The one with Jamie Grayson - Part Deux!

This week, the world gets to meet "spicy David," we are all gutted from some TikTok, Gavin is in his "year of lasts," we rank the top 3 things about surrogacy that were no big deal, and this week we are simply agog at the return of one of our favorite guests, Jamie Grayson, who gives us an update on the world of baby gear, who he's in an internet fight with, and if that simple syrup is still in his fridge.

Questions? Comments? Rants? Raves? Send them to GaytriarchsPodcast@gmail.com, or you can DM us anywhere @GaytriarchsPodcast

Transcript

David: 0:00

So my something great this week is my husband and I switch who puts who to bed every other night. So like I put the boy to bed. Sorry.

unknown: 0:10

Can I have time, please?

Gavin: 0:11

Can you uh yes, just send the send the thing and I I'll do it. And leave me alone for five minutes.

David: 0:17

Sorry about that. But this is real parenting, guys. Out there who's listening, we're trying to record, and your son's interrupting, and you're like, just leave me the fuck alone for five minutes.

Gavin: 0:28

I'm just asking for five minutes.

David: 0:31

And this is Gatriarchs. So have I ever told you about Spicy David? Oh, is this uh physically spicy or a mentally spicy or so it's like it's the version of me where I'm not angry, but I'm really fucking annoyed and I'm willing to do the dirty work. So Spicy David often comes out when so we had a snow day that you mentioned last week on the podcast up here in the Northeast, and everything shut down. If you follow me on TikTok, you saw me you spicy David posting on TikTok.

Gavin: 1:14

Annoyed as spicy.

David: 1:15

An annoyed spicy David. Yes.

Gavin: 1:17

If it's not eight feet of snow as in days of old, like they're experiencing in Northern California last year, maybe this year too. I enough of this. Enough of this.

David: 1:28

So it's I I spoke on the about the culture of the Northeast and how for some reason now if it rains a little bit or snows a little bit, everything shut down. Well, anyway, my daycare before the storm hit, knowing we were gonna get only six inches, closed the following day. So we're gonna close everyone get over it. Right. Yet the building it's attached to, which is the YMCA, did not close or was not going to close. Right. And I was furious because not only does that mean I can't work, I've got the two kids home, but I'm just so annoyed. So then I get in an email fight with the daycare director. And I now, so now I'm spicy. So I had a really spicy day and then like had a meeting with a manager, which did not go well, and it was just like all of these things. But I was like, now was the time. If you need me to go yell at somebody, to talk to your ex to break up with somebody, now is the time to find spicy David.

Gavin: 2:16

I mean, do not get in the way of spicy David, and because he give has no F's to give, and he is he is he is your parenting Karen for any needs you may have. You could probably turn this into um into a business plan, actually. I mean, spicy David Karen.

David: 2:34

Yeah, I think parenting Karen. I mean, that's a meme in and of itself, but it's they're out there for sure. Um, so last episode with the military guys, we kind of touched a little bit on me seeing that one-year-old at tick on um at Costco, and I was like, oh, I was feeling a little like oh wistful about it. I was feeling all the feels, and I just uh I'm getting inundated with this like you'll miss it and blah, blah, blah, blah, talk. And we've talked about this endlessly about like there's no solve for this other than bottling up things and bringing it to you in the future, and you just can't do that. And then I was looking at the comments of one of these TikTok videos, and it said something that like shot a dagger through me. So I want to inflict the pain on you as well. And it's it was a quote, and it said, Parenting is just one long string of goodbyes. Just you wait. Just you wait. It I I only have four years of experience, but like, yeah, the little goodbyes, no more baby, no more toddler, no more crawling, no more whatever. Goodbye, goodbye, baby, goodbye. This go by. I mean, hello, right? Hello, four-year-old, hello, five-year-old, hello, tween, hello, adult, hello, you know, uh, in-laws.

