Dad Bods

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Two of my favorite writers are David Sedaris and John Devoor.
When I have a shot at one of their works,
I stop the car and pull over figuratively. As you know,
I'm a demon for behind the Wheel Protocol, hands A
ten and two of Eyes on the Road. First guy
who insisted on that my life was Frank Solich, and
I'm still afraid of him. But back to the great
things to read. In addition to calls from my son

(00:23):
and daughter, I spent part of Father's Day with DeVore
sitting on the patio of my highly taxed to late
front property, feed up cigar in one hand, Ham's beer
in the other. That's a story for another time. Every
time a thirty year old something Chad in their low body,
fat square jot Greek god looking chassis served behind their

(00:45):
two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars waveboat, I looked
at myself and then realized my battle with the dad
bod was quite similar to Irwin Rommels. About forty eight
hours after D Day, no hope, I grew depressed, for
there was a time not long ago when the dad
bod was the ideal male form. Remember about ten or

(01:08):
fifteen years ago. You'd even see dad Bod's celebrities showing off.
And then the gen wires, thanks to social media, brought
us slim waists, sharp raw jaw lines. They called it
looks maxing on camera. They'd flex, they'd tell me what
not to eat. Promise, if I'd do this thing one
hundred times a day, I'll look like them. This is

(01:30):
the new male form for all of us. I grew
up with the dad bod. I wondered what happened to
my dad's dad bod or your dad's dad bod, you
know the one that looks like an eggplant on tiny stilts.
When I was growing up, it's all I knew. There
was one shape, man shape, from the milkman to the

(01:51):
scout leader to the high school principal to the guy
at the pool wearing a speedo and bacon like a
giant sweet potato. Oh. They enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh,
onion rings, beer, klondike bars, stogies. Their bodies were to
be used, not polished. Theres were verbs, not nouns. But

(02:12):
this look maxing as too much. Today these chads are
treating their bodies like temples. My dad's generation treated theirs
like bounce houses. They were as comfortable in their bodies
as they were uncomfortable about sharing their feelings, and no
place better proved it than the summertime tripped to the pool.
DeVore took me back. I was there all over again.

(02:36):
We'd piled into the Lincoln Continental. He had one hand
on the wheel, another hanging out the window with a
smoldering Marl burrow between his fingers. He'd never dressed for
the pool, made sure to maximize that club membership by
using the men's locker room. After all, that's what they're for.
My brother and I would have to sit there as
he stepped out of his navy blue shorts and white socks.

(02:59):
On the high it was packed with other dads. They'd
stripped down to reveal the egg plant shape. Shower first,
take up the news of the day while they're you know,
hung down like sleeping bats. All genetic codes were represented
in those days, tall, short, flabby, skinny, chin less, jowy mustaches,

(03:20):
bony knees, But in unison, none of them gave a
flip about what they looked like naked. It was the
first judgment free zone in society, no body shaming before
the word was even invented. But there I sat in
full view of it all with all their other equally
shell shocked sons, as we learned that what other people

(03:42):
think of me is none of my business. Thanks John
for that elegy. It all snuck back in as my
social media feed brims with chads injecting themselves with peptides,
testosterone treatments, and surgeries. I'm pretty sure all of those
locker room denizens are gone now old age and very
unhealthy habits. Too many cheese, Frenchies and Scotch, emotional repression regrets,

(04:07):
too much time in the lawn chair with no SPF
factor thirty. I've got better habits than they did, but
still working on the self judgment part. And I love
Klondike bars.