show's been going almost right or it's been

0:36:58 Eli: Awesome classic about

0:37:00 Tom: Classic dad so

0:37:12 Eli: Lydia's brain tumor yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:52 Thomas: It's been a while like and I just can't believe you've been able to do it. And it's like, I, people, you don't, you aren't a complainer. You aren't me. So you, so people don't know. And they really have no idea how much you've, you've you and Haley have gone through and like how hard it's been. Yeah.

0:38:07 Tom: Tell you what like it's impossible for me to think about complaining about my life I still get to wake up and feel good I know I still get to wake up and feel good in my body you know like I do I like I had when my fucking neck got all fucked up I had a hurt for 17 days then they fixed it and I was

0:38:12 Eli: You should think about it.

0:38:13 Thomas: You should, you should consider it. Yeah. That feels nice.

0:38:26 Tom: Fine. Haley's had to wake up for five plus years and feel like shit and we had no idea even how to get her out of that yeah five plus years so mm-hmm. Yeah. I have no complaints. Like it's like, I'm so intensely conscious of what it means to have a healthy body and what a, an unbelievable, genuinely, like what an unbelievable gift that is that like, I feel bad if I'm like, oh, I fucking hurt my arm a little bit there working out. It's like I can work out. You know what I mean? Like I get to work out, I get to wake up today and be like, uh, I'm a little tired and I have, uh you know, I gotta do do this thing. It's like, fucking, I get to do this stuff. Like my, my perspective on all of that has shifted. I get to do it. I get to, I get to wake up and work out. I get to wake up and go earn a living. I get to wake up and like move my body around the house and take care of the kids and do these things and have this life because like, I can see what it means when you can't do it and I can see how, how much bigger that piece is.

0:38:30 Thomas: Five. Oh God, man. I didn't even know it was that long. Wow.

0:39:27 Tom: So I'm like, yeah, I, I get to do it. I get to wake up today and I get to have a body that does what I ask it to do with minimal complaints.

0:39:33 Thomas: See, I disagree with this. You should still be able to be like, Yeah, But Relatively Speaking, speaking, relatively speaking, this particular thing was still shitty and inconvenient. So I should be able to complain about, you know what I mean? Like, have you considered that point of view?

0:39:36 Eli: Your body can't do that much, Tom. We've seen you.

0:39:46 Eli: Yeah. Also, the bad thing's happening to your wife. So you should definitely complain about that, Tom? Yeah.

0:39:52 Thomas: Yeah. You don't even complain about that.

0:39:52 Tom: Yeah, right, like, yeah, no way.

0:39:56 Eli: I mean, honestly, how good a help meet can she have been while she was in excruciating pain? You know what I'm saying? Think about it biblically.

0:39:59 Tom: Oh, my God. Oh, my God,

0:40:03 Eli: Hey, I hope her recovery is slow enough that I could leave the country and change my name. She just spins around a pole and kicks me a couple hundred times in a row. That's how you'll know she's fully healed.

0:40:04 Thomas: Biblically.

0:40:08 Tom: You're fucking toast when she gets back in shape. Man you're just you're fucking toast when she gets back in shape yeah they're

0:40:21 Eli: I want to say, I hope for a full recovery, yeah? Like, that's a thing? It's not one of those bullshits where they're like, nah, you won't be able to live a life.

0:40:24 Tom: Yeah I you know she's gonna need a lot of no no there's like right now her quality of life is pretty much zero and like I think no

0:40:38 Eli: You should stop telling her to kill herself. Huh?

0:40:40 Tom: No nono no, no, never not for a second but like I mean she would say the same thing she has a very low quality of Life unfortunately she's not able to you know do a a lot of things that make a person like happy and and feel like themselves and so it's been very tough for her but like with this surgery if it is successful that's for you haley and knock on some wood if it's successful yeah no don't curse me you motherfucker I will fly to new jersey and I will rip you right in half. Yeah

0:41:03 Eli: Ah, I'm walking through a stone circle at the same time, Haley, though. So we're back to zero.

