The Daily Whatever, Jun 18: Talking Taylor

Good morning everyone. Welcome to the daily whatever. Good morning. I'm Dana DuBois.

I'm Lauren's winner in. And we're thrilled to welcome Steve up and all to his first ever live on the daily whatever. I'm excited to be here since I'm fun. Yeah, we're welcome.

Yeah, welcome welcome and welcome everyone joining. I'm going to go ahead and join here on my desktop too so I can see the chat. I can always take some minute Lawrence to be able to see it here. Yeah, there's always a slight delay on desktop.

So see we usually join on desktop too, just so that we can follow along in the chat, which is fun. It is. It's really fun. But I do mention that at sub stack headquarters, they're like, we're firing up the live.

It's not on desktop yet, but it'll be here in a minute. It is. It is the best friend and I look forward to this every, every single morning. Lawrence check it in with you before while we're waiting for all this to come up news of the day.

What I mean, here's here's my news of the day that I read it and I had to read it again because I wasn't sure if it was true. Apparently Monday evening as they were, you know, slapping all of the tanks out of Washington DC, a tank truck crushed the pedestrian and killed a woman. What? Yeah.

Yeah, one died thanks to Trump's little parade and I want you to imagine if it had been Biden who had thrown himself a big birthday parade and then one of the tanks leaving had crushed an innocent woman, how crazy would the news media be right now? I can't even find it. I don't know. You can't find it, which is fascinating.

It is true. It really happened. Yeah, was that you? I mean, that was a new tower.

Oh, no, this was in DC. Oh, DC. Yeah, so you guys think is where a person died at the protest? Right.

That's why you're right. Yeah. Wow, I can only when I put tank crushed didn't pull me up. Tank crushed DC.

I got one link and it's on Yahoo, which is barely a website Lawrence. Right. Yeah, the one link I found was USA Today, which is barely a news site. Can we make this like a thing?

I hear I'll put that in the chat like that. Oh my God. Wait, and this is hold on truck carrying tank for Trump's parade kills pedestrian DC. Oh, okay.

So wasn't the tank it was the truck hauling the tank? Yes. I think worse. That's even worse.

That's twice the right twice the weight, right? You've got the weight of the truck and the weight of the tank. Oh my God. The woman was reportedly alone when she died.

She doesn't even have a name. Right. No military personnel were involved in the accident and the DC Metropolitan police found no evidence of criminal intent or negligence on the part of the truck driver. Yeah.

Yeah. So happy news around here at Zen actually on the daily whatever I've started by this or how you're right, if this has been Biden, oh, and then there's a photo of like, you know, who I got it from? Ogre the opinionated ogre posted it. Of course.

Yeah. But you know, but it never would have been by the thing because Biden doesn't do the whole look at my penis parade right place. There were no tanks on trucks and that whole squeaky tank out of marching in the rain bullshit in the first place. Right.

I mean, if it had been Biden or Kamala, you know, there might have been like cool little army celebration parades in every city across the country because they would have wanted to make a big deal and celebrate the army, but whatever. Oh my gosh. That's. Oh, Jesus.

I okay. Blameless accident who somehow was crushed by a truck carrying a tank, but nobody's evolved just. Right. It just happened.

It was the waymo truck. It was driving itself and therefore nobody's responsible not even the corporation. Well, then maybe it's the one must fall down. Maybe it's a tough.

Right. Let's blame it on Elon. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Okay. Well, thank you for that for that happy news. I checked where we're. So this podcast kind of started in large part because of the daily calls I have with Lawrence built to catch up on a personal level and also because Lawrence is my favorite person to talk about the news with.

Yeah. We've known each other for 40 years. So, you know, just don't don't shave any years off of our. We've known each other for 20 years for years.

Years. No, I think it's 40 or 10. 40. Yeah.

It's been a very long time. A long time. Oh my dog is that you already had one treat. Do we need another treat to keep you quiet?

This is like hush money. Us treats to keep my dog from freaking out during this podcast. So yeah, we're talking about the news and I did find myself looking at CNN before this started. Nothing new.

Just I see that if we get involved in this whole if we signed with Israel in this whole conflict that there are vows of retribution. Well, Iran has vowed retribution, of course, and Russia has now warned us against doing it. So I try must be very conflicted. You know, his his don top Putin is telling him not to do it and his other don top be not young who was telling him to do it.

