The one with author and Grandpa Kevin O'Connor

This week Gavin is gay for flowers, David apologizes to our listener, we rank the top 3 things that were true when we were kids that are no longer true, and this week our extra special guest judge is author and GILF Kevin O'Connor, who talks to us about growing up in a funeral home, what being straight in San Francisco in the 80's was like, and why he thinks parenting is like "poopy balloons."

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

Transcript

Gavin: 0:00

Yes, but uh please listener go out and find five friends and make them gatriarchs as well, and that that'll help us get f closer and closer to those millions that we are gonna immediately donate to um the uh all sorts of equality efforts.

David: 0:15

Are you proud of that one? Is that what you want to put on your appetite?

Gavin: 0:20

Should we go back and record it? I'm kidding.

David: 0:22

Okay, so anyway, uh oh no, that's a cold open, Gavin. You know how cold opens work. What happens after you ruin something? And this is KTRX.

Gavin: 0:54

Just you wait. There we go. It is so bonkers. And every day, frankly, every day of since my kids were probably one, I wake up and I so often think, oh my god, how many minutes until I get to go back to bed? Which is a terrible way to live life. But springtime, I mean, it's just like it everything gets piled on. There's a band concert, then there's a choir concert, then there's a field trip, and then there's and everybody's so busy. And here I am complaining about being busy. But it is, it's real, man. It's real. And were our parents complaining about this in the 60s?

David: 1:32

No, they were smoking with the windows rolled up. Are you with me? They were smoking, and then they were just letting us live outside, and then they'd flash the lights on the porch and we'd come running home.

Gavin: 1:42

That was it. They were not overwhelmed in the springtime by concerts and projects, were they? No, because I don't know. I I do remember April and May being stressful as a high schooler, but that was high school. I don't have high schoolers. But I also had the connectivity, too.

David: 1:55

Like they didn't have connections to all the things. They could, you couldn't have immediate access to anybody at any time. So I think they were like, I don't know. I think I saw a form about a field trip. I don't know. I think he's in Disney World today.

Gavin: 2:04

And yet at the same time, yet at the same time, that's growing up in Florida, huh? But um, at the same time, my kid can't remember a uh field trip form to save his life right now. I mean, not at all. Not at all.

David: 2:16

In fact, I But there's like portals now and emails and all that kind of stuff. This is like they would hand you an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper that you had to have an adult sign.

Gavin: 2:26

And you were trained from kindergarten to know that that goes home, it gets signed and it comes back the next day. I never missed out on any of those. Now, I don't know what my kid's supposed to be doing from day to day. Who knows? No idea. Anyway, so spring, David, it's just so much, but I'm very happy to be here with you and all of our listener.

David: 2:47

Oh, well, um, I want to tell you a quick story about um my son, who is disgusting. I'm just gonna say it. He's disgusting. Um, he brought a rock in from outside and he was telling me a story and he was putting it in his mouth. I said, Emmet, we cannot put rocks in our mouths. And my daughter, two-year-old daughter, who is very influenced by her brother, right, um, came up. And so I was gonna make a point of it. I was like, right, Hannah, we don't put rocks in our mouth. And I was like, so Emmett, tell us, what do we not put, you know, we don't put rocks in our mouth. I said, Do we put rocks in our ears? He goes, No, we don't put rocks in our ears. And so we're going through all the things, and then we're kind of done. And then I see Emmett kind of looking off and thinking, and then he goes, Oh, and we don't put rocks in our buttholes. And I was like, correct. We don't put rocks in our buttholes. Thank you for informing your sister of that. Did Gavin, did Uncle Gavin teach you that word? Because, yeah, so we don't put rocks in our buttholes, Gavin, just so you know. Um good to know. And thank you, Emmett. Thank you so much for that, Emmett. So I want to do it really quickly before we move on to our next topic. I want to apologize to our listener.

Gavin: 3:53

So we um have we ever had to issue an apology before?

David: 3:57

I don't think you've been that offensive. No, this is a this is a bad one. So we we here at Gatriarchs are um really raking in the dough, if I'm being honest. We're making a lot of money now. We've already far surpassed last year's goal of 77 cents. So, but part of that is we distribute the show on a platform called Buzz Sprout. You don't need to know what it is, it just distributes the podcast to all the places. And they offer an ad program where they're like, we'll put ads on your show and then we'll give you, I think it's three cents a download. Oh no, 1.3 cents a download. So it's very, very little amount of money. Right. But the problem is they don't tell, they won't let you choose where the ads go. They put them in, they use AI to put them in your show automatically. Of course. And I listened to some other podcasts that uses Budspro this Bud Sprout advertising platform, and it usually comes in at a place that feels okay. I was listening to our last episode, Gavin. I don't know if you ever have listened to our show. It doesn't sound like what show? Yeah, exactly. But that it was literally in the middle of a sentence, it cut out and did an ad, and then it cut back in, and it was the middle of our top three list. And so to Oh, yes. Yeah.

Gavin: 5:04

Yes, I did know that that does happen. I didn't listen to the last one. Wow, but here we go.

David: 5:08

Um, but so to our listener out there, I apologize. I have zero control over this. But what what you can do to help us is get us big, big advertising guys, and then we can have them insert their ads in places that make sense, and we can rake in the millions of dollars we're gonna be raking in. But for now, we're on the bottom of the barrel, we're on the poor person plan, we're on the Medicaid of podcasts, so we're just having to accept what comes our way. Um, but I just wanted to issue that apology to our listener. Sorry, but that's what's gonna happen.

Gavin: 5:35

Which we will immediately donate to the Trevor Project or the HRC. Yeah, right. And not park it for ourselves by any strength. Are you talking about Hillary Rodham Clinton? Yeah, I sure am.

David: 5:46

Because, girl, she's still out there. She doesn't live far from us either. She, you know, she looks she looks pretty close. She lives in Westchester.

Gavin: 5:52

I w if we can make her a listener, we'll go to her house and um interview her. So that was a random aside. Okay, yes, please save us from the pit I'm digging here. God damn it.

