The one with author Karl Dunn

This week, Gavin comes for David, and so does "the man on the roof," we gush about David Archuleta, we tell the tale of the nap fox, and this week we are joined by  Berlin'ite Karl Dunn, who authored the book "How to burn a Rainbow" about going through a divorce as a gay man, and we chat about what advice he'd give to gay men considering marriage.

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

Transcript

David: 0:00

'Cause I'm a really, really terrible parent.

Gavin: 0:02

But you know who's because you retired. You're and you sorry.

David: 0:05

No, it's it's okay. I had a really good transition, but it's no, it's fine.

Gavin: 0:08

You can Can we go back and r and and and fake your transition?

David: 0:13

We often do.

Gavin: 0:15

And this is gatriarch.

David: 0:30

You're on. I'm here. I'm here. How are you? I'm good. I was just literally in the middle of eating a giant bag of marshmallows because things are going great.

Gavin: 0:42

You were also in the midst of texting me, like my 12-year-old daughter, who says, Dad, hello. Hello, are you there? Hello, and gives me no time to respond or realize that there is such a thing as cell phone etiquette. The hello? You gave me a hello.

David: 0:59

Let's go through it. Ready? So I said, I'll be home in 15 minutes. And you said I'm here. So you, your honor, have said, you're already there. So the second I get home, you'll already be there. And I said, okay, see you in five minutes. Five minutes later, I text you here. That was at 1.38 p.m. You're not where you said to at 142 p.m., I then say hello question mark, which I will admit is slightly passive aggressive, but I would I would argue is warranted, Your Honor.

Gavin: 1:29

Well, I do think that the here, yeah, yes, yes, yes. I I I I I see your warrant, your warrantedness. I get it, but I it is hilarious to me. The hello, the passive aggressive hello is just so hilariously juvenile. I have been sitting, my ass has not left this seat actually in hours because much as our I don't know if any of our listeners realize that I actually have a job that I've been sitting at for fucking hours. And I have been sitting here. I just wasn't in the studio waiting for your pretty little face to show up.

David: 2:05

So when I say home in 15 and you respond, I'm here, you were referring to the chair you were currently sitting in, not the recording studio that we were to meet in. Correct. Got it. I will be more, I will be more specific.

Gavin: 2:19

Although I do, I do enjoy calling out a passive aggressive hello. How would you what was your voy vocal tone when you wrote that?

David: 2:29

I was leaning forward, my forehead was scrunched a little bit, and I went, hello. Yeah, that was it. And I heard, hello. I mean it's just a different level of that, but yes. Um, I I stand by my point, but you stand by yours. Let's move on. I didn't even know we were recording. You literally we got into the studio, you pointed at me to record, and I was like, what are we doing? I guess we're fucking jumping into it.

Gavin: 2:50

We are we're yes, we're picking apart our idiosyncrasies.

David: 2:54

Okay, so now that you've thoroughly thrashed me, I'm gonna tell you a story about um something that was uh really fucking terrifying to wake up to. So my my son has he's he's at the stage where like you put him to bed five minutes later, he's up. He makes up a lie about why he's up. It's always like, I'm scared, or I need to go to the bathroom or whatever. You know how it goes. Yes, yes. Well, yeah, the other day, I'm woken up out of a deep fucking sleep with this person standing next to me at like two in the morning, and I went, Yeah, what are you doing? And he says to me, There's a man on the roof trying to get in. When I tell you I both vomited and shit my pants at the same time, he said it with such and jumped. I mean, when he said it with such clear confidence, like, hey, this thing has happened, you might want to know that it's happening. And my I'm going back and forth between obviously you're you're just waking up in the middle of the night, you're just a kid, you're just making stuff up, and is there an intruder trying to get into your room? Because our roof is in a way where like you could conceivably stand on the roof and look into our bedroom windows. So that was a real fun way to wake up at two in the morning.

Gavin: 4:05

Well, first of all, okay, I um my kids are still they they have regressed in terms of going to bed easily, and they have reinvented the, oh, by the way, now I need a glass of water. And I don't know, I get more frustrated with myself that I haven't thought ahead of time. Do not get into bed until you have your water bottle next to you. Let's just solve that problem right now. Because I'm both charmed that they're like, oh, daddy. And they do turn on the sweetness. Will you please? Oh sometimes they remember, please, get me a glass of water. And you're like, ah, why didn't you just do this before? And also, it's kind of sweet. And it's kind of sweet.

David: 4:44

Dad, I want to solve world hunger and the Iran-Contra affair.

Gavin: 4:48

No, Iran Contra. Tell me you're old without telling me you're old. And I'm old. Um, but the fact, no, no, my daughter would be much more like, um, Daddy, can you buy me that Lululemon top that I've been talking about for the last four months? But anyway, needing water at bedtime. But um I the I it's been a long time since I woke up with somebody, a little child, in my face, four inches away with their breath on me, just kind of staring at me.

David: 5:18

Yeah. As still as as the night, like just just just existing near you. It's awful.

Gavin: 5:24

Yep. Yeah. That's it is a it is quite a way to wake up. But I remember being like a four or five-year-old and some distant relatives, like second cousins that I barely knew, but fun people with maybe high school kids, or maybe they were middle schools, I don't know. Um, were sleeping in my basement um when I was a little kid, and I was so excited for them to wake up. And I went and woke up the girl who who knows, she was 14 or 18 or 28, who knows? And I peeled back her eyelid and said, Are you awake? I and I remember doing it. And yeah.

David: 5:57

Gabin, you attacked a child, is that story. If I was to retell that story, but Gaben attacked a child. Yes.

Gavin: 6:03

But I was four. I was four. I was a four-year-old child attacking another child. Anyway, um, was there a man on the roof?