Gavin: 3:43

But I and I don't think that's a glass half empty either. That's a reality that you have to come to with um parenting. I mean, just um along those lines, just a couple of days ago, my daughter decided that she wanted to get herself up. My middle schooler decided she wanted to get herself up with an alarm, make her own breakfast, and be left alone. And I was both like, oh, well, wait a minute. But what I wake you up. She reached over and touched my arm and said, Dad, you have to let me go. She's 12. I I cannot believe how you've set me up for my topic here. So for the entire world um out there, uh for all um maybe three of our listeners, but by the way, I do have to point out, we are this is episode 54, right? We I think we very officially, a long time ago, in fact, passed the amount of uh episodes that outnumber our listeners at this point. But but um for all of all of our eight listeners or whatever listener out there, I feel like it's good for us to talk about ourselves once in a while, because after all, we are narcissists who started a podcast because we love to listen to ourselves, right? But I want everybody out there to know that a lot of the time David and I don't talk offline because I always am like, wait, we got to keep the pro the uh consciousness. Save it for the show, save it for the show. So we do have an outline here that we're following, and David uh put that quote in parenting is one long stream of goodbyes. And believe it or not, the next thing I was gonna talk about was a year of lasts. So we are going further down this rabbit hole here. Um, but and we didn't plan this. But uh, my um fifth grader is this is his last year of elementary school, and I absolutely feel like this is a year of lasts. Like this is the last holiday party, this is the last Valentine's Day party, which obviously happened just a couple of weeks ago. And um, and we also um we have held on to a tradition that he started, frankly, of um celebrating the hundredth day of school, which as you'll come to see, um is a big thing in like kindergarten first, second grade, but not by the day. It's a big thing in kind in daycare. They do the whole dressing old thing, right? Right, right, right. Dressing old, right. No. So in um kindergarten, he brought a cake. We baked a cake, a bougie ass cake, because he wants to do it that way. And we put a hundred candles in it, and we've been doing that for six years. No, seven years even, and now, oh hi. What are you doing? Okay, can you hold on just a minute and give me my phone back, please? Great. I'll I'll can you just give me five minutes, I'll call for you, and you can have my phone, okay?

David: 6:26

See, this is this is the realities of parenting. Even when you're recording your podcast about gay parenting, your gay parent child walks in, demands your phone, and is annoyed, and walks out of the room. Guys, this is it. Welcome to parenting 101.

Gavin: 6:41

Takes it without asking. What a dick. Anyway, point being a cake, 100 candles, and um, and and I'm and I take a picture of him smiling with his little pink cake and his hundred candles, and I'm like, it's never gonna happen again.

David: 6:59

And I mean, fifth grade is a serious year of lasts, and especially because he's your second kid and you're conceivably last. So like I feel like with with your first kid, it was a little different because you had kind of a second chance to live some through some of this. Yeah, and I did it way better. There's way better the second time. I improved enormously. Yeah. What are you gonna improve on podcasting?

Gavin: 7:26

Well, let's that seems like a good reason to it uh talking about improvements. How about hacks that can improve your parenting skills? That was a really good transition. Uh, you want to talk about a hack, huh?

David: 7:39

Yes, dad hack of the week. So um, it is um borderline child abuse, but it benefits the parents. So my daughter, I've said many times on this podcast, cries all the time. She cries, she cries, she cries. She just cries about everything. And it's not like she's sick or hurting or hungry or whatever. She's just perpetually annoyed at everything in the world. And so it really, really is starting to grade on us two years in. And what we have found is the only thing that really stops her from crying is confusing her and being like, hey, uh, is the sky down or up? Or bringing into another room and be like, Are we gonna have dinner in here? And just totally fucking her up as far as like blocking what she's thinking about or what she's doing. And then she stops crying, or she continues to cry, and I go, What are you crying about? And she's been removed from the location or the situation enough to kind of forget. And it's my favorite thing in the world is to ask my daughter now that I've moved her into the other room and we're talking about babies. I go, Well, why are you crying then? And she kind of goes, uh, and you could see her kind of go, I don't really know why I'm crying. And I was like, Oh, so you have to scramble your child child's brain and mentally confuse them, and then they'll stop crying. That's David's dad, hack of the week. Confusion. CPS. No. So anyway, that's my dad hack.

Gavin: 9:01

What's yours? Well, I actually it I was um reflecting on making messes, and we all kind of, I don't know what where we all fall on the um scale of tolerating mess and not. I think I have a fairly high tolerance for toler of tolerating messes, but at the same time, watch something happening. I'm like, oh God, this is gonna be such a mess. This is gonna be such a mess. But so often, especially with young kids like yours, and even if I can trick my older ones into it, um, sometimes you want to be able to encourage messes. Like, for instance, make your kids in the summertime wash a car. Just give them a sponge and a bucket and just go. I mean, who cares if they're actually doing a good job, but just let them wash the car, right? I mean, if you live on a busy street, you need to monitor it. You can't just send them out with a bucket and a sponge, but washing a car. Or painting rocks, using um water-based paint to just paint rocks and leave them outside and they clean up and whatever. But just let encourage them to go outside and make a mess. Or then also making a mess, frankly, with their fingers. Point being give them a piece of wood and a nail and just have at it and let them discover it and figure it out. I mean, you know, not a one-year-old, but I uh, you know, you just let the kids get out and make a mess.

David: 10:19

But that's but that goes to uh some advice that I've given before, which is like the the only cure for like kids being assholes is air or water. And that's two of your things, right? Air or water, right? Something about those two elements, just get their brains, scramble their brains enough to kind of get them out of their mood.