David: 6:02

So, um, in other news, you know who doesn't live near us and makes a lot of money? Colton Underwood. So you all out. Remind us, yeah, remind us who that is. So Colton Underwood was a bachelor. He famously was on The Bachelor, and then he was the bachelor, and then he had this like messy breakup with the girl he chose, and then he came out as gay, and then he got married immediately, and then he had a reality show about finding a date, and it was just like it was so much all the time. But it was kind of fun for people who are in the Bachelorette franchise, but also a lot of us gay folks were a little eye roll y about like the social media of it all and like the fact that his reality show came out so quickly. But anyway, all of that aside, Colton Underwood and his husband are going to be dads. And so they just announced this this past week about them doing um gestational surrogacy, and that him and his husband are expecting their first son, I believe, in October.

Gavin: 6:53

But I don't know. Which we are we have nothing but great things to say about, right? Yay!

David: 6:58

Yes, it's welcome to the club. You, your, your Gatecharch's thank you note will be in the email. Um, it's all coming to you. But what was blowing my mind about this article, I don't know if you read it, but it was talking about like, oh, they, you know, they experienced some setbacks, they're doing surrogacy, they finally got pregnant. And then they said something. They said, sorry, I want to pull it up and read it out loud. They said, soon enough, they found a suitable surrogate and invested another$350,000 in the process to turn their dream of having a family into a reality.

Gavin: 7:33

Wait, we have talked to a lot of surrogacy folks, and we always talk about how, hey, it is definitely expensive, but 350k?

David: 7:46

And the way it's written, it says another 350k. So are we talking 700k? So they talk in the article about they had some sperm issues, so they had to do like, what is it called? Um ixy or ice, the like sperm, whatever. Anyway, but I was like, 350, the most expensive journey I've ever heard of after it's done was like$250,000. And that's because they had like five miscarriages and multiple surrogates, and it's like a big thing. They haven't even had a child yet. Yeah. They're they're already this far into like what is happening.

Gavin: 8:20

I mean, on the you are reminded, you are reminded uh there are there are the haves and the have nots in this world. Or are they taking advantage of him because he's a celebrity? Totally. Do you know what I mean? Then there's that for sure. Anyway, for sure. Wow, Colton. So what I love Colton. I love that you brought us into the gay news factor, and I cannot wait to welcome Colton and his hubby to our show. So um, shout out to anybody who knows Colton out there, um, send him our way, please. Um, but also in other gay news, did you know that Iraq, uh, the Iraqi legislature hates the gays?

David: 8:54

The Iraq and the Iran, such as. Uh Do you remember that video from like the early mid-2000s? Yeah. Um, I did not I did not know that they hated the gays.

Gavin: 9:04

The Iraqi legislature has recently illegalized sex with a partner of the same gender and will prosecute you with a 10 to 15 year um prison sentence. Uh. Which, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's almost less serious than I would have expected, frankly. I mean, you have a low bar for these things.

David: 9:24

Like, you're like, well, it wasn't you didn't get beheaded. It's like, well, bro, the bar. But also, there goes my fucking vacation plans to fucking. I know, to Baghdad, right. Oh my god.

Gavin: 9:33

Exactly. I mean, just when Iraq hasn't been in the news for a long time, which is frankly a good thing. It's good that it seems to be a country getting its act together, and congratulations, and good for them. And sorry we screwed everything up for you for a lot of time there. But really, are we going after the gays in Iraq in 2024?

David: 9:48

I just feel like maybe it's because I'm insulated from a lot of the culture of that side of the world as it is now. But it just seems so boring nowadays to introduce anti-gay legislature. Yeah. I get it if it's on the books or if it's already part of your culture. But if you're like, oh, I'm gonna make a change and it's gonna go backwards, I'm just like that's easily the most boring thing I've ever heard myself.

Gavin: 10:10

Well, and what just imagine whatever uh changes might come to states here in the United States in years to come if we should go down that path and we're gonna be like, wow, congratulations, bigoted state, yeah. Iraq. Yeah, you're like Iraq in 2080, 24. Alabama is the Iraq of the United States, as I've always said. But don't but don't worry, we're not gonna have to worry that about that because everything's gonna be fine in November. And also everything's fine because we can thank German soccer players for coming out. There was a big old announcement for some German footballing team that they were gonna make some big group announcement on um, let's see, on May, oh, 17th. And they were all gonna come out en masse. And then you dig deeper into the news and you and you look at the comments, frankly, and you see, oh no, no, no. This is just a way to sell clicks, and it's this clickbait because every year some sports team in Europe, bless them, say that a bunch of them are gonna come out, and then that actually never happens. So that's that's my fake gay news of the week. I did read.

David: 11:14

Sports, I feel like sports culture has changed in a really amazing way. We're like being gay or being gay and playing sports or whatever is like so cool now. I think to the straight players. Like, I don't know if this is true. This is just my like total, like uh like like junior guest, but it feels like if you're a gay person on a football team, it's like a-okay with everyone, and I think that's really awesome because I I mean, I hope you're right about that.

Gavin: 11:42

Uh I don't know. There would be some who would take you to task for it, though. I have a feeling. I mean, what about the dude, the kicker from the Kansas City Chiefs, who like gave his bigoted homophobic misogynists, it's talking about boring. Again, so fucking boring.

David: 11:56

You guys are like, oh, we should take away women's right to vote and contraception and gay right to illegate marriage. I'm like, guys, this is literally everything. This was like the the the plot for every fucking TV show 10 years ago. Do we have anything new in the tank? This is so boring. Well, um, well, David, do we have anything new in the tank? We do. We have something new and helpful, and it's our dad hack of the week, which is coming from me, which is really rare because I am not good at this. But something I've learned lately um is when you're asked a question from your kid that is either hard to explain or you don't want to explain. So, like, am I gonna die? Or where do babies come from? But at a time where they're not quite ready to understand that. What I've learned, and this is obviously from TikTok, is until before you answer that question, you say, Well, what do you think happens?

SPEAKER_03: 12:46

Do you think you're gonna die?

David: 12:47

What do you think? And because what I found is that he always, or I'm talking about my son, he always has an answer. He's always been stewing with an idea. Lately it's been, if I'm being totally honest, like, is grandma gonna die? Is grandpa gonna die? Are you gonna die? Am I gonna die? There's a lot of death in the world. And nobody's died in our life recently, but it's just kind of on the tip of his tongue. And so I've asked him, I'm like, well, what do you, do you, what do you think? And it's really gotten me out of a couple pickles. Now, I'm not totally avoiding talking to my child, but I do try to make it a practice to avoid talking to my child.