David: 6:09

There was not a man on the roof. Um I barely checked, if I'm being totally honest. I like took him to the bathroom and I kind of looked out the bathroom window. And then I took it back to his room and I pretended to like see, honey, there's nobody on the roof while also waiting to look at a person through the window. Um, and so no, nobody was on those two parts of the roof, and then I went to sleep uh like a baby because I'm a really, really terrible parent. But you know who was a really good parent?

unknown: 6:34

Who?

David: 6:35

David Archoleta's mom. Are you following this whole David Archoleta thing? So no do you remember who David Archoleta is?

Gavin: 6:41

Uh yeah, the voice or yeah, he was on American Idol.

David: 6:45

American Idol. I think it was between him and um this other guy, and he ended up getting second place, but he was like, everyone loved him. He's this like Mormon boy, very boyish, very sweet. He's got this very sweet voice. Um, gay, you know, gay as Christmas, but also like very straight because he was a Mormon or whatever. Anyway, recently he's become very popular on TikTok, brand new to TikTok, and he basically came out and he was like, I'm gay now, and whatever. And everyone was like, big surprise. But what is so sweet is he just came out with a song called Hell Together. And I watched him perform it on American Idol, and he was saying that, you know, when he came out of the closet, his mom was like, devout, devout Mormon, right? Both of and uh David left the church and he came out, and his mom was still in the church, very passionate. And when he came out, his mom was like, I'm gonna need some time. And of course, David is like, okay, I guess I'm being excommunicated, I'm being kicked out of the family or whatever. And evidently, like a week later, he said that she called him and was like, you know what? I'm leaving the Mormon church. Um, I'm with you. And if I'm going to hell, we're going to hell together. And so he wrote a song about it. And I was like, fuck, that is a great, great mom. Because that took a lot of courage to have to re to have to analyze your own life and just go, I'm re-examining myself. Because most people would say, no, that butts up against my current self and identity, and I'm not going to do it. So he wrote this beautiful song, and it's a great song, and he's kind of coming back into the fold.

Gavin: 8:08

So um that's that's a good parent, unlike a gay anthem to celebrate here in our unintentional gay news on Gatriarchs. This is the finest news source of both uplifting and um and thorough. Um and then you know what that immediately makes me think of also is I look forward to the day that you can be Mormon and feel out and proud and still practice your religious faith. With I d I know that it's almost inconceivable that an awful lot of the those things, meaning religious faith and sexual identity, can go hand in hand. But like, can we move on from that bullshit? If she wants to be super Mormon and embrace her, and hopefully there would be no contradiction there. But I know that I'm dreaming about a world that doesn't exist right now.

David: 8:54

But also, I don't want a world where religion exists, but that's a whole different story. But um, what I will say is that living in Salt Lake City for a little while, or working there, not living there, um, you can be gay and be a Mormon. You just can't act on it, which is sick, it's just a fucking stupid thing, right?

Gavin: 9:10

Uh which is just a joke and laughable. Yes, so fucking um, I recently have been introduced to a social media phenomenon or just debate going on out there. Have you heard about the uh bear versus the man debate?

David: 9:20

I have. It's fucking great.

Gavin: 9:22

Am I ever gonna be able to bring some so bit of social media business to you?

David: 9:27

You're the Instagram reels of this uh relationship, and I am the TikTok trend. So but please inform us for those of you us or don't know what happened six months ago.

Gavin: 9:37

It it was it seriously six months ago?

David: 9:41

Well, it was about a month ago, but this episode's gonna come out in like two months, so yeah.

Gavin: 9:45

And in social media land, a month ago is like in in gay years, that is six years ago that the trend came out. Well, uh, so apparently it was just a thought um exercise put out there that mostly women, I think, saying to each other, would you rather come it through uh the forest and would you rather come upon a bear or a man? And talk about a Gatriarch's adjacent thought experiment there. Because my immediate thought was, oh, a bear. Absolutely. And I don't mean a, you know, a hot hairy daddy, but just like I get it entirely. But that whole debate Would you rather come across a bear or a twink? Like, oh well, I don't know. There we go. That is our thought experiment. Let's let's dumb this down and make it gay, right? But uh, I I think that is a really fascinating thing out there. And what is the Venn diagram overlap of those who would shoot men who understand the debate and those who don't, and who would rather come across a bear or a man?

David: 10:45

I uh I well somebody did the math. Uh, I watched one of the TikToks I watched was somebody doing the actual math, and they were like adjusting for population size as far as like how many bear attacks there are and how many like whatever. And he was saying, like, it's like overwhelmingly the men who are the more dangerous. Like, like, even if you had as many bears in the world as people, yeah, it would still be safer for you to come across a bear than a man, which is so embarrassing for our culture.

Gavin: 11:11

So embarrassing, but that's why we're here to make the world a better place. Everybody should be a Gatriarch, right?

David: 11:17

So I have a really good um parallel with woodland creatures when it comes to dad hacks. Are you ready? Oh, yeah. So I heard this from uh a daycare friend of ours. We went and played at a uh thing. We were talking, you know, about our kids, like you always fucking do. And we were talking about naps. And my kid is almost five, so his nap is is gonna go away very soon. But a lot of his classmates aren't even napping anymore, so it's kind of like a hot topic. Well, she was saying the only way I can get my daughter to take a nap is to tell her about the nap fox. I said, What's the nap fox? And she and she got really quiet and she smiled and she was like, It's kind of embarrassing. I was like, please tell me, and I will tell it on my podcast. Yeah, and she was basically like, Well, we lied and said that there's this fox. And the fox comes around the neighborhood at nap time between 1 and 3 p.m. and it chases children who are awake. And if you are not sleeping, the nap fox will get you. And it sounds so ridiculous to me, but she was like, and if she's being, you know, whatever and she doesn't want to go down, I'll say, Did you hear the nap fox? She will run to her bed. And I was like, I love a creative lie to get your children to go to sleep. So those of you out there who can't get your kid to sleep, tell them about the nap box.

Gavin: 12:28

Yep. And just lie, because that's what parenting often is. It's just lying. Lie to your kids. Speaking of lies. Sorry. Let's just move on to the top three lists, shall we? Great transition, Gavin. Gay three arcs. Top three list. Three, two, one.