Gavin: 10:36

And just make peace with the fact that it's gonna be messy, there might be tears, they might get hurt. I mean, I'm not encouraging you to let your kids hurt themselves, but they've got to go discover stuff and just let them, you know, leave them alone and figure it out. So there you go. Um I think we just solved a lot of world's problems now. Now let's um bless the world with our top three lists, shall we? Gate triarch's top three list, three, two, one.

David: 10:59

So our top three lists this week came from our listener, the one, um, which was what are the top three things about surrogacy that you panicked about, but now that you've gone through it, are no fucking big deal. He is a uh uh dad to be going through surrogacy and was, you know, starting to get nervous about things. And I was like, this is a great top three list because this is something a lot of people go through. So um I will go first since it's my list. In number three, the three, the third thing I worried about that didn't matter was PGS testing. So for those of you who have not done um surrogacy, PGS testing is a thing where you can, once you've created embryos that are viable and frozen and they're good to go and everyone likes them, um, you can have the embryos themselves tested and they take a little bit of uh from the uh placental sac and they take a little bit from the egg sac and they test it or whatever. Um, but it comes with a lot of risks. You can damage or kill the embryo. So, and also the information you get is not necessarily an indicative of future things. So there's a little bit of debate in the surrogacy community if it's even valuable to do PGS testing. We hemmed and haunted, because it was, I think at the time for us, like$4,000 extra charge. And at the time, we were$4,000 out. We were like, I cannot afford any more things. And we hemmed and hawned, we were so worried. And both of our first shots went through. And that maybe that's not statistically normal, but like I I it's not something to worry about. You can either do it or you don't, you do it or you don't. Yeah. Uh number two, okay, kind of a big thing, but I think it was important, is um miscarriages and telling people about them. So in surrogacy, obviously, miscarriage really any sort of pregnancy, surrogacy specifically, or IVF, miscarriages are a thing that happen and it happens very often.

Gavin: 12:48

I mean, it happens frequently, freakishly, frequently across the population, and it's a miracle that any of us are here. Correct.

David: 12:57

And I basically didn't tell anybody uh that we were pregnant until the 20-week scan. Oh, wow. Because I was so afraid of having a miscarriage and then having to roll back any sort of announcement. Yeah. And I did tell I think my mom and some like very, very, very close friends prior to that. And I I just think if I did it again, I would allow people to join me on the journey in a way where if I did have a miscarriage or had to roll back news, that I would trust that the people who love me and heard that and were excited about the news would also be happy or be surround me with love in in negative news. So I think that is like worrying about miscarriages and whether and tell people uh is something I would not worry about for the second time because it's either gonna happen or it's not. And why not? It's part of the journey who love you. Yeah, exactly. It's part of the journey. And the number one thing that I worried about prior to surrogacy that has had zero effect on my life was whose baby was whose biologically. Um, I very much wanted my face and a baby. I wanted to be first when we were making kids, and it was very important to me. And and and and I can tell you that since my children have been born, I have thought about it literally zero times. I never ever once look at my daughter and think, well, she's not really mine. Um I imagine this is what people with adoptive children think. They're like, I don't look at my kid and think, you're not really mine. Of course they're yours. Right. Um, but prior to, if I'm being totally honest, prior to having my children, I thought I would feel very specifically about that. And I absolutely feel absolutely no way about that. So, number one, whose kid is whose? What about you?

Gavin: 14:36

I love that I am since I am very much David vonorifically superficial in response. Do it. Uh number three for me, fevers. I was so afraid that I wouldn't recognize a fever. What if I screw it up? What if I can't recognize? What if my kid is not screaming because they got a fever? Oh, no, no. You know. You know when there's a fever, so don't worry about it right now, because you will know. Number two, schedules. I stressed about having everything on a schedule so badly, and guess what? There is no fucking sense. There is no schedule. You just have to roll with it. You can try all you want, but just don't stress about it ahead of time because everybody's just doing the best they can. But basically, schedules fuck them because they don't exist. And number one, my biggest worry was, what if I don't know? What if I don't know? What if I don't know? And I will never forget the time that a a kind of a mommy mentor to me reached out, literally touched my arm when I was freaking out, saying, What if I don't know about something? And she said, You'll know. And um, and as we've mentioned and touched on many, many times in this show, we as men, as gay men, we have just as much of a parenting instinct as anybody. And what she was saying is, you got this because you will know. And um I've never questioned that.

David: 15:58

So don't stress about it. You'll know. I am questioning the fact that none of those have to do with surrogacy. Um, but uh fuck. Well yeah. That was all about parenting. Good good job paying attention to the top three lists. I'm so sorry, listener. Daniel, I'm so sorry. Hey, listen, it doesn't even look at the outline that it has a top three list in it.

Gavin: 16:17

I'm literally staring at it right now, but fine, you're right. I didn't read the directions as well as a kindergartner would have.