Gavin: 13:17

And you want to make it age appropriate and also try to try to figure out what they are really getting at? Because in a lot of ways, they just want to verify information they totally have. So yeah, that's uh I love that dad hack. That deserved its own theme song. Let's revisit it. You know what else has a theme song? Tell me. Our top three list.

David: 13:33

Gatriarchs, top three list, three, two, one. And that's you. Just does everyone know that that's Gavin singing and your husband playing the piano and composing it?

Gavin: 13:44

I do believe that you have made that um announcement a quick one. I don't know if you're proud of it or not. But uh I appreciate it. I'm very proud of it. Very, very proud of it. Um now I completely forgot though, because we uh recorded our last announcement about what the top three list about six months ago. So slight exaggeration. Is this yours or is it mine? But I'm ready, don't worry. Wow, it sounds like you're ready.

David: 14:06

Um this week is my list, and this list is the top three things that were true when you were a kid, but that are no longer true. And alrighty, and so I'll go first. Um, in number three, to medicate fevers. And when you have a fever, when you were a kid, you were like, oh, you have to take Tylenol to reduce your fever. Like a fever equaled bad. And now we know, no, the fever is the body's response, the physiological response to getting rid of the shit that's in your body. And now it gets, I think it's one over 104, then it becomes dangerous if you need to medicate. But now, all of the doctors I've ever seen, when our kid has had a fever 102, 101, or whatever, they're like, no, no, no, let it let them have the fever unless it gets dangerous.

Gavin: 14:50

So number three, what if they have the what if it's a fever for the flavor of a Pringle, though?

David: 14:58

And number two, um, and number two, that the Brontosaurus is real. There is no Brontosaurus. That was not a dinosaur, it was a couple of parts of other dinosaurs that they put together, and there is no Brontosaurus. I forget, it's like a brachiosaurus or something is the actual um thing, but there is no brontosaurus. Wow, this is all right. You're you're learning lots of new information today. So many things. And number one, also in the dinosaur world, my number one thing that was true as a kid that was no longer that dinosaurs didn't have feathers. Dinosaurs had feathers, people. All the dinosaurs that you know that you remember as kids, that like scaly reptilian skin. Well, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them.

Gavin: 15:41

Well, right, right, right, right, are we like fucking chickens, a bunch of chickens? Right, right, right. Like like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the T-Rex was a chicken, basically. Right, yeah, and delicious with barbecue sauce. So Oh wait, I, you know, you are so clearly in the midst of all of this um toddler science-based information. I had recently, I feel like the feathers information has come out recently, but that's just so not on my radar. I don't pay attention to it.

David: 16:07

So that's it's nothing to do with gratitude. Yeah.

Gavin: 16:13

Well, my approach here, I feel like I didn't quite let you put an exclamation point at the end of your top three, did you? You normally don't. I have a special mention and everything, but no, go ahead, please.

David: 16:23

Stomp on my dreams.

Gavin: 16:25

Please give us your special mention. Raise the bar, Gaben.

David: 16:27

Let's hear your raise the bar.

Gavin: 16:28

Actually, I'm gonna lower it, I'm gonna lower the bar and I'm gonna pass that football right back to you so that you can put the special mention in, okay? Because I took this in a completely different direction. And I bet I turned it into a topic that we've done before, but I'm actually quite proud of these. Um, I was thinking about things not true from my perspective, not from hard data science. That works. Um, things that were true that when I was a kid that are not true now, right? Number three, watching TV all day rocks. I can't do it. I hate it. I have way too much guilt. I can watch about a half an hour of TV, maybe in the morning, but I just sit there quivering, thinking, I there's so much I need to do. There's so much I need to do all here on this Saturday. I mean, I should just be able to sit and watch TV with my kid. Nope, I can't do it. And and I definitely can't just sit around and watch TV all day, even though I dream about it just like anybody else does. Number two, everything new and shiny is better. I don't think that anymore. Not at all. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Number one, adults know everything. Oh God. I mean, if I can tell my kids anything, I'm like, listen, we're all fucking faking it.

David: 17:37

And so do you ever project yourself back into when you were a kid and you were looking at these adults as these like pillars of confidence and strength and knowledge? And then go back to that point as a kid and re think about them as idiots just barely getting by. And if you had ever spoken up, they would have probably bowed down to you. Like, oh my god. Totally. Yeah.

Gavin: 17:57

Yeah. No, 100%. That's that that's my entire point. Okay, so I'm gonna launch it right back to you, though, about what is your special. I just had a special mention.

David: 18:04

You know, it's funny, I'm realizing all of mine are very science-based. Um, my special mention. But I really like it. Is Pluto? Is it a planet? Yeah, is it not a planet?

Gavin: 18:12

I wrote it down.

David: 18:13

We don't know.

Gavin: 18:13

I wrote it down.

David: 18:14

Did you really?

Gavin: 18:14

I that was gonna be my special mention to basically just say, oh, well, if we're being all scientific, you're right. What is Pluto? No. Today on May 6, 2024, uh uh what what is Pluto? I don't know.

David: 18:27

Pluto, listen, Pluto has its own thing. It's agender, it's non-binary, it is it is not gonna be fucking following your goddamn binary rules of the world. Do not do not put Pluto in a box. No. Do not.

Gavin: 18:38

Um So what are we gonna put in a box next week, Gavin? So for next week, I want to know what are the top three generational or childhood traumas that you actually want your kid to go through. So, while not an actor, our next guest seems to have his real life headlines ripped from Hollywood. He has lived so many different lives that probably would make for great screenplays. He grew up in a funeral home, he married a woman, had kids, lived in San Francisco in the 80s and 70s, I believe, while straight. Came out, married a man, has children and grandchildren, and is overall um helping the world as an LGBTQ educator in many different forms. Also, he's written a book about which we'll talk uh later. Welcome to Gatriarchs, our very first grandzaddy, Kevin O'Connor.

SPEAKER_02: 19:32

All right. I didn't realize I was the first. I know they're home. That's great to be the first granddad here. That's wonderful.

Gavin: 19:38

Well, even more the first grand zaddy. So your life sounds like it was uh basically the basis of um Six Feet Under, which I'm sure is so basic, and you get asked that all the time. So, what I really want to know is I want to know is which character were you in Tales from the City?