David: 12:48

So this week is your list, I think.

Gavin: 12:50

Yes, it was. Uh this week, I want to hear about the top three best qualities of you according to your kids. So number three for me was I help them.

David: 13:04

Wait, did you ask your kids this, or is this something that you're deciding? Didn't I make that clear? No, I'm sorry. Was I supposed to ask my kids?

Gavin: 13:13

Well, I did ask my kids.

David: 13:14

Oh, well, to be fair, one of my kids is is dumb as rock. So um, but I did not I can't wait to hear what your narcissistic responses are gonna be about how what an amazing dad you are according to your kids.

Gavin: 13:28

Yes, yes. Okay, well, number three for me is I help them, period. That's sweet. Just I help them. They I said, Do you want to elaborate on that? They said no. Number two, my daughter said, You're always there. It's getting annoying.

David: 13:44

Okay, a little bit of a back-handed compliment. I'll I'll give it that to her, but but it was very sweet. You're always there, you're present. Okay, got it.

Gavin: 13:50

And it's getting annoying.

David: 13:52

Yeah.

Gavin: 13:52

Number one, I'm a good cook when it's not weird. And I said, Okay, a little backhanded. So I said, What do you mean by it's not weird? They said, in particular, you know how you always do that weird cooking, that that that that barefoot uh count that barefoot can that bear I'm like, oh, Ina Garten, the fucking barefoot contessa, whose recipes I gay icon, whom I follow regularly. They're like, yeah, that's weird. Can we just have normal stuff? Because when you cook normal stuff, it's good.

David: 14:30

And not roast chicken for Jeffrey. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:34

Exactly.

David: 14:35

Who is also a gay icon of a different sort. Um, there's a gay icon. This should have been my something great, but like there, there's a gay icon. His name is John Cannell, and he runs a like a cooking blog called uh Preppy Kitchen. Have you heard of him? Yeah, I think so. Anyway, he's great. So he he started as like a like you know, Instagram, like here are some like baking recipes, and he's since branched out to be like the gay eye in a garden, but married to uh a guy, has two kids. Uh I believe he has Surgacy. Um I've been trying to get on. Does he want to be a get away? I've been trying. I've been trying. He's not interested in responding to me. Okay. So here are the best three qu the three best qualities of me, according to me, via my kids. This is like really embarrassing now, because now I see what you meant. And now this does this feels very egotistical.

Gavin: 15:19

But it was just on the it was on the heels of me saying what are your uh the the your partner's you know, three annoying traits, which again, you just made up on your own.

David: 15:30

Listen, I I think in this situation you are a hundred percent right, and I am a hundred percent wrong, and that is very weird for me to experience. So please respect my family at this time. All right. Hello. All right, so uh, and number three, I bake them things a lot. I I will make every weekend I try to make something. It's like a you know, a fruitcake or uh cookies or you know, I always try to make them something. Uh and number two, I like get down with them when I play. Like I will chase them, I will run them outside, I'll throw them in the air. Like I when I play with them a lot, like physically. Um, and number one, I'm very funny. I am funny, I sing songs, I make funny voices, I make them laugh, I tickle them. I am funny. And I am very embarrassed at this top three list, and I hated doing that. So that was really fun for me.

Gavin: 16:22

You should not be embarrassed. Those I think are three aspirational things that we should all um uh uh always reach for. But yes, I can't wait for you to ask Emmett what he really thinks. And maybe you should run your top three list by him to see if he agrees or how he would amend it. At any rate, what is next week's top three list?

David: 16:42

So, next week's are the top three things that you knew as a child that are no longer true.

Gavin: 16:49

Nice. Our guest today is a jet setter who likes to do good in advertising and environmental causes and probably do very bad while living in Berlin. He's been advertising and a creative executive at the highest levels on multiple continents and probably influenced how you perceive and buy such storied brands as ASICs, Levi's, Mini Cooper, and Nissan. So he's like Don Draper, but even sexier because he has an Australian accent. So he is today to chat. He is here today to chat about a book he's written sharing his experience in a gay divorce. And I don't mean like 1940s style the gay divorce. I mean for real's divorce between gays. The author of How to Burn a Rainbow. Welcome, Carl Dunn.

SPEAKER_00: 17:42

Welcome, Carl. Hey guys, thank you very much for having me on the podcast. Nice to be here. This is great. Yes, you're here. Where are you, by the way? I'm in Berlin at the moment. I split my time between Berlin and uh Los Angeles.

Gavin: 17:57

Which has got to be a tremendous dichotomy. I mean, do you have to completely code switch aside from languages when you're in the two cities?

SPEAKER_00: 18:04

100%. I mean, socially there's such different cities. When I first moved here, the two things I got told by people, the the Berliners, were one, stop talking about money all the time. I'm like, do I talk about money all the time? They're like, all the time. I'm like, oh, okay. I think there's a lot of in America, there's a lot of dropping hints about how much you got and what you just bought and what this is. And the yeah, the Germans are not into that at all.

Gavin: 18:34

You come from the advertising world, which is obviously going to talk a lot about consumerism and and I just bought this and I just bought that.

SPEAKER_00: 18:41

Yeah, I think though, in general, it just I notice when I go back to the States, I you know, people will be offering up how much they made on their houses, what their cars cost. Like Germans never discuss these things. It's interesting. It I've had people tell me here they don't know how much their husband or wife makes. They don't talk about that. Like there is a level of privacy with finances here that is just like I showed somebody um Venmo, and they're looking at it. I mean, it would never pass the data and privacy laws of Europe. But you're looking at Venmo, and they're like, wait, people are sending each other money, and then they're posting about who they sent it to and for what?

David: 19:23

It's like, yeah, they're like, what I want to be transparent. We talk about how much money we have made on this podcast quite often. And do you want to know how much it is? Bring it. I'm ready. 77 cents. Wow. In 2023.