David: 16:22

I assume that you've prepared what next week's top three list will be. It's your week. And we've already done top three reasons Gavin should be fired. You've exhausted that possibility as a top three list.

Gavin: 16:37

What are the top three baby foods that you tasted and actually kind of enjoyed?

David: 16:44

Okay. How do you come up with them so fast when you have prepared not even a little bit? Improvise improvisation, baby. Improvisation. Yes, and oh hi, Jamie. I'm sorry to see you. Your beautiful face again.

SPEAKER_02: 17:00

Jamie. I had to look up. I could not remember when the episode came out. It was like March. That's crazy.

Gavin: 17:09

Yeah. Yeah. We are, dude, 50. This is episode 54. And ask us how much money we are making. Zero dollars. Zero. Maybe 54 cents.

David: 17:19

No, we made 49 cents and then we made 19 cents on ads. So that's what 50, 77 cents?

SPEAKER_04: 17:27

Yes.

David: 17:29

That's almost that's that's almost an hour of parking in Hoboken. So you're welcome for that.

SPEAKER_02: 17:35

People say that you can't make money online, and quite frankly, you know literally living proof. I I joined that TikTok creator program. Okay. And let me as a teacher or as a student? Um, as like you get paid based on how many views you get. But the the parameters of what they will pay you for is wild. Like their stipulations for what counts as a view, and it's not very transparent, to be honest. But like I had a I had a video that just went like kind of viral. It's about to, it's about to hit 2 million views right now.

Gavin: 18:13

Oh, is it the is are you calling the woman out for the stroller? The bucket.

SPEAKER_02: 18:17

And the the the Duna on the shopping cart, yeah. That yeah, shopping cart. Do you know how much money TikTok is is going to pay me for that as of right now? Like$1,800. Wow. That's great. So you gotta you gotta get that TikTok follower count up.

David: 18:32

And it is I know. Well, so I have I have a couple friends on TikTok. By the way, we're in the interview. Look, look at us now. Um hi, welcome to the channel. Welcome back to you, Grayson. Um, we I have a couple of uh accounts that I follow that have a pretty high follower count. And a lot of them lately were talking about how they're really frustrated with TikTok because they're constantly changing what their ratio and what they count as a view and what they'll pay and what they won't, and shadow banning and followers and story up and down. And I uh I just uh it it's it's unfortunate for people like you and other people who count on this as part of their income. They they do this as part of their job.

SPEAKER_02: 19:09

Yeah. And I've not I've not ever counted on monetizing views until now, like I just started. Um, so having to do that on top of like building an entire new TikTok account has been very interesting. You don't mean your your origin you've had to build a completely brand new one?

Gavin: 19:26

Oh no, my TikTok account got banned. Oh yes, that is right. Wait, well, remind our listener why that was.

SPEAKER_02: 19:36

Well, dear listener, what happened was there was a lady of the internet um who was pushing herself into child safety advice, and she's not qualified to talk about this at all. So a lot of us, you know, me, a couple pediatricians, a few other people, like came for her and uh found out some other information about some homophobic and transphobic content. She was engaging with, which I will not tolerate. So a few of us called her out, and she and her attorney had copyright strikes filed on my account. I found out my TikTok account was banned via a post on Reddit. Um I logged into TikTok and it said your account is permanently banned. Oh and there was nothing I could do. How many followers did you have at that point? Um so I had had that account for about two and a half years, and I had about 124,000 followers. And I am now two months in to my new account, and I'll hit 50,000 today.

Gavin: 20:39

Wow. I would have assumed that it wouldn't be that hard though for you to put out a call on Instagram and say, hey, everybody, I got banned. Aren't you proud to follow me? Come on over. But it just wasn't that easy.

SPEAKER_02: 20:50

And that's what I've been, that's what I've been doing like on all my other platforms. Like, hey, help, help, help. I need to like get my account back up and running.

David: 20:58

But yours is not an uncommon story. So one of the people I was telling you about it was uh good trouble. And if you don't follow good trouble, you should absolutely follow him. He's oh yes, yeah, yeah, he doesn't do politics. He's also kind of hot, which I like that he's totally like into. But anyway, he he's he was for a while on like follow my backup account. Good trouble 3.0, good trouble 4.0. I'm banned this week from going live. And he was like, and then finally he came out with a video a couple weeks ago, and it was like he hadn't been on in months, and he's like, I can't even log on. I've he has hundreds of thousands of followers, and he's just so devastated, right? Because this is a big part of his life. And yours, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:35

I was I was the most followed CPST on TikTok, and I had thousands of hours of like free car seat information up for people to give all information with like no pay, no paywall, you got a phone in your hand, you have access to it. So uh she had that all taken down, and it is very frustrating. And what is even wilder is I was connected to the head of global compliance at TikTok, and she is aware of everything that happened. But has she gone dark? And still nothing, nothing could happen.