SPEAKER_02: 19:56

Oh, I wished I was more familiar with Tales of the City or Catching me with my gay dance down. But we'd like to do that with our guests because I I didn't uh watch that show. I watched segments, but never enough to put it together. I loved the concept and loved it being set in San Francisco, of course, because that's where I live for a number of years. But I I really can't identify that closely with any of the characters.

Gavin: 20:22

That's all right. Well, that was definitely one of I mean, David, have you watched it?

David: 20:25

I don't, and I know I know of its lore and I know what it kind of is, but I just it it it it totally missed me.

Gavin: 20:33

Well, once again, this is this is a really great way for me to do it. David, you're doing an absurd job already. It's really it's going to be. As always. As always. Well, for those of you, those of you who need to to refresh your gay cards, um, Tales from the City is definitely um of the lore. So anyway, you're our very first grand and daddy we've had on the show. Congrats on being a pioneer and a leader. Well, thank you. Um, do you know all your grandkids' birthdays offhand?

SPEAKER_02: 21:00

Yeah, I agree, I do. And now could I could I be put to the spot to pull them off without taking up too much broadcast time? No, but I I know if I can't remember them readily, I know where to access them.

David: 21:11

No joke. When I whenever I'm asked about my daughter, my daughter is my second kid, and whenever I'm asked about her birthday, they're like, What's her birthday? I'm always like, 114. And then I have to kind of think for a second about what year. I I don't know why, but like the the since since COVID, years don't really mean anything to me anymore. So I forget sometimes. So I'm sure by the time we have grandchildren, I will have absolutely no idea what any of their names are. Yeah.

Gavin: 21:36

So you obviously have a lot of stories about um your family makeup, but could you give us the brass tacks of how you ended up uh where you are now and tell us about your family? Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02: 21:48

Okay. Well, my current family and my present, I mean, and combined with my past family. Um, I've been married to Leon and been with Leon for almost 20 years. We were married in uh 2015 uh between the two of us. We have uh five sons and we have seven granddaughters, ranging in age between uh the youngest is five, and the oldest is what is uh twenty-three. We'll be twenty three shortly. So they range in age uh from those ages and they keep us pretty pretty busy. They're spread around the country in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Florida. So that gives us our travel uh uh wings to go visit, and then some of them are local, so we get to see them. So they keep us. I love this stage of life. I I've loved all the stages of my life, but um this is this is interesting to to be a part of their lives and to to know how Leanne and I have incorporated this, our blended. You you use that in one of your prompt questions to me, uh bl this blended family and how so how happy we are and how successful it is. It's not without its things that are happening too, uh, but mostly 99% excellent. And that's that's what brings me, that's why I'm in Fort Lauderdale. I moved here to be with Leon when I uh shortly after I first met him, and we brought our brought our family.

David: 23:19

How did you have Leon?

SPEAKER_02: 23:20

So we met uh through a mutual friend. Um I had a college friend, still had that college friend, and when I was first uh coming out in 2005, I had coincidentally reacquainted myself with this college friend who told me that he also was married and in the and had taken the steps to come out of his marriage and had two kids, and so he and I he became one of my confidants in that whole process. And then about three or four months into that process, he called me and said, What are you doing? And I said, I'm just I was a school principal at the time, summertime. I said I was working in my office, and he said, Well, I have this person that's been through our situation, uh learning leaving a marriage, and and he said he's in the sh uh I was in the Chicago area at the time. He says he's in a convention in Chicago, and maybe he would uh have some ideas for you. So I called. This happened to be Leon and the other friend's name is Jaime. He had he wasn't intending to matchmake us or anything like that, he just thought I needed some help. So um, so I called Leon and we talked, and then Leon changed his plans to leave come back to Florida the next day, and we met for dinner and uh a long night, and just that was the start. That was in July of 05. Cool. And um it's we've stayed, we've been together ever since. So we met we met on the steps of the Art Institute in Chicago. Oh, sweet.

Gavin: 24:56

Which is where the gayest thing you've said so far, basically. So the art institute. So, how did your kids then on both sides take to being part of a new queer blended family?

SPEAKER_02: 25:10

Oh, okay, great question. Um, they've taken to it well. Uh uh, they uh initially, he and I were that was two five when we met. We decided that we would just get ourselves oriented to each other before we started talking about this relationship. I at the time was just uh departing from my marriage situation, living in the basement of my suburban home. Oh wow uh still there when I met him. So I'll you know, all this was very um unplanned, but welcomely on planned. I when I decided to split from the marriage, I had no idea that someone would be coming into my life so quickly. Um so in any way, uh the I went through the process of the divorce. I not I, we, uh my wife, my former wife, did all that. That took about a year. So the summer of 206, 2006, fall of 2006 is when we started to tell each of our children individually about what uh this relationship that we had fostered in the past year and what we were going to do about it. I met his kids uh when Leon turned 60 in November in September of 2006. He had me come to Fort Lauderdale, and I met the whole family at once. Oh kids, grandkids, brothers, um, friends, about 60 people. That was how I was introduced to the group.

David: 26:35

So when when you were getting divorced, did you before you told your kids about Lian, did you know, did their kids know that it was you were getting divorced because you were coming out as gay, or was that just that was still under the the rug?

SPEAKER_02: 26:48

Oh boy, that's uh um I like to think there was a sequence to that whole plan, but um pretty much the divorce part, um my mom was my counselee at that time, that's another story.

SPEAKER_03: 27:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 27:03

But um she we decided I had two years left of my public school principal contract and the northwest suburbs of Chicago, and we decided, uh I decided with her that hey, it's not a good time to be a soapbox gay, it's not a good time to stand up in our platform and say, um I am what I am. So we I said let's we decided let's get the family used to the concept of divorce first. Uh-huh. I mean, any that's a change in any family when uh a particular couple gets divorced. So we did that, I did that and just navigated that my way through that. And then when the divorce, so the kids knew that we were getting divorced, that was no secret. But the idea that I was gay came out after the divorce was final, and of course my wife and I knew that was one of the factors, not the entire factor, but that was one of the factors. But I didn't really myself personally engage in conversation with my uh sons or my brothers until after the divorce was legal. So that's the answer to your question, Dave. Yeah, David.