0:41:11 Eli: You're kicking from the other side on a different bowl.

0:41:13 Thomas: You're already so cursed tom any change in the amount of curse is a positive one for you there's no yeah

0:41:18 Eli: That's true. You should see if there's kind of a luck threshold that you can flip over the political horseshoe.

0:41:23 Tom: So but there's there is a possibility like Like she'll she'll need a lot of rehab and physical therapy after all this. But yeah, if things are successful, it's like, yeah, like after rehab and physical therapy, she could have her life back like her real honest to God, full life back, which would just be unbelievable. I sometimes just sit and think about like what it will feel like to drive her to physical therapy that first day just for her to be able to do that work and start down that path that's a big thought for me that's a thought that I think about a lot. So

0:41:40 Thomas: Incredible

0:42:00 Eli: Do you ever think that stuff about me, like doing nice stuff for me, too? Because I feel like you haven't talked enough about me for the last couple of minutes. I feel like people really want to hear, like about your love for me and what you would do for me. I have heartburn from

0:42:05 Tom: Dude enough about you yeah it's too big it's true I don't know I don'T HAVE THE WORDS ELI I DON'T HAVE THE

0:42:16 Eli: The GLP-1 that I'm on, and I just feel like you never mention it on the show.

0:42:20 Tom: WORNS I that's you haven't really given me permission yeah

0:42:22 Thomas: Do you never mention it

0:42:23 Eli: Oh, here's a question. If she gets better, do we get another season of Talking Ship?

0:42:27 Thomas: Oh yeah

0:42:27 Tom: Oh absolutely yeah we've wanted to do that show for a long time but uh her voice has changed as a result of this so she yeah yeah so no

0:42:35 Thomas: Oh shit really wow. I

0:42:36 Eli: It's actually me. Yeah, I'm doing, I're Haley doing a voice.

0:42:39 Thomas: Think this is just him setting up the lore for the new co -host. I'm just kidding

0:42:42 Tom: It's been fucking crazy like to say that this has upended her life. It doesn't. I mean her voice is changed a bit it's like it's it's pretty gravelly and different than it normally would be that should go back uh to normal that's the result of some medication. I think that she's been taking to try to help this problem until we can get to the surgery piece so yeah her voice has changed, and she also has having a hard time with word recall at the moment so yeah we've

0:43:07 Thomas: Oh shit wow maybe I have a fucking tip no. I'm kidding yeah yeah yeah

0:43:11 Eli: She has trouble waking up in the mornings, and she's late for everything. To be fair, that was Haley before.

0:43:18 Tom: Not wanted to do this show because you know it just would be difficult to do the show and she wouldn't feel like herself and wouldn't feel like she's like yeah here we go like this is the right product to put out to

0:43:27 Eli: Tom knows Tom Jones? That's fucking cool. Well, we wish her the best and happy healing all of that and if she comes out of surgery with n-word Tourette's we hope that you bring her to a bunch of live shows

0:43:38 Tom: People

0:43:40 Thomas: It's very appropriate first part of the show we did I'm glad we did

0:43:45 Clip: DEAR OLD DADS

0:43:51 Eli: All right gentlemen before we go my only plan for today is to get new glasses after that I guess I'll

0:44:00 Tom: Accommodations that was stupid I liked it

0:44:48 Eli: See sorry I gotta go talk about jerking off into panties

0:44:52 Tom: And essentially nobody's gonna give a shit whether you live or

0:44:56 Eli: Is she faking it no, no she's not. HEALTH WATCH!

0:45:01 Thomas: Is the head actually backwards anatomically

0:45:05 Tom: Die! Don't curse me you motherfucker

0:45:08 Eli: I hope her recovery is slow enough that I can leave the country and change my name.

0:45:13 Tom: I might uncontrollably shit myself