David: 22:08

Wow, wow. So I I I have to barge in here for a second to interrupt. For those of you for the listener who's listening, who maybe hasn't been listening to us for very long, welcome Jamie Grayson to the podcast for the second time. You're our second repeat guest, but Jamie was guest number four. I mean single digits number four. Can you believe it? That was so long ago. So there's probably a lot of people listening who don't even know who you are. So can you give us the quick cliffs notes? Like, who the fuck are you and why are you on Gage Rex?

SPEAKER_02: 22:41

I I'm a disaster. So what if for twenty for 20 years? No way, I have been the childless homosexual who knows everything about car seat safety and strollers. And it's it is it is so far past the point of like a joke now that like you know, that I have quite literally 35 car seats in my house. I've got probably 30 strollers, 15 stroller wagons. Like I have everything in the world, basically. Um, but I've been doing baby gear and safe like safety seminars and articles and 20 years now. 20 years. Next year will be your 20 years.

David: 23:25

And you're either and looking in your apartment, you're either a baby gear expert or a child predator and somebody needs to call the police.

SPEAKER_02: 23:33

I've been accused of all of it.

David: 23:36

And you know what? What a great, great uh little check in your in your box to have people hate you so much that they come for you. I feel like that's like they have to all happen. Their time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:46

If you really have nothing better to do than the like troll me on the internet, go with God.

Gavin: 23:51

Well, that was one of the questions I was gonna ask is actually since the last time we checked in with you. Um, obviously, TikTok has been a complete headache for you, but has how has your social media world changed over the last year, other than being banned on TikTok? I mean, are is your approach different? Have you had to recalculate your own algorithm? How's it changed?

SPEAKER_02: 24:11

Um, I think with social everything, obviously everything is always changing, but what is nuts to me is Facebook is still so important. And obviously, my audience demographic on TikTok skews much younger. But Facebook, or I never spend a penny on like ads. I never boost content, I never do any of that. And last year on Facebook, I want to say my organic reach was like 31 million people.

Gavin: 24:39

Damn.

SPEAKER_02: 24:39

Um and that and that's just on Facebook, and like you know not even Instagram. No, no, just Facebook, just Facebook. And we actually had to put together a proposal yesterday, uh, because it's just that time of year you're dealing with contracts and like getting the speaking gigs in line and sponsored and all that. And my social media reach for just for the past six weeks is 8.6 million people.

Gavin: 25:08

I mean, that's that's Kim Kardashian numbers. I am dead. That's Madonna level.

SPEAKER_02: 25:12

You know, and I show up on time. I was about to say a couple weeks ago.

David: 25:18

Yep, yep, yep. We had Tom Tracy saying he went to see Madonna at about 10 p.m. he checked his watch. He said, Bitch, get on stage because your geriatric ass fans need to go to bed.

SPEAKER_01: 25:27

Oh, I just listened. I I still listen to all of your episodes, boys.

David: 25:31

I know you do, and you also comment more than anybody, any of our other past guests. So you're gonna get a trophy. Um, speaking of, you're when you were here, I re-listened to our episode because I wanted to kind of like remember kind of what we had said. And one of the things that had brought up a funny memory was we spent a lot of time talking about when you're a new parent, you fall into the trap of buying all the shit you don't need. And you and I talked about like what's valuable, what's not. And now I have obviously two kids, and I did the opposite with a second kid where I was like, we're not buying anything, we're gonna just like we don't need it, right? And my husband reminded me that not only did we totally embrace this, but we went to pick up our daughter when she was being born at the hospital and didn't even bring an outfit for her. So we went so far the other direction that we didn't even bring an outfit to bring her home. And now, luckily, of course, we're at the hospital, 75 people brought us all these clothes and there's a whole thing. But it was so funny how I was like, you know, kid one, we fall into the trap with bottle warmers and white warmers and everything. And then kid number two, we're like, I'm buying nothing. I was like, maybe bring a onesie to the hospital. Just one.

SPEAKER_02: 26:32

Listen, but just babies two, three, and forward, you can go Ralph Wiggum and like that baby will sleep in a drawer.

David: 26:39

Yep. But I I that and that's the story I told on the episode was my daughter, we we put her in that drawer, and it was fine and cute and a good Instagramable moment.

SPEAKER_02: 26:48

There is a big movement right now, actually, with um cardboard bassinets um and Moses baskets because they're not taking up as much as much space. You can recycle them, you can do whatever.

Gavin: 27:00

And they go back to dust to dust.

SPEAKER_02: 27:02

So it goes back into that room. But don't they, isn't that like a common thing in Japan where like your baby's it's very common in many other countries is they just send you home in a box, it's full of like diapers and a couple wendies and whatever, but then they at least know your baby has a safe, like stable, independent place to sleep.