David: 28:11

I I guess I'm fascinated because we we've we've talked with a couple of um dads who were in straight relationships before they came out, and I'm always fascinated with what was that that turning point for you? Did you always have this background of like I think I'm gay, but I'm gonna stuff it back and then you let it out? Or was it like a later in life realization? And also it like how that first conversation goes with your wife. Is it like, hey, I think this, and she's like, Yeah, I know. Or is it just like, you know, I'm fascinated by that turning point. What was that for you?

SPEAKER_02: 28:39

There's a couple turning points. Because I was married one, uh, I was married to the mother of my children, but prior to that I was married another time, first time. So for you, third time's a charm, huh? Yes, it is, it is. It took me a little while to get it right. But um, the um with my first wife who had we had had he and I she and I had been very good college friends to this now, uh we are still we have a very strong renewed friendship. We talk often. Uh and when that was in 1977, which gets back to one of your questions, you know, about the Harvey Milk era. But that was in 1977, um, 78. We got married in 75. So in I think six 76, 77, I was able to say to her, hey, you know, I think I might be attracted to guys. And um, probably that's how I said it. I I don't know how I put it to her. I can visualize where I was when I said it. But she's well, let's go talk to somebody. She'd already been in a counseling um set counseling sessions for herself, just to for her own personal growth. And so we've I found a person to talk to, and that started my initial conversations. So she was very supportive and helped get to encourage me to talk to people. We proceeded with our plan to move back to the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Uh we came back in 78, stayed married, and then uh by spring of 79, that marriage had ended. So, in terms of your question, that the my first wife, yeah, we had those discussions, went to counseling, tried to unpack all that, and then decided to to separate and divorce. And then what did I do? I got went back into a dating, I won't call it a pool, but um uh I married again. Uh in 19 in those the 70s, early 80s, um I wanted to be a dad. And so that ties very much into your uh your conversations here.

SPEAKER_03: 30:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:46

But at the time I didn't, you know, I uh to be a dad, I felt I needed to be married.

SPEAKER_03: 30:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 30:52

And and not that that was my initial that was not my um ob uh objective. I wanted to have another I wanted to have a relationship. So then I met my second wife, who happened to be a colleague in the school district where I worked. And then um we we got married and had ki two kids, and and that situation, twenty some years after the marriage, um is when um I started to I had buried it so long, I think you had mentioned that word. And me being gay was just not anything I put on the table, either you know, for other people and even for myself. It was I referred to it as sort of a pit in my stomach, just in the abdomen, it always sat there. And it was there, it was there from the time I was preteen teenager. But it just uh it found different ways to peek out. So in that relationship, when my son, who was then 16 or so, decided that it looked like he was um on his way to be coming out, and I wanted to have a conversation with him about it. We were still in our house, I was still married, and um had this conversation with him, thinking, uh, gee, I'm trying to help him, but I can't even be authentic with myself.

Gavin: 32:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 32:06

And so um, and at that point in time, um I know there was, and then my wife, I was seeing a counselor at the time. She was seeing we were in different phases of counseling, either couples counseling, family counseling with the kids, individual counseling. Yeah, uh, I'm I'm not one to shy away from counseling. Yeah and uh and she at one point said that she uh I think after I admitted to her that I really that I was gay and then she agreed to come to counseling with me, and we tried to put things together then, and that didn't that didn't work either. Uh huh. So um and I think she even posed a question to me one time. She said, Um, do you think you are gay? And I said, Well, I think there I think I I project a point in the future of my life well, I'll I'll be in a relationship with a man. So wow. So that was without saying it directly. At that at that point, she decided probably it was in her best interest to just take a long drive and she left the house for the afternoon. But um I don't I don't say that lightly. It was very hard.

SPEAKER_03: 33:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:13

Well, uh I did say it lightly, but it was a very hard time. Yeah.

Gavin: 33:16

Well, what you're working through though, it it's it's a lot of heavy stuff, and you could have shame over it or not, because I don't know. We just we we live the life we live, and here you are now, and you're living in full authenticity. And I would imagine that's what informs your counseling slash teaching slash mentoring to uh queer kids, right? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:37

I mean, what is it about life that um there's a Yiddish term called Besert, B-A-S-H-E-R-T, Besert, and it means meant to be. So sometimes when I look back on my years and um thinking about when I was getting married the first time during the Harvey Milk era, and struggling in my mind with I was a teacher. That was the whole point of Harvey Milk's campaigns, was uh they were had a referendum in California to uh deny gay teachers the right to be employed in public schools. And uh so I had that in my mind. Here I'm a teacher, I'm about to get married, uh, I want to be a teacher, I guess this is not a time for me to come out with this going on, and me being married. And then and yet to find myself at the end of my career, starting in 19 in 2010, 2011, being uh offered a position in the Broward Public Schools here in Fort Lauderdale to help with LGBTQ advocacy. I mean, who would have thought? So uh that's where the Bescher comes in. It's sort of a meant to be. It is totally meant to be.

Gavin: 34:46

It's a meant to be. And it's yeah, it's meant to be that you're here right now with us. Telling us also about your book. Now, all that we've talked about here and all you've shared with us actually has nothing to do with the book that you've recently um published, but I find this actually super interesting because it is definitely uh um meant to be. If it weren't for Six Feet Under, hopefully it'll still make another movie. Tell us about um Two Floors Above Grief.

SPEAKER_02: 35:11

Well, yeah, I brought this to the coffee shop with me, two floors above grief. There we go. We're celebrating the 18th month of publication, so that's uh I'll have something on social media about that next week. Um, but it's been quite a journey. And it's it it chronicles it's a memoir, but it chronicles uh my upbringing in a funeral home in a town called Elgin, Illinois, which is a little northwest of Chicago. Uh-huh. And um I was born in 1950, and when they brought me home from the hospital, I was brought home to that house that's on the cover of the book.

SPEAKER_03: 35:47

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02: 35:48

And um that house was an old Victorian house, and uh the upstairs had been a ballroom in its original form, and my father and mother and aunt and uncle converted that third floor into an apartment for our family. The second floor was also a collection of bedrooms in the original house. That was an apartment for my aunt and uncle and my three cousins. Uh-huh. And this was all above the funeral home on the first floor. This two floors above Greek.