SPEAKER_00: 19:39

That's like Kardashian money. That's insane. Wow. Listen, it's another level.

Gavin: 19:44

Would the Germans be offended if we bring that up?

SPEAKER_00: 19:47

That I think they would find very cute. Um, very sweet.

Gavin: 19:50

Oh, cute. The oh, cute. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 19:52

They're like, 77 cents. Congratulations.

David: 19:57

How will you spend Oh, I love your naughty German. German schoolboy. Naughty German accent.

SPEAKER_00: 20:02

Actually, they have a fantastic sense of humor. They're not, I mean, you know, they're not known for this. That's not the the picture and the perception that the world likes to, you know, uh think of the German doors, but they're actually very funny people. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a yeah, yeah. They've they've they've done a lot of work on that. But they're actually an incredibly funny group of people. It's a very dry, very sly humor. But once you get an ear for it, you're like, oh, okay, that's cool. I was gonna say the other major thing I was told when I first arrived here, um, when I was meeting, you know, you'll go out with some friends and you'll run into friends of theirs and you haven't met them before, and they'll stand there and they'll be talking to them. And they look at you at some point, and of course, you go like, hey. You know, just smile at them. And another friend, and but you get these blank stares in return. And a friend of mine told me later, a German friend of mine said, You really need to stop smiling at people you don't know. They'll they'll think you're simple.

David: 21:01

It's like, oh, like bless him simple.

SPEAKER_00: 21:06

But here's what I will say about Germans and friendship: like you're not a friend. Like, you know, in the States, we've met we've known someone for five minutes, and like, oh my god, this is my friend, you know. And um in Germany, it takes a long time before someone actually will say that you are a friend. But once they introduce you as a friend, you get a whole lot, it's like unlocking the high level of the game because now you get everything. But they're also very particular about what friendship is and what is the expectations between friends, and they're very clear about this. So you're held to, once you've been given that, you're held to a much higher standard. It's very, you know exactly where you stand with Germans, which I do love about them. You know, they're very clear about that. And that's not considered rude in any way. That is just they're very factual, which can be quite nice sometimes, yeah.

Gavin: 21:56

What's the point of no return when you are a friend? Like, do you know if you have had a one-on-one coffee with another person and you both had a good time, you're like, oh, we are officially German friends now? Or do you feel like it takes longer? And does a German person have to deign you you are now worthy?

SPEAKER_00: 22:14

It's a it's a slow burn, definitely. And it will kind of do you know like when you're you when you start dating someone and then you're into it, and they're into it, and then you're not seeing anyone else, and it's just the two of you, and no one's really said it yet. But then one day, you know, you'll be the first one to say it. Like I I like I want to call you my boyfriend, like I I love you, I'll say it first. You know, there's a moment I I find here where it's like, but we're we are friends now, yes, is that we are friends. So it's a bit it's a bit like that, which again, it's it's very clear, you know.

David: 22:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. But I I worked in uh the Netherlands doing a show uh for quite a while in the Czech Republic, and our the guy who was our kind of ahead of our backstage was a German. And I remember all he did backstage was smoke cigarettes and watch porn on his phone. Yeah, that is literally on his laptop. That's all he did, and that that the show had met Ellen Marie Marshall. But um, that is my experience with Germans. So I loved him. He was fantastic.

Gavin: 23:22

That definitely relates to, frankly, the most burning question I had, which is the fact that you split your time between Berlin and LA. Is there the Kit Kat Club somewhere? And is just everything just dungeons and leather and uh lascivious but fabulous burlesque? Or am I just romanticizing Berlin from the 1940s?

SPEAKER_00: 23:42

No, it it that is definitely all there. I mean, there are great burlesque shows that go on here. Like cabaret is a, I mean, I I think it, I and I don't want to, I might be wrong here, but I think it was invented here. If not invented, definitely perfected here. And it is really considered like to be an art form. And so there is always cabaret going on. And definitely there is um a you know a sexual nature to this city that I find quite refreshing. They're not prudish at all, they're very matter-of-fact about what they like, and they have a saying here, which I love, which I think is a great adage just for life in general, which is if you're into something and you're not doing it, there's something wrong with you. Oh so there is the ultimate permission to just do as you want, do as long as no one's getting hurt, like do as you will. And so when you don't have any shame attached to it, it's astonishing how um free it is. I feel incredibly free in in Germany, in a way that I don't feel in America. But what I do miss about America and why I need to go back regularly for the dose of it, is of course to see all my friends. Um but it's to get that easy social. You go out like Americans like to go out and meet new people and have a good time, and they like to, you know, drink and get into it with new people they've met. I love that about America. And there is, I think probably the greatest thing about the states is the naive optimism. And I mean this in a in a complimentary way. There is a childlike belief that anything is possible. So when people like when I move to America, I move there so to make my dreams come true because you believe it's possible there because people do it. And there's yep, there's just something wonderful about hearing yes all the time in the States. And I and it's great to have, I mean, I feel like I have a really good balance of these two different cultures that feed all these different parts of me. Plus, also I go to London sometimes because I just need that.

David: 25:57

Yeah, you know, there's also there's also an anti-ands in every mall here. And I I can't I can't help but notice you didn't mention that, pretzels. No, your your your head just kind of tilted a little bit. He's giving you that next time you're here.

Gavin: 26:10

Yeah, next time you're here, he sees you're simple.

David: 26:13

He sees I'm simple, and he's like, I'm not your friend. I was no, but anyway, but the reason you're here is because you are our friend. Yes. And uh we wanted to talk to you about your book you wrote. So now you wrote a book on gay divorce, which we haven't talked about much on this show. And we talk a lot about parenting, obviously, and a lot about gayness. And we haven't talked a lot about gay divorce. And so when we came in contact with you, I thought this is going to be maybe very helpful because a lot of gay parents are married, and that means you have to kind of consider divorce. So tell us a little bit about kind of how you or why you wrote the book.