Gavin: 27:20

Wow, you just heard that from Jamie Grayson, the baby guy, who is who is who is handing out million-dollar ideas out there. You can charge people more for a cardboard box that will go back into the earth than probably plastic.

David: 27:33

It's so true. Um, so because we have you on, because you're a baby gear expert, and because this is your second time, I want to give us an opportunity to talk to the new parents out there who may be listening for the first time. And we talked a little bit about this before, but I know a lot of new parents are worried. And what is like the best thing? What do we absolutely need? So last time we talked about like what do you absolutely need? And I didn't know if now this year we're a year later, is there a new item that's come to market that you're like must have, must have, must have for parents, or is it still the same tried and true bottle, something safe for them to sleep in?

SPEAKER_02: 28:06

It's pretty much the same. Like there hasn't been a ton of stuff coming out. Um, my industry trade show is in May. Um, and I know of a few things kind of in the pipeline. Oh, well, we can't wait to talk to you in June then. Legally, I cannot discuss. That is so important.

David: 28:23

But is it an AI car seat?

SPEAKER_02: 28:26

Well, speaking of car seats, what's wild right now is we are being inundated with marketing from this new car seat that is currently just setting the market. We don't need to name her. I don't I don't need to give the seat my energy. Okay, what's she so special? Why is she so special? Um, it is a thousand dollars. Okay. Um and they are saying it is the safest seat on the market. Uh, nothing is safer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And their marketing tactics, the amount of text threads that I am in with other techs about like what are these people doing? They're like, car seats have been made out of styrofoam and plastic for years. We know we can make this better. This is not safe. And it's like, you're not putting your kid in an igloo cooler. Like the foam, and maybe you are, maybe you are. Judgment, by the way. And you did say put your foams in a box.

SPEAKER_04: 29:19

So no.

SPEAKER_02: 29:20

But the foam in a car seat is not styrofoam, it's not regular styrofoam. And so these people are like, our crash tests do this, our crash tests do that. But what people don't understand is when car seats are crash tested in the states and in Canada, they get a pass fail. There is no like A, B, C, D, E, like whatever. You either pass or you're not on the market. And they are done in a very old sled test with like, you know, multiple times to see if it will pass, see if it will hold up. And it's a very specific crash, but unfortunately, in the real world, we don't get to dictate what our crashes are. Right. And they can function in a multitude of ways. And it's not just like impact, see how the dummy reacts with sensors. So it's kind of bogus. Their claims are awful, and they are shipping them out to influencers now, all over TikTok, who are not installing them correctly. They don't know what they're doing. And so now I'm getting tagged all over the place and personally basically running their customer care for these influencers because they don't know how to put these seats in their vehicles. Is it because they're more complicated, or generally influencers are just stupid and don't know what they're doing? It's supposed to be because it has an app.

David: 30:36

Um Lord. I do love an app.

SPEAKER_02: 30:38

But but not if it's glitchy and it's telling you the wrong information.

David: 30:42

And you're like connects via grinder via your Bluetooth. And you're like, how does this eventually sign in with your get your grinder sign in though?

SPEAKER_02: 30:50

The harness conversation on grinder is very different than the harness conversation in the car seat community. You know what? I it's funny.

David: 30:59

Bring them both. Yes. I don't know this company. I don't even know what you're talking about. But it almost sounds like some venture capital decided to have a marketing campaign and less of a it's like not a new product, it's just a marketing campaign. Yeah.

Gavin: 31:13

It's and is this like is it funded? Is this a new company that's being funded by uh uh Jeff Bezos or something? Like what's the case?

SPEAKER_02: 31:20

It is not, it is they are not American-based. And so they are they have launched a seat in America, it's their like hero product. Um, it is they are making some bold claims. They are making some bold claims.

David: 31:34

I feel like bold claims means bold litigation.

SPEAKER_02: 31:38

Do you know what I mean? It's it's a lot, it is a lot at this moment.

Gavin: 31:41

So speaking of the the litigation, though, I and finishing up this, I mean, I have loved um watching you take people to task for spreading misinformation, but have you found in this year that the misinformation is increasing or decreasing?

SPEAKER_02: 31:55

Oh God. It there's there's always misinformation out there, and I do think with the rise of people becoming like self-titled parenting experts, it's getting worse. Um, like there have been some really wild things I've seen, and I don't have access to them anymore because my account is gone. But um there there was some pretty pretty wild stuff last year we had to deal with.

Gavin: 32:19

But is it just stupidity or is it nefarious actors?

SPEAKER_02: 32:24

I I think it's I think it's a mix of stupidity and rage baiting. Because they know if they rage bait, they will get clicks, they'll get views, they'll get money, they'll get notoriety. Um I hate us.

Gavin: 32:38

I just hate us. Using the thing.