Oh, God. He's so conflicted between two lovers feeling like a fool. Bombing both of them will be breaking both of them. You know, on the front page of CNN Lawrence, there's video.

It's like short videos are playing one showing the skies above Tel Aviv and one showing the skies above Tehran. But they're both just city shots with what could almost look like fireworks going on above it except it's war and it's I have to close it again. I opened it quickly and I was like, it's too easy to picture Seattle to picture my own city and like how it would feel to look up in the sky and see that. It's just hitting a little too close to home.

So with that, let's close the news and let's talk to Steve here. Steve Happendall, you are a writer on medium. You are a writer on sub stack. You were also a father of not one, not two, not three, but four girls.

Yes, ma'am. You're a teacher of middle school children for 25 years. I feel like you know, I was vets. People say, I thank you for your service or with the most favorites.

You're teaching middle school for 25 years. I thank you for your service. Oh, thank you. I'm not the smartest person in the world.

That's for Dan for sure. But yeah, it's been quite a journey. And so we met because you wrote a lovely story for three imaginary girls on medium. One of my publications about some music publication.

You wrote it about seeing Cindy Loper here when she came to Seattle for her, I believe, final tour, at least she's calling it her final tour. And I feel like we've been online friends ever since. And I'm going to finally chat with you in person. When we were talking about topic ideas, you kind of came at us with all these things.

But I just said, plus you're like, I'm a feminist. I'm a huge Swiftie. I hate Trump. And I asked Lauren's like, what topic?

And he was like, yes, all of us. Let's just get into all of it. So yeah, we're super excited to talk to you today. I mean, as a Swiftie, as a fellow Swiftie, you know, though I don't have any kids.

I love the idea of like a girl dad who is super into Taylor and just, you know, doing everything right by his daughters. That sounds pretty amazing. I don't see how you can not be if you got girls who like her. I mean, not girls.

I just got the course. But I mean, what do you not want to emulate from her? So she does. You know, that is the normal reaction.

But I think we all know there are men all over this country who would think the opposite, who is the power, her alleged promiscuity, her not being caught anymore because she's over 30. Whatever you want to do with people trying to take her down is all that. First question, though, I'd like to ask you is how did you get into writing? Like talk about origin stories of writer.

Since I was a kid, I always liked writing. I, I, I guess some in grade school, I was in a real small country town and we had, we had a K-school that had a hundred kids in it total. And the teacher gave us some prompt. I can't remember what was something about your family.

And I wrote something totally different than every single person in the class. I wrote more of the story and they were just telling like my grandmothers and I wrote like an actual story. It was like six or eight things like that. And I had a, we had recess all the way through grade because like my first teaching job was at school like that too, where when you don't have a prep period, lunches or prep periods, and so they, they would give you two little recesses.

And, and my teacher told me to clean up all the equipment from recess. So I said, okay, and he had read everyone's story. I was going to read everyone's story. And I was like, okay, so I, I, I think that was the last one to come in and he didn't read my story.

And I was just like, what happened? And he goes, oh, I read yours first. And I was just like, I missed it. And so, and then when I heard everyone else's mind was totally different.

And so I, I, I never found out what anybody thought of it or because I was just like, I was too embarrassed to ask. And it's like, I thought that must be bad. So, so I, so I wrote a bunch just like privately and then I just started, and then you get old enough, you're like, fuck it. So I just started, I was like, I was like fiction, contest and I wrote fiction mainly at first.

And then I found medium. So over a year ago, and I used to try to do a blog here and there, but you can't get anybody. I mean, who the hell, I'm in small town, North Seattle. So I'm just like, who, who am I?

So, but then you find some people and you find some pubs and you just kind of spirals from there. But yeah. And I'm always like to do a fish and learn and I'm a severe, smart ass. So that helps with blogs kind of stuff too.

So probably helps with, with teaching middle school too. It does. You got to be quick with it. And if you haven't got to delivery, which I usually do, the kids don't know what to believe or not believe, which is kind of fun.

They'll, they'll believe almost anything that you tell them if you're doing the right tone of voice. So it's kind of, that's kind of fun. Dangerous, dangerous, but fun. Yeah.

Right. As long as you're like deprogramming whatever you, whatever bullshit you see. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. And then when did you come to sub stack? Were you doing them in parallel or? No.