Gavin: 36:17

So I mean, it definitely lends itself to the idea that the a funeral home life is just full of like uh uh tension and drama and ghosts and bipolarity and I mean all sorts of things.

David: 36:31

I mean, Kevin, have you watched Six Feet Under?

SPEAKER_02: 36:34

Oh, yeah, I've watched every episode.

David: 36:36

I will never forget. I watched so I was moving to an apartment in Queens with my roommate at the time, and he wasn't gonna be there for like a week. So it was just me in this empty apartment with like I remember it was one chair for my KEA, and I had a TV, and I was, you know, this was for for the kids out there, this was back in the day when Netflix would would mail you DVDs. And so I decided I was gonna go from episode one to the very end of Six Feet Under. And I did it in in about a week or so. And I remember watching the last episode and being so inconsolable crying. Well, I'm not generally a crier, I was so inconsolable that I had to get out of my apartment and I had to walk around the neighborhood for a half an hour just to calm down. It's because these people were so meaningful to me in my life. And so, and the the the last episode, um, spoiler for people who haven't seen the show, that was made 25 years ago, is that they take all the characters that you've met in the show and then they kind of fast forward to watching them all die. Some of them die of old age, some of them die young or whatever. And it was just this weird realization that, yeah, when your life is over, that's it. They're everyone's gone. And it was this, I remember just being so fucking affected by it.

Gavin: 37:42

I just wanted to say it's one of the most satisfying um uh show endings of all time, for sure.

David: 37:47

It's thematic, yeah, it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02: 37:49

And it ties right in with the, you know, e they started each episode with the death and then they intertwine the story of that particular case with their own things in the family. So to conclude the series with their the deaths of those characters makes it real. And I I incorporate that in the book because uh in the of the ten characters and two floors above grief, there's three remaining, my two brothers and I. So the one of the last chapters is just talking about the passing of each one of my my parents, my aunt, my uncle, my three cousins, in a similar fashion to what and I make the reference in the book. Hey, like two floors above grief, excuse me, uh like um six feet under, you know, sort of preview the deaths. This is this is the deaths in our Undertaker family. This is how the people in our family died. And so it's pretty inevitable what we've got ahead of us.

Gavin: 38:42

And why is it though that you felt compelled to write it? Did you just have a lot of crazy stories? And if so, what's your favorite crazy story from the book?

SPEAKER_02: 38:51

Okay. Um what compelled me to write it was I'd had these stories in my head for a lot of years growing up in that environment, uh, for you know, from birth until I was 22 and left to start my own my own life. Yeah. Um, I had these stories in my head, as did other members of the family, and we would from that original group of family, there's now about 150 offspring. We're into the great, great grandchild area now of that. So when we get and we still get together, either um social network-wise or personally, and there's still, hey, tell us the story about this. Or I thought, okay, somebody's got to put this together. Well, compounded with that and and enhanced by it was the idea that the family had written letters back and forth when people used to write letters. Sure. We're talking about 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, way before internet and email. So another undercurrent of the whole book is um the family letters that went back and forth. I had about 700 pages of family letters. So when I uh retired in twenty twenty from public schools, I thought now's my time. So in twenty twenty one is when I Started working with people to help me put these ideas together and consulted with uh and worked on different classes with to help me get it organized and use those twenty let those 700 pages of letters as sometimes launch pads, but also just ways to present the characters of the book. So I I make a lot of references to their stories, their writing, and the most fun part about me, about well not me, about writing the book was when I would take those letters and keyboard them in to the my transcripts and my writing, I was thinking, hey, those those are their real words. You know, that's so and they're revealing characters and revealing um the personalities. It was their words that were speaking. So that was a gratifying thing. Partly that's why I um I wrote the book, and that was a unique story. And uh there are other people in the world who were raised in funeral homes. There are other people in the world that are raised in whatever business their parents chose to have. Some kids lived above their pediatrician's office, some kids lived above their printing off, whatever. Yeah, I'm thinking of this kids in my own uh growing up years. So it wasn't unusual for a family to live in the house where the business was. Was more true of undertakers and funeral directors because you had to live close by uh the premises to answer the phone and stuff. So yeah, the number of stores I mean, I I don't you you you had mentioned um the things about drama and tension and um the things that you might see in in uh Six Feet Under. Our family wasn't quite as quirky as that and uh that I you know that I was um that I was able to uncover. Uh if if there was sexual repression, that was my own. I mean, as a teenager, you know, I wasn't I wasn't uh in the in an environment that I was gonna come out in that at that time. But what I think what I try to bring out in the book, and I I think I did pretty successfully according to readers is that we sort of our family normalized the existence of living in a funeral home. We uh I was able to have kids over to s for sleepovers and do things in the backyard and play games and hang out, and they I would go to their house, they would come to mine. There was we didn't have any trick-or-treaters, but on the other hand, um uh our house was a very welcoming place. So that that's one memory that I I take from the house. Yeah. I also just some people said some people say, Did you ever get scared? I said, Well, it was so normal to me to live in that environment that I never really spent a lot of time thinking about it. Although I I do recall sometimes, especially after I started driving myself or or coming home on my own, what even before I was driving, letting myself in the door and knowing that uh there was a a body laid out in the casket as I would walk through the the corridors of the funeral home. I do remember running up the stairs. Oh, I've got to get away from that. I want to get upstairs. That just that passed real quickly. But before you check their wallet for cash.

David: 43:05

Yeah, that's true. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 43:06

But there was nothing that um there was nothing that that I saw. People say, didn't you see ghost? No. I mean, people the residents, people who lived in the house before some of the 1800s, night, they did have residents that died in the house. But interestingly, one of the people that died in the house, his first name was Connor, C-O-N-N-O-R. And so then we end up, oh Connor, taking over the fan home. But that's another aside.

David: 43:33

Gaben Gavin's spirit died in his own house. Like he's he's dead inside now, so he hit the ghost previous. Yeah, Gavin, can you imagine a time where you had to write letters back and forth instead of unlocking a grinder album of your dick pics? Can you imagine having to send an actual letter to somebody describing your dick?

Gavin: 43:53

Literally, instant gratification has was not invented until the late 2000s. I mean, come on, not enough.