SPEAKER_02: 32:40

Sometimes I question the internet. I love the internet, but sometimes I'm like, should we? Should we? Do we do we still need to do that? Did we need to do this?

Gavin: 32:50

Well, speaking of well, then also, okay, one last really serious question. Speaking about the internet, tell us your thoughts on Groundhog the Musical.

David: 33:00

Oh, wait, are you on Groundhog TikTok?

SPEAKER_02: 33:02

Please tell me. Of course, I of course. Um, I need to catch up. I love chaotic stitches on TikTok. I love the the building on component when people just build things. Yep, yeah. One of my favorite, and I'm not completely caught up with Groundhog, so I've not listened to like everything that's going on. Um, do you remember over like I guess around Christmas, the little boy in the snowsuit that was like, just like went very viral. Oh, it was huge. People started writing music to it, and they were like, come in with a piano, and then somebody came in with a guitar, and then somebody came in with something else. And I was like, this is what the this is the internet, this is what it's meant for.

David: 33:45

But that's what you were saying. Like, like, should we with the internet? But this is when the internet is in its prime. We were talking about this last episode where like they've for the Groundhog one, they've added some guy added full orchestrations, so there's a full symphony behind it, and then there's also people stitching it doing non-vocal performances, like actors in the background of this particular scene. I was like, that is that is the that is the art I want to see from TikTok.

SPEAKER_02: 34:10

Yeah, yeah. Do you know what is very sad today? Is speaking of TikTok. Did you hear who passed away?

David: 34:15

No.

SPEAKER_02: 34:16

Um, the lady who did Although Enjoyment. Do you remember Although Enjoyment on TikTok? You know, what was I what she's a void, it's a voice studio on TikTok, but she is absolutely iconic. She's done a ton of viral stuff on there. I mean, of course, we know we totally know what you're talking about. She started singing the what was I made for, Billy Eilish, but didn't sing the right words. And it was like she called it although enjoyment instead of all the enjoyment. So it was great, but it was all over the place. But what she is the best known for, and I hope the two of you know this. Oh, just do you know the be who you are for your pride? No, yes. Oh, I'll send it to you later. Okay. But in our show notes. If I did it, if I did it right now, the speakers would be blown out. But she basically created the pride anthem of TikTok. Jesus, it is a big wide world out there.

David: 35:10

Maybe we'll make this maybe we'll make this our our bonus uh is to play this, whatever this is. Okay. We'll do that. That's what's so weird about TikTok. This is what's so weird about TikTok is that you can have something that is so iconic and huge and everywhere, and is somehow totally missed somebody else. Like the FYP algorithm, because I will talk to people about like, oh my god, can you believe the blah blah blah blah? It's everywhere. And people are like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And it's so weird to have something so enormous and also totally missing some people because because my FYP is like baking videos and guys dancing with their dicks bouncing around. So if it's not in that parameter, I don't see it.

SPEAKER_02: 35:48

It's pasta and gray sweatpants.

David: 35:50

Yeah, that's literally it.

SPEAKER_02: 35:52

Which hopefully No, everything is an asilo. Everything is an asilo.

Gavin: 35:55

We'll be tapping into that pasta and gray sweatpants very, very soon. Thanks to you, JB. We'll reference that. Oh, great. Great, great. Well, then finally, also, where are we going to be able to get to see you this year? Are you totally booked up with tons of conferences and travel and speak and speaking engagements?

SPEAKER_02: 36:10

I start again in April in one of the three C's of Ohio. I forget which one is first. Um, but we always call it the three C's. It's either I think it may be, I think Columbus is the first one.

David: 36:24

Columbus, April, Cincinnati, and cum dump. Oh, Cleveland, yeah, yeah. Cleveland. So yes.

SPEAKER_02: 36:30

Um yes. Uh so we have 13 of those this year. Wow. Um 13 C words or 13? 13 C words. Okay. Uh from April through November. Wow. Damn. And that's that's all of my Instagram and whatever. And yeah.

Gavin: 36:48

And we means uh are you still really just a solo act, or do you have a it's me and Laney.

SPEAKER_02: 36:53

It's me and Laney, my my coworker, yeah. Um, so it is just the two of us, and it is a wild, it is a lot, it is a lot.

David: 37:02

But does that leave enough time for the mint juleps of the world to slink onto it?

SPEAKER_02: 37:10

The way that you just came back with that.

David: 37:12

Bitch, I listened to our episode and I was like, we gotta bring this back up.

SPEAKER_02: 37:16

It does not.