SPEAKER_00: 26:49

Well, I wrote the book because my when my husband and I uh when our divorce kicked off, I went looking for a book on gay divorce because I'd I'd seen a lot of books on divorce written either by men or by women, and they tended to come down on one side or the other. And none of them was speaking to the kinds of loss that I was feeling, uh, which I found to be very particular to uh someone going through a same-sex divorce, which was, you know, of course, there was the um, and I I hate to say I think we need a new phrase for the failure of my marriage. I mean, I don't think it's a a failure because I learnt a lot about myself, but um, it it didn't succeed in the way that I thought about marriages back then. Um, so I felt as though I had failed at the time. But also this, you know, I'd lost the feeling of equality in the heterosexual world that, you know, that ring had magically conferred on me. And uh also I felt like I'd spectacularly let down the cause, you know, because we'd fought so hard for the right to marry, myself included. You know, I was at those Prop 8 rallies in San Francisco, yelling at the top of my voice. And, you know, we we all worked hard to get this through. And then, you know, my ex-husband and I, we were married for only two years and getting a divorce. And um, I did also experience uh because I think, you know, we were a sort of known couple, I would say, around LA, not famous, but just you know, people knew us. And um, it was kind of perceived that we really let down the side. Um, and I I actually stopped going out for a long time because I found that what had been my refuge, the the gay world, you know, when you've been in the kind of, you know, and I I would live my life in the heterosexual corporate world and do all that. But sometimes you're like, okay, I need to get to the get like down to the eagle tonight, and I need my girls with me, and we need to just get it on. And I couldn't go out. I mean, literally perfect strangers would walk up to me in bars and go, Are you the one getting a divorce? I'm like, yeah. And they're like, Well, thanks for that. Wow. And off they go. And you're like, Wow, wait, is everybody and so I found there was just nothing written for me, and I couldn't find anything online. Even to this day, there is curiously like crickets out there on gay divorce. And so I thought, well, I'm a writer. I I guess I'm gonna write a book about this. And it didn't start out that way, it started out as a video diary. I was just, I wanted to keep an account of it, and then I showed it to this friend of mine, Brian, who's a quite a main character in the book. And uh Brian watched a few of the videos and he's like, Okay, girl, y'all need to put this in a book and y'all need to be telling the people what's up. And I'm like, all right, man, let's get it. Yeah.

David: 29:44

I want to meet Brian.

Gavin: 29:45

Everyone meeting. Brian is from the Bronx. He's not amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 29:48

Brian is uh No, that's my terrible, it's my terrible Oklahoma accent.

Gavin: 29:53

Oh, it was an excellent Oklahoma accent. I'm kidding, it was so accurate that I was just playing with it.

David: 29:58

Hold on, I'm gonna give him the smile, the simple smile.

SPEAKER_00: 30:02

Nice track. Yes, yes, yeah.

David: 30:05

But I but I imagine the the kind of pushback you got was from the from the gay crowd was like, we barely just got this right, and now you are maybe risking us keeping this by you just getting divorced. But that's that's the any sort of right grants you the right to not have that thing, right? Like adopting children, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 30:24

So well, I think the other thing is we we had gone into this, I think with this naive feeling that we were just somehow going to fairy tale our way through it, that somehow we as gay men were just gonna, you know, do this better than everybody else. And it's like, you know, I mean, have you seen the wigs that we put on Beyoncé? I mean, we're gonna be incredible at this marriage thing, you know, and weddings, unbelievable, but but marriage is a a very different beast. And I think as a community, we're used to breakups um, or you know, the ending of registered domestic partnerships and divorces are something very different, and no amount of of breakups can really prepare you for one.

Gavin: 31:08

Do you mind saying just a little more about that? Why is it so different?

SPEAKER_00: 31:13

Well, this was news to me, um, and not, I I guess not to most heterosexuals, but you know, when you get married and you sign your wedding certificate, you're signing over, like your marriage is not officially recognized by the state or by the government until you have signed a marriage certificate. That's the only bit that matters. The rest of it is just all for you know and circumstance. A nice party and Instagram and whatever. That's as far as the government's concerned, your marriage certificate is all that matters. And once you sign it, you've signed over the ownership of your marriage to them. They own it now. It's not yours anymore. Because when you want out, you have to do it by their rules. There is no getting around that. And I definitely, and I would say this is the case with the majority of the gay men I've met who are divorced, is we did not think about the red tape, how to get out on the way in. We did not ask nearly enough questions about what is this thing that we won. Why are we doing it?

David: 32:24

Because there's weird, like, like I don't want to jinx it by talking about that. We're better than that. It's it's destroying the magic.

SPEAKER_00: 32:30

Yes, yeah. And I think, but that's of marriage in general. I mean, um, I've I as you can imagine, I've watched a lot of podcasts, a lot, sorry, a lot of um, well, watched a lot of podcasts, yes, but also um a lot of YouTube interviews with people who are, you know, in the divorce industry. And it's the same for everybody. Nobody wants to think about the end when they're going into um a marriage because you know, it's the fairy tale. We've fallen in love. We want this to be this magic thing. But I think the mistake we all make is that we really don't want to talk about something that is very probably going to end. Like the statistics bear it out. It's over 50% these days now.

David: 33:14

And even for gay men? Is it different for gay people and straight people?

SPEAKER_00: 33:18

It's different for us. We don't have as high a divorce rate at the moment because that first wave of gay men who got divorced and lesbians too, there were couples who'd been together forever. So this was just a capstone on something they had already established. Whereas um we had been together six years when we got married. So I thought we were in the, you know, the latter camp. But what I realize now, and I I speak for myself, I I can't speak for my ex-husband, but you know, I went into my marriage for a lot of very bad reasons that in retrospect I look and think, ugh, you know, I I was in love and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person, but all the other reasons, not great. And I wish I had asked myself a lot more questions before I went into it about what is this thing? Why am I doing it? What does it mean to me? Um, do I even need to do this? Why is this important? Um, because it it it legalities of it, it didn't really change from being a registered domestic partner to being married. We didn't get any extra rights. In fact, the only thing that really changed is rings and uh better tax breaks.