It's my great for medium to sub stack recently. I migrated. I migrated. I didn't, I heard about it.

And then medium is like, man, medium is like a richer scale. You know, is this like, I want to go along just fine. Then you get a tremor and they mess with their algorithm. And then you're like, and they mess with it.

And to the point, like when I, I love the bouncing, behaving blogs. And, you know, Jason's just such an epic, smart ass and that poor bastard. And I know, and so I love, I love reading his stuff. And then he was, he was talking about a sub stack.

And I was kind of first, I heard of it. And of course that dude is talented beyond all belief. And so there's no way I could do anything close to him. But I was like, it's sub stack was kind of cool.

And then I found it was so liberal. So like my people are on sub stack. So I was like, so I'm, I'm tanning out because it's, it's awesome. And this is the best place to get news.

That's really it. That's the best place to get news. I said that some recently is like as a parent, you're like, social media is bad. It's evil and TikTok and trends and all that, especially the teacher.

So many stupid TikTok challenges. And it's like, oh my God, the drill is crazy. But then now that's like our savior. I mean, social media is just like the best place to get news now because it's not owned by billionaires as obviously as like.

Oh, it is. It is. But not as, it's not as taint because they can't control the content because they don't try to really. So, um, not as much anyway.

So yeah, it's a sub stack for me. My main source of news. So yeah. It has become that for me as well, both because of the independent journalists and also, like the, you know, career journalists are now migrating over here.

Yeah, Paul, because it's on there. It's crazy. It's, um, yeah, it's great. It is.

I, um, but I still want medium obviously, but when you go over there, it's just so quiet, right? I mean, because no one going live, of course, there are no notes. It's just writing, which I kind of appreciate how it's quiet in that way. But it's also like I went over the weekend and I was like, you never know there was anything going on in the US.

Like, I just forget my stories are all still like the things I learned from grandma or like, it's just very like, quiet anecdotes. Like medium is sort of lives outside of time. It doesn't want to be timely. Sure.

We're sub stack. It's all about what's happening right now and keeping up with news and events. And that's a choice to make, but it's a less interesting choice in my opinion. Well, they'll be interested right now to do that too.

So. Yeah. I mean, it's dangerous on both sides, right? It's dangerous to be publishing it because there could be repercussions.

But I think mediums neutrality is not a disservice, I think. That's just my opinion. I don't pull the strings over at medium or anything like that. But yeah, the migration, well, it's not quite a migration.

Some of us are still in both. But primarily I spend my time on sub stack. There's just no reason to keep going back to medium like there is here to keep in touch with everything that's going on. And talk a little bit about what kinds of writing you mostly do for the folks here to know.

And then we'll, kind of get into this with D stuff. It depends like I write a lot of feminist stuff from the male point of view, obviously. Because I have four girls and I have a wife and I'm a teacher and I'm surrounded by women all the time. There's more female teachers and male teachers even at the secondary level.

So like my best friends are women. And I mean, that's where it pissed me off all the time. And that pissed me off. And I was like, the women just, my God.

And I grew up Catholic. My mom is in a nigma because she's very, very Catholic, but also raised me to be very respectful women at all times. And, but then the Catholic church is also very limiting to women. So I struggled with that for a while for a long time before I finally kind of tapped out and kind of black sheep, but the Irish Catholic family.

But yeah, so I'll write feminist things that bother me from my male point of view. And then I'm like, I have a severe smart ass. So I'll do some sarcastic, more humorous stuff. And usually I leave that stuff on medium.

I don't put as much of that on sub stack because it feels like it doesn't belong. I don't use the word belong, but it's like, sub stacks kind of my most important stuff. And the fun stuff I do less stuff on sub stack, I guess. And I don't know if that's the best choice to be honest with you, but maybe the people in track is a time I want to do.

But so I'll be a smart ass and write about stuff and I'm a huge sports fan and I'm in the coach every year of Todd. So I'll do some sports stuff here. And then I got a huge supporter of women's basketball. I prefer women's basketball events, actually the game is more pure and true and better defensive, better everything.

So I'll write some articles on the WNBA and that kind of stuff as well. So Steve, I read your most recent article, the My 7th grade basketball coach game. Did you tell us about that piece real quick? I thought it was really interesting because it's a great hook of a headline, but you actually got some learning and lessons in it as well.