SPEAKER_02: 44:00

I I had to handle that in a different way. I tell uh a little story in the book where I would go to, as a teen, the way to sort of um satisfy my curiosity about we didn't call it gay in 1950s or the sixties.

David: 44:14

Did you did you call it like Razumataz? What'd you call it?

SPEAKER_02: 44:17

Oh yeah, really. I do have I I I do have a theater background. Yeah. Okay. Um but no, I would go to the this the magazine shop, uh, it's called Schicklers in Elgin. And that was where I would hang out. I mean, when I talk about a man, this was masses of magazines. Sure. But but even at the very clear for the eye to see, on not a high shelf or anything, were the the muscle magazines and the uh thing is that those so that is where I I would just pique my curiosity a little bit was to be was stand there and then look over my shoulder to see, gee, I wonder who in town is gonna walk in and see me standing here looking at these magazines.

David: 44:57

Well, listen, that's that's primitive cruising. You were basically waiting for the other guy to be looking at the muscle magazines, Kevin. Yeah, well, yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't know that as a 13-year-old. Oh no, but look, I did the same thing in the Macy's underwear aisle. I remember just like hanging out in front of those boxes staring at those men and kind of secretly hoping somebody would see me and also be interested, and then you know, we go off in the changing room. Kevin, I have a question. So I you're you're a grandparent, which I think I'm I'm very much looking forward to. I've watched my mom go from a mom to a grandma and and how that's changed. I'm curious for you, parenting your own kids and also now parenting in a different way, your grandkids, what is better and what is worse? Like what what what what what are the things that you love about it and what are things that you're like, fuck this never again.

SPEAKER_02: 45:45

My mother used to, when I was having my my as a dad and living the life of a dad and and getting you know being enjoying it a whole lot and loving it. But you know, there were the times of poop and diarrhea and throw up and you know, all the stuff that we go through as parents and the the rebellion child, uh whether it's a two-year-old or a 17-year-old, all that stuff was going on. And my mom would say to me, I said, Mom, did you remember doing this with us? And she said, Really, Kev, it's just uh you for uh for me, she says I've forgotten most everything. She says, I just and you probably will too. And when I think back along, you know, some of the indiv the individual incidents of being a father, my kids are 42 and 40 now. When I think about some of the individual incidents, I don't remember a whole lot of them. Not not the unpleasant ones. I mean the I remember more the pleasant ones of pushing them on the stroller, taking them to their stool activities, coaching soccer, riding bikes, those kind of stuff.

David: 46:49

But I think that's real. I I think and I all kidding aside, Gavin, like like Gavin, I think often forgets. I think parents, I think after a couple of years, your brain starts to dump some of the traumatic parts of certain ages and kind of remembers. You'll remember one or two, like, you know, I had a tantrum in the mall things, but really you kind of go, oh man, I miss that age. Yeah, and it's so funny to watch from this young, I mean, I'm devastatingly young, but I mean my kids are very young position because it I'm like, what do you did? Am I having an experience that's totally different than everyone else? And I think as I already being around infants, I'm like, oh fuck, I forgot. I forgot about that weird thing you have to do with your hand to keep their hands out of their mouth. And I was like, oh, my brain is just dumping this shit because it it's like this doesn't serve me anymore. Yeah, so it's probably totally reasonable that your kids are in their 40s. You're like, I don't remember, you know, that kind of stuff because I don't need to.

Gavin: 47:41

And yet you can put yourself back in those shoes, and I can say I remember it was so hard. I just can't remember the specifics anymore. And I've lost that feeling, that PTSD physical feeling of, oh my God, it was so hard.

SPEAKER_02: 47:55

I think part of it is we just did it when I was with my with their mom, my wife, and we were both working, and you know, the dinner routine, the bath routine, the reading, the going to bed, the reading routine, the the schlepping them around uh school stuff or practices. And it was just you just did it. And I don't think, yeah, I'm no there was probably tension there and figuring there, but I forget about that tension part. I mean, I guess one of the more memorable experiences is when my then two-year-old uh disappeared. He didn't disappear. He walked in another room, and unbeknownst to us, he put the live end of an extension cord into his mouth. Oh, and we heard this a really intense scream. We were s sitting at the kitchen. You'd never heard that. And I walked in to find him sitting there. Uh I think he had the thing was out of out of his mouth, but his lip was foaming from burn, from the electrical burn. Holy cow. And I just uh all I could do was just take him in my arms and take him to the local emergency room and a few treatments and some plastic surgeries later. Holy shit, like plastic surgery. Yeah, there's a I learned all about this part of the lip, the uh commochure, I think it's commochure part of the lip, where the upper and the lower part of your lip comes together. Wow. And that's where the burn was. And so when that healed, uh we were directed to a uh uh what do you call it? Dermatologist? Yeah, no, plastic surgeon, plastic surgeon, who then uh put us on a regimen of surgeries, and it would take a we'll take a trained eye to now that he's 42, it would take a trained eye to see that the scar is there. But it was it was pretty traumatic at the time. And then some things that your kids get into that are unexpected that you just don't know. We had, you know, in the teen years we had the we had the car accidents, we had the disappearing things, the why you don't drink now, that kind of stuff. Uh, but um all those things it's just part of the life, part of the process.

Gavin: 50:01

Um, I uh now here I just want to make jokes about like somebody calling child protective services, but of course that was in the 80s or so. And so they would have been like, whatever. Here, are you even the dad? We don't really care. Here's the kid, we'll just hand him back to you, go give him a box of blue uh craft macaroni and cheese, put him back in front of the cartoons and leave him alone.

SPEAKER_02: 50:20

But yeah, I don't remember any of that, and that was 1983 or 84. Um I don't remember maybe 85. I didn't remember any of those questions when I got to the hospital. I'm sure. Uh it's different now.

Gavin: 50:32

It's different now, for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 50:34

Although it was a school, I was a school, what was I 85? I was just a teacher then.

David: 50:39

But um Gavin, you often you often have burning in the corner of your mouth as well as that a little bit. Yeah. What at your at this point now? You've raised many kids and many grandkids, what is your absolute favorite part of parenting or being a grandparent? And then what is your least favorite part about parenting or being a grandparent?