Gavin: 34:38

Yeah, I was it it comes down to taxes, always does, sure.

SPEAKER_00: 34:42

But you know, better tax rates versus the cost of a divorce is like Comet Earth. And and we all know how well that went for the dinosaurs. So yeah.

Gavin: 34:55

You know, just the other night I was conversing with a friend, new listener, shout out, Jason, if you're out there, um, who is an attorney who deals with a lot of divorces, actually. And an interesting thing he told me is that he has um overseen an awful lot of lesbian divorces, but never won gay male um divorce, interestingly. Now, I don't think that has any statistical uh relevance, well, relevance necessarily for the grand scheme of things, but I found that interesting. Anyway, a little bit moving on.

SPEAKER_00: 35:26

I have heard anecdotally, and I I I cannot reference, I couldn't give you a link, but I I have read somewhere, or maybe it was in a podcast where I heard that the divorce rate amongst lesbians is higher than gay men, but I mean, who knows what's behind those statistics? They might get married at high higher rates as well, which is so exactly. Exactly, yeah.

Gavin: 35:50

That's true.

David: 35:50

So so you mentioned like going into this marriage, you there were a lot of questions you didn't ask, or you weren't thinking about the right things. So maybe turn that around a little bit with what should you have asked, or what would you encourage people who are considering getting gay married or regular married? No, gay married or straight married is probably a better way to say that. Um, what should questions should they be asking? Because I'm married. I don't, David is not officially married, but he's been you know long-term with his partner. Right. So I'm just curious as to what those questions would be.

SPEAKER_00: 36:22

Well, I I will kind of take a circular path to to answering your question. Something I write about in the book, and it was a realization I made along the way, was that we didn't get the right to marry, we got their right to marry, which means we also got their right to a divorce or what they think is a fair one. And you know, we I remember when gay marriage first came through in the sort of pre-prop eight years in California, and there were gay men in my group of friends at the time who were asking the question of, like, why are we chasing this? Like, why do we even want to do this? Uh, you know, this is something invented by a group of people who, until very, very recently to us in history have have not been particularly nice to us. And yet, the moment they said we couldn't have this thing that they've got, we chased, we, you know, I think it's like every minority group when they're faced with oppression from a larger section of society who are making the rules. When that section of society puts something behind barbed wire, you put all of your energy and focus on the barbed wire, going, why is this here? And everything becomes about that, as opposed to, wait a minute, what actually is this? Do we even want it?

David: 37:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:48

Do we even want it?

David: 37:49

You know, it's we just want access to it. We want the equality for it, but do we actually even want it? Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_00: 37:54

Yeah, I'm I mean, I am all for I'm not pro-marriage, I'm not anti-marriage at all. I think if you want to do it, go for it. But I'm definitely pro-choice. And that is pro your informed choice based on really looking at what is marriage, what does it mean to you, what does it mean to your partner, and then also stepping into it, going, all right, we're going to do this, but how are we going to do it if we want to get out? And that is, I I really wish we had had that conversation at the beginning. Um, I wish we had talked more. I think also something else that was was difficult for me, and I write about this in the book, is that we had an open relationship and we got married, and it felt like it should somehow be different now, but I didn't know how.

David: 38:50

The open relationship aspect of it should feel different?

SPEAKER_00: 38:54

Yeah, I and again, this is this is me getting married for reasons that are not really good reasons, you know, me thinking that that you know the the ring was going to be the magic wand, you know, the one ring to rule them all, the all being all my dark, unresolved crap that I didn't want to deal with that marriage was meant to fix, or my my husband was.

Gavin: 39:14

I'm curious what is it you felt marriage might change for you to make to enhance your life? Did you think it would be pure joy and contentment forever because you were married?

SPEAKER_00: 39:28

I think I well, not I think. I did it for a lot of reasons um that were not really about um being in love with someone and wanting to spend the rest of my life with them. I I got married. Honestly, I felt like, well, since we have the chance to do this, we should do this. Um and we we should be good gays and and and do this because obviously we're going to be together forever, so we should get married, you know? And it felt like a default thing to fall into, which I think is a how. A lot of heterosexuals fall into marriage. It just absolutely becomes this thing where everybody's asking them, When are you getting married? When are you getting married?

David: 40:06

to the point where they're like, it's like if you're not getting married or if you're not having kids, it's like there's these natural steps that exist and why aren't you doing the next thing? If you're if you're happy, why are you not getting married? If you're happily married, why are you not having kids? What's wrong with you?

Gavin: 40:20

And exactly. And society and Disney and the church have led us to have this expectation that we haven't lived a fulfilled life unless we are happily partnered forever and ever, happily live living happily ever after. Amen.

David: 40:36

So moving to kind of now the future, what is your divorce how does your vo So moving to the future, does your divorce affect your dating life? Like when it comes up in conversation, is it like a downer? Is it attractive to some guys? I'm curious how sort of fits in into all the new guys you're fucking.

SPEAKER_00: 40:55

Well, um, I I think you know, when you first get back out there, uh, I can definitely say that my divorce had become my identity. It had been, you know, while I was in the middle of it, before it was resolved, and even in the times, because it took 18 months, and even after that point going on, I basically was one big bag of walking divorce, you know. I was just full of um, I mean, I was not dateable. Definitely not fit for humanity.

David: 41:31

You're not in good working order at all.