Is this so my mom moved down to LA, my younger brother and his family's in LA. And so my mom was sentenced to his emails and she wrote to my brother, Emi and our wives saying that we should get a shingles vaccine because we're all at or near above 50. And it's supposed to get up in that time. And I just sparked a memory that since I was in South Korea, my mom, I got shingles and some grades.

And my mom, yeah, I know exactly. And my mom blames my basketball coach because he was very upset with my team because we lost an important game to a team he hated and he thought we played lazily. And so this is back in the 80s when you can do shit as a coach that you can't do now. So he slammed the garbage can and he built a court and said, you're all running until somebody uses this.

So basically you're going to run to somebody throws up and the garbage can. And so we ran the entire practice, boom, boom, boom, boom. And we went over by at least 15 minutes. And I don't remember if somebody actually threw up or the coach realized like the parents, even these parents, even these parents can be pissed about my own practice.

So one of those two things happened. And my mom was like, oh, yeah, I remember because when I came out, we all stumbled out of the gym. Like we spent two hours plus just running. That's all we did.

And we were just drenched in so can barely walking. We're seven graders, we're 12. And my mom was like, oh, and all the parents like, because there's no cell phones at that time. So I went to talking and then I remember every conversation just stopped.

And they see all the boys just came out. We're just red face and panting and drenched. And they're like, what the fuck just happened. And so that night, I want to take a shower.

I'm on the address. I can walk. I'm out on it. And so I'm taking a bath.

So I don't want you falling in the shower. And I'm thinking about that guy. I'm watching myself turn myself off and I see his rash and my hip. And so they thought that was like a heat rash or whatever.

And so I go to bed and the next morning is still there. So back in the day, you can call a doctor and he came in that day. And so he saw me and told me, he told my parents I had shingles. And my mom's like, how do you have shingles?

And he's like, well, it's rare. But kids can get, especially if they went under a lot of physical stress and pressure. And he goes, that's happened. And my mom's like, oh, hell yeah, that happened.

So I was sick as I've been as a kid. I was, I miss the most school ever was when I had shingles. And yeah, she to this day blames my basketball coach because of that one practice that he just ran us. Ran us to death, basically.

So yeah. And then as a coach myself, I took a lot of that. I still remember that obviously. And so like I have a kids run, of course, I have a teams run, but never to that degree.

And to this day, I don't remember that guy's name. I can see his face, but I don't remember his name. And all I remember from him the most is that he ran us my dogs because he got mad that and it's like I was never, I was always athletic. I was never big or tall or super strong or super fast.

I just gave, I just loved it so much. I get 100% of everything. I never was like in the game. So maybe some people, what does this like keep on this entire team to that degree?

Because he was pissed because we lost again. It's something you learn how not to be a coach. Yes. That's very Gen X of you to be like, okay, this is how I do not, I do not invite a negative example.

That is horrific. Yeah. So my mom is still 40 some years later. She still gets all hot and all about.

And I went to it because my kid, I still be pissed. So yeah. I'm pissed and I just heard the story. That's awful.

But the shingles vaccine is real. I am I got shingles like the month after I turned 50. I was like, oh my God, I always like everything. Hello, body.

Give me the break. I know I'm supposed to go get this. But I thought I was dying. Like I had the rush like they called the waistband rush like right, you know, or a belt rash.

That's what they call it. And I was it was a labor day weekend and I was at my my friends Lake House and I was like, oh, maybe I have to buy a spider or something. Because there's like one little dot. And then I came home and I also took a bath.

I don't know if that's coincidence or not. And I was like, oh, I think my liver and my gallbladder are exploding. I just want to make it till the morning and go to so I can go to urgent care on the Monday and not to go to the ER over holiday weekend. And took one look and he was like, oh, that shingles.

But he has nerve pain. It's so it's weird intense deep pains. I missed the good work. I got the finger vaccine and I have not had shingles yet.

Thank goodness. But Jesus that shingles vaccine hurts like hell. Like I had it's a two-dose third. You have to do it once and then go back like two weeks later for the other one.

And both shots made me absolutely miserable. If that's the vaccine, I can only imagine how bad signals is. Well, Polly is saying that she's had it and the vaccine and the vaccine was worse. So.

Okay, there you go. You heard it here. But the advertising. You know, it's not the most glamorous thing to talk about shingles, but