David: 37:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 37:18

And when I tell you that the dating scene here the last the last few months has really been something to me. Okay. Um, one guy I went out with, uh, we went to see a production of Little Night Music here at Denver Center because we are F slurs, and it was a wonderful production. Uh-huh. Um, the best Petra I've ever seen or heard. She's flawless. And she just joined the Hades Town tour, actually. Um, but he he left out one important thing. Okay, and intermission. I found out he was married. Um, so that's pretty cool. That was cool. Wait, how did that come out in intermission, though? Just to intermission talking, and he was like, Oh yeah, my husband, this and this. And I was like, You're like, excuse me. But but your your profile didn't your dating profile. Your your Tinder profile.

Gavin: 38:16

So didn't was there was there a second act, or dare I say third act?

SPEAKER_02: 38:23

Musical. Come on. Um, so yeah, that that was done there. Okay. Um, and then I uh a couple weeks back actually met this guy here who's terrific and we hung out a few times. He's now dealing with some rather unfortunate stuff we don't need to get into with uh someone close to him. Okay. Uh so that's all that's kind of been put on the back burner. Sure.

Gavin: 38:50

Go for the house in order before we you come into my house.

SPEAKER_02: 38:55

Yeah, yeah. Um, well, I'll tell you once we're done recording. Um but it is uh unfortunate. Unfortunate. Yeah. So the dating, no, it's hard. Because I and even right now I'm like, oh, I'm home until April. This is great, you know. Yeah. Um you can have a long-term relationship in the next two months. You know what? I sure can.

David: 39:16

But wait, do you still have your simple syrup on the ready?

SPEAKER_02: 39:20

I keep simple syrup uh for a sensible old-fashioned at night, yes.

David: 39:25

Okay, but but not the not the not the mint infused.

SPEAKER_02: 39:27

Not the mint infused, not the mint infused. Maybe that's the same. And I actually I had to tell the story about Intimacy Idiot recently, actually. Uh so I think it's very funny that you did bring that back. You brought it back.

Gavin: 39:40

Well, everybody should revisit it back in episode four of Gaugeworks. That is crazy.

David: 39:47

This is episode 54. So you're looking. I mean, look at look at us just growing and growing and growing. I was called generations. It's truly. Uh I will say that, like for those of you, for the listener out there who has not listened to Episode four. I re-listened to it and I was like, I was gaffawing. I was like so interested. You were such a great guest and you gave so much good information. We had a really long talk about the common kind of pitfalls of like what people buy for babies and what they should and shouldn't buy. And I think it's for those of you out there who are interested in that kind of baby stuff, please go back and listen to that episode because it was really, really good. Jamie is an insane wealth of knowledge. And then Gavin and I ruin it for our stupid little jokes.

SPEAKER_02: 40:26

True. But I'm also insane too. Yeah, good.

Gavin: 40:29

I thought you were gonna leave it at that. Clinical.

SPEAKER_02: 40:31

Jamie is insane. Yes.

Gavin: 40:33

Well, as evidenced by coming and demeaning himself by being on our stupid little show, thank you. Just the stupidest. Again, Jamie.

SPEAKER_02: 40:42

Dumb. Y'all are dumb.

David: 40:43

Dumb. Just so dumb. But we are obsessed with you. So thank you for coming back. No, y'all are fun. Thank you, Jamie. So, my something great uh this week is my husband and I switch who puts who to bed. So one night I'll put the boy to bed, and then the next night I put the girl to bed, and we switch back and forth. Um, and so when I'm upstairs, uh, I can sometimes hear them downstairs and vice versa. The other night I was putting uh my daughter to bed, who goes to bed first, and I could hear downstairs my husband and my son just giggling and laughing, and I still don't know what they were doing, maybe tickling or doing silly voices or whatever. But there was just this pure gaffaw joy four-year-old cackling coming from downstairs, and it was one of those like beautiful, like this house has this sound in it thing that was just something great. There's nothing funny, that's it. I know you're I I know you're like, and then there's dick pics, but like that was it. That like there's nothing funny about that. It was something great, Gavin. My god, it was it was gratitude.

Gavin: 41:44

All right, I I uh I I'm stunned silent because of the gratitude factor for sure. And I was thinking, wow, we are super gratitudinal here, so you shouldn't give me any shit about this anymore because we are all about the gratitude. Hey, listen, my gratitude is that I started the show earlier um talking about how my daughter wanted to get up on her own and she um wants to leave me aside. You know, I have to let her grow up. And then we got in the car as I drove her to the bus stop and she said, you know, I think it's better when you get up with me.

SPEAKER_04: 42:10

Oh, that felt good. It was whole circle.

David: 42:14

Wow, what a first circle moment for this uh podcast. That was lovely.

Gavin: 42:18

And that's our show. If you have any comments, suggestions, or general compliments, you can email us at Gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.

David: 42:26

Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast on the internet. David is at DavidFM Bond Everywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge on nothing. Please, please leave us a glowing five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, and we'll wake up with you next time on another episode of Gatriarchs!

SPEAKER_01: 42:56

My name is Daniel Gay. Hey, be who you are.