SPEAKER_00: 41:34

A lot of assembly required. And I I decided what I wanted to do with my divorce, and this is a a really this was a very pivotal decision, was that I decided I wanted to make it my crisis of identity because, and I mean this in no disrespect to my ex-husband, but I basically dated the same guy like five times in a row and married the sixth. It had nothing to do with them. I was seeking these people out, these people that, because of who I was and who they were, were completely incompatible. And I really wanted to get to the bottom of, well, why am I doing this? Why am I constantly hunting this out? And that's what the majority of the book becomes about. It becomes almost like a gay, eat, pray, love journey of figuring out my stuff that I never figured out. And I I think a lot of it was uh, and again, this is something very particular to us is that there was a lot of um childhood trauma that I think I never really had ever bothered processing at at any point in my life. Um, and it and my parents are great. I mean, my parents are cool, super cool. I came out when I was 17. This is 1987, no, eight, 1988. Ooh, well, for anyone who could do math. 52 kiddo. Um, I mean, I I and my folks were like super cool. And I'm living in Sydney in one of the gayest cities on the planet. We had, I mean, Mardi Gras, this is before the internet, people would come down from Mardi Gras and it would blow their minds that this is something that went on in Sydney. I mean, I that was how I grew up. I was in theater, I was like out, I, you know, I had a great life. But I think one of the problems for us as gay men is that you know there is a whole gap in our spiritual development that we just never have like the resources or the time to ever investigate. And I, you know, my parents prepared me to be a good guy who this is how you treat women, this is how you respect women. And no one was telling me what's the equivalent for guys. You know, people were not raising gay kids who were coming out at like 10 and 11 or whatever, like it is now. I mean, um obviously, you know, it's not a perfect world, but it's so much better than the one I came up in. And, you know, so you know, I I think, you know, my early years of dating men, I was just fumbling around, didn't know what I was doing. And I there was some really old stuff down there that it's like digging for oil. Like you hit it and you're like, damn, cool, I've got this whole sort. And then you just keep digging, you're like, oh, wait, there's oh, hang on. Is there uh and when I really got down to the bottom of it, it was like, wow, okay. I now see why I did the things I did. I now see why I've been seeking this particular type of man out. I now see why I wanted to lock it in with this guy so that everybody knew that that's what I had at home. I was good enough that I had that.

David: 44:49

When you when you dig down deep into Gavin, it's it's it's traumatic. What what's down there is not fit for human eyes, I'll tell you that by now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:58

I did some deep web searching. I uh I I read I've read about Gavin.

David: 45:03

A quick porn hub search, and it's it's it's aggressive. That's all I'm gonna say.

Gavin: 45:06

Especially in Berlin.

David: 45:08

Hot, hot, but aggressive.

Gavin: 45:11

You so you um you're in you have been in advertising, you are in advertising.

SPEAKER_00: 45:18

Um tell us how you sell your book. It well, yeah, that's a really good question. It's a very different thing. Um, I think, first of all, um, all of my uh advertising acumen goes out the window when you've when now you've written a book and it's about you. My uh you know, spidey sense for what works and doesn't work is is a bit off because it's a very personal thing. So thankfully, a lot of friends of mine in advertising have popped in to go, dude, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is what we're gonna do. But it's a very different thing um doing a book. And also I am self-publishing, I'm an independent uh author, um, because there was a distinct lack of interest in my which does not speak about the quality, ladies and gentlemen. Of course not, of course not, of course not. But no, it was it was um I found a lot of uh resistance to it. Appreciation for the writing. I mean, I got incredible compliments on the writing, and people in the publishing world said, you know, they were astonished to find out it was my first book, because they said this is it's excellent. I was like, well, this is going awfully well. And no one would touch it though, and they had very specific reasons for it, and um, which I don't agree with, but I understand why they operate on that what is perceived as conventional wisdom in in their industry. And so once you go independent, um it becomes a very different uh equation. A lot of uh you know, book work is you you don't have a big publishing house behind you. You are not getting the billboards, you are not getting that machine that that pushes books out into the universe. They own real estate, literally own real estate bookstores. So when you own a bookstore, this is Random Houses bit, this is Penguins Bit, like they literally rent the space. So it's also very difficult as an independent author to get shelf space or in in a lot of bookstores. So you have to rely on your network. Um, and I'd say one of the biggest surprises has been LinkedIn of all places.

Gavin: 47:28

Oh, yeah. It doesn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_00: 47:30

It surprised me. I thought it would come through Instagram, which is where my like gay world is, where I'm most connected to my gay world. But in uh LinkedIn I found quite interesting because a lot of the people who stepped up to help me with the book are advertising people I've worked with, who I have a good I have a good reputation in the industry. And they were enamored with the fact that we a lot of us talk about it, but not many of us try and leave and create our own thing. So they've been incredibly helpful and supportive, yeah. LinkedIn, weirdly. So yeah.

Gavin: 48:04

So is the book a glass of red wine on a cozy day by the fireplace, or is it a pina colada on the beach with a blanket, on a nude beach with a blanket, or without uh that's a good question.

David: 48:20

I mean the book Or is it a vodka soda in a dungeon in Berlin? Do you know what I mean?

Gavin: 48:27

I mean the answer to your- Or is it a coke in an airplane?