SPEAKER_02: 51:00

Well, the most favorite part from being a for being a grandparent is just watching all the directions the kids take and having that joy of of being in, you know, involved remotely or directly with the kids as they make their decisions. I got, you know, one of the granddaughters has got her masters in finance, and to see that kind of the way that that she is put her putting her life together, and the other granddaughters are doing, making change, you know, making graduating from college, pursuing careers, entering college. The younger kids in Philadelphia are and in in uh Illinois, they're they're doing the soccer practice, the gymnastics. The two of them just lost their dog yesterday. So they're they're um you know, they're going through that. So I I like being a part of that. I like um one of the things uh Leon's uh kids did when the when the 10-year-old was born about well, 10 years ago, they called me and they said, Um, okay, we have this new baby coming in, and up to this point the other four granddaughters have called you Kevin. But what do you want to be called? I thought, well, that's a cool question. That's I was so gratified that they asked. I did a little research and I I have Irish roots, Swedish roots, and Italian. Mr.

David: 52:16

O'Connor is how I will be.

SPEAKER_02: 52:17

So I I settled out, I did a little research and I wrote, I said to them, you know what? I've learned that the uh the derivative of uh Gaelic grandfather is da D-A. So um I I I I use that. And so that was uh Great.

David: 52:33

I feel like we're in an era of grandparents really leaning into this. Like, I'm not gonna be called grandpa or grandma. I'm gonna have like za za, za ja, like every like nana, like everyone wants to not be grandpa or grandma. I've discovered this with all three sets of my grandparents for my kids, is that they all like, no, no, no, I don't want to be grandma, I want to be so that they they took the duh on, but then at that time the older granddaughters were in high school, junior high, and they were taking Spanish.

SPEAKER_02: 52:59

So they said, okay, and they had learned that the uh Spanish word for grandpa was abuelo. So that they took the DA, put a hyphen in it because of O'Connor, duh, and they called me da buelo. So it it got reinvented that way.

David: 53:13

And that can be your rap name too, if you ever want to get into the rapture. Okay, what's your what's your least favorite part?

SPEAKER_02: 53:20

My least favorite of what? Grandparent. Parenting in general.

David: 53:24

Or being a grandparent. What's the worst part?

SPEAKER_02: 53:26

The worst part is just there's pain involved. There's there's setbacks, there's uh disappointment. I I mentioned to Gavin in our pre-call a couple weeks ago that one of my sons has decided to estrange himself uh in a relationship with with me and and my husband, Leon. Nothing to do with the with being gay, just he's just made that decision regrettably. And that would be the the saddest part, the hardest part, to know that you know, if you'd asked me six, seven, eight years ago, would I be uh online uh getting ideas about estrangement or talking to other people in the same situation or writing articles about it or no, I wouldn't have had that idea. So I guess the the most painful part is to know that um in all aspects of our life, there there's pain, there's disappointment, there's setbacks, there's navigation. I mean that that goes whether we're gay, straight, or undecided.

Gavin: 54:30

You're just you're helping map out the human condition for all of us.

SPEAKER_02: 54:34

Yeah, yeah. And I so I guess so that would be the in in a world where uh of parenting and grandparenting, which is uh exemplary and something I've wanted and wanted to be all my life as a parent and a grandparent, it's it's so it's so rich. Yeah. But I I have to keep room for, I not have to, I've been put in a position to keep room for disappointments for things that don't work out. And learn how do you learn from that? And how do I find a resource? How do I find the counselor that helps me through that situation? So I think that's to to answer that question, David, it's just the world of parenting and grandparenting, as you two know, is is full of it's full of poop, but it's full of balloons too, and full of poopy balloons, Kevin O'Connor.

Gavin: 55:25

We're gonna got our quote. Sometimes all together. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 55:28

It's full of shit, and it's full of hot air, and it's full of you know, things that bring a lot of joy, too. A lot of joy.

David: 55:35

Because actually, I think to me, you've just summarized parenting better than anything. Anyone who's been on our shows poop and balloons, and balloons full of shit, too.

Gavin: 55:43

Yeah, Kevin, thank you so much for being out there speaking out, sharing your truth, and um, and uh once again, making the world a better place and demeaning yourself by being on our stupid little podcast. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_02: 55:57

Thanks for having me part of your program.

David: 56:00

So, my something great is a baby. Uh yeah, my friend Griffin. He uh he's our listener, he's one of our listeners or listener. We can't really skip anymore. We have a lot of listeners now. Um uh he and his wife just had their first baby, and I went over to their house and held a, I don't know, four-day-old baby, which is so wild because you're like, I don't actually remember having babies this small. Like I have a two and a four-year-old. That was not that long ago they were this small. I legitimately was holding her, and I was like, I don't really remember this. But it was kind of fun and kind of fun to be around first-time parents who are so fucking delusional in their first week of life. They're like, I'm not tired. They were like, I'm not tired. I feel really great. Like, it's honestly, it's been really great. I was like, babe, month two and month three, call me. Um, but it was really fun to be around mom, and I'm really happy she's here and um fun to see people having kids and they're straight. So, you know, they they had they they had a baby the old-fashioned way via IVL. So uh congratulations, Griffin and his new dog.

Gavin: 57:01

My something great is that it is flowery season, and I'm not a flower person, and I know this is so basic, but God, it feels good when you live in the Northeast to just be in springtime and there are flowers all over the place, and it is a moment to like just stop and smell the roses. I have had some um family friends who are very sick, and they have um reminded me that God, you gotta live for every single day, right? So um, as cheesy as that is, I'm like real happy for the spring and the flowers and living for every single day. And that is um that's as basic as it gets, but just go out and you know, live your life. It's basic as it gets, but it's pretty gay too.

David: 57:39

Like that you're something great as flowers. Like it's pretty gay. But that's that's that's that's our brand. Gay and bad parents.

Gavin: 57:48

And so go out and you know, like live for every day and still um call your kids names. Because um, that's what we live for. Smell some flowers and ignore your kids. That's what we say here on Gatriarchs. And that's our show. If you have any comments, suggestions, or general compliments, you can email us at gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.

David: 58:09

Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast. On the internet, David is at DavidFM Bond everywhere, and Gavin is at Gavin Lodge on Tulip Time.

Gavin: 58:18

Please leave us a glowing five star review wherever you get your podcasts.

David: 58:22

Thanks. And we'll smell you later on another episode of Gatriarchs.