SPEAKER_00: 48:31

The answer is yes to all of the above. It's a real it's a real mixed bag. The the um the readers who who have read it, uh actually, one of the best notes I got was, and I I changed the intro of the book to accommodate this. He said, I wish I'd understood better what I was getting into when I got into your book, because he said it's such a mashup of there is, of course, the the story of my divorce, the you know, the my telling of my version of it. Uh, so you have this as the narrative thread, obviously. Uh, but in the journey, uh, it dives off into analysis of a lot of different things where I dive into the scientific reason behind feelings and how we feel. Because um, what I discovered was going through this, uh, my emotions were wild, and I did not understand what I was feeling uh a lot of the time and why I was feeling it, and having these incredible volatile emotions. So I dove into emotions and how we work as human beings, and I was astonished to surprise how like how little I knew about my basic functioning as a human being. Um, so people found that very enlightening. They, everyone found the deep dive on the history of marriage fascinating. I was worried. I had this whole, like, there's a whole section where my divorce in in the storyline, the divorce is kind of on in uh limbo for a moment, not resolved but not going anywhere. Someone had asked me why did I get married? Um, and I in the book I write down my five reasons, and like I'd said, not not the last four weren't too crash hot. Um, but then I did this deep dive into um marriage. What like what is this thing? And I really researched it to find out the history of it. Where did it come from? Why did we start it? How is it practiced around the world? Had there been any same-sex marriage in the world before, you know, it was all legalized in in America? I mean, obviously, in other Western nations it's been um um legalized for for longer than in America. Uh, but um just to read up on that, and then also the history of divorce. How do we have these divorce laws? Why do divorce laws look like this? And I think it's a particular perspective that only uh someone who's not heterosexual can bring to it because we don't a lot of it is about the battle of the sexes, and we don't have any skin in that game, you know. Yeah, uh, so you can be impartial, I think, in a way. So it's a lot of it, it's many different drinks, many different types of drinks. And some of it's funny, some of it people were like they said they were laughing reading the book, they were crying reading the book, they would sit back and think about the stuff. Like, I would say the the greatest compliment anyone has paid me about the book is uh a friend of mine, dear friend of mine, I've known him for 20 years, heterosexual married, raised two adult children out of the house, great parents, very happily married, him and his Stephen and Kim. And uh they're a fantastic couple. And Stephen, I met when I was in my screenwriting days, so we've read everything the other one has written. And so he was one of the first people I gave my book to uh because his opinion is very important to me. And he said, you know, when I when I finished the book, he said I was, I mean, I was blown away. It was the it's the best thing you've ever written. But he said, by the time I finished it, I knew you in incredible detail. Like I mean, I don't hold anything back in this book. You'll know a lot about me by the time you get to the end of it, um, which I'm having a bit, oh God, now that it's about to be published. But anyway, it's done now, it's good, it's a good thing. Um, but he said, what surprised me about it and what I was not expecting is that when I finished it, I knew myself better. I knew my wife better. I understood our marriage and our relationship in a way that I never had before, and that I was not expecting. And for me, that is the ultimate compliment because it means it's a universal story. It's not a story about gay divorce for gay men to read. It's a story about a human being who had a human experience and that these are universal lessons that I learned, you know, along the way from all these different guides that popped up along the path. Yeah.

David: 52:58

So well, unfortunately, we're running out of time, but I want to uh ask you one last question. Of course. And that would be will you ever get married again?

SPEAKER_00: 53:06

Never say never. Um, I don't think so. But if I did, I would not get married for the same reasons I did last time. And it would be very different this time around. Um, also, I have learned to love and be loved in a totally different way. So even how I would approach it now would be it would be so different. So never say never. Don't think so, but but I'll come to I'll come to anybody's if you're if you're inviting. I'll I'll pop along. I'll throw confetti. I won't bring my book as a present, promise. Although maybe maybe I should read it, maybe read it on the on the run-up to the book.

David: 53:50

It'd be kind of a buzzkill out like on the way up the aisle to be like, here's a book on divorce. Good luck, love you. Good luck. It's signed. It's signed.

SPEAKER_01: 53:57

It's got my number. Call me.

David: 54:00

Well, Carl, thank you so much for stopping by. I know this is like not our typical fair for the show, but I thought it was really interesting to hear this perspective for for for gay dads who are probably married because this is something we all have to kind of think about. Um, thank you so much for coming by and talking to us.

SPEAKER_00: 54:16

Thank you so much, guys. Really enjoyed it. Thanks so much.

Gavin: 54:21

So I just found out about a cool nonprofit. I work in the nonprofit world and I'm always finding about a lot of nonprofit folks who are out there trying to make the world a better place, right? Which is something I might mention once or twice an episode. I found out about the Dell Shores Foundation. The Dell Shores Foundation is a nonprofit that exists entirely to discover Southern LGBTQ writers, specifically, obviously, from the South. In fact, their mission statement is the Dell Shores Foundation's mission is to find and facilitate the development of new Southern queer artistic voices through bringing together artists and working professionals, amplifying new work, and connecting artists to platforms for the creation of the work. Isn't it a good world when there's something like that that just exists to um uplift southern queer voices? I just think that's something great. That is something great.

David: 55:13

Um, my something great is I uh a couple weeks ago went to there's a a town uh a couple minutes south of us. Um, that I'm in this like gay dads group or whatever on Instagram, and they had like a meetup in their yard, like let's all get together and I'll, you know, whatever. And so the dads basically rented a bounce house and had some food or whatever. They're like, come over, we'll just hang out our backyard. And I'm expecting a couple families. There was like 50 people there. Dad all gay dad families. So gay dads with kids of variety, you know, various ages and um uh just all kinds of things, and they were all from this area, which is not far from me. And it was just this amazing world to kind of be in for a couple hours, and and all of the things that happened, right? A kid fell and hit his head, so dad had to go put ice on the window. Our kid was crying because he didn't get the cupcake or whatever. And you just like see, and then, but also it it is gay, right? We were talking about Madonna, and we were like, you know, it was just a really beautiful place to be where like none of the kids were the weird kids with gay dads. Yeah. Um, and so it was just like a really cool couple of hours of our lives.

Gavin: 56:19

So did you grab the karaoke mic and talk to all of them about gatriarchs?

David: 56:24

No, no, I didn't. I should have. That would have been a good idea.

Gavin: 56:28

This is how I bring it all back to me.

David: 56:30

You always do. You're the best at that. And that is our show. If you have any comments, suggestions, or general compliments for Gavin, you can email us at gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.

Gavin: 56:44

Do you think we could read this entire thing with a passive voice, like hello? Or you can DM us on Instagram. We can.

David: 56:55

Would that be enjoyable for our audience? For a listening?

Gavin: 56:58

We are at Gatriarchs Podcast. On the internet, David is at DavidFM BawnEverywhere, and Gavin is at Gavin Lodge on um a karaoke machine. Please leave us a glowing five star review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, and we'll make it all about us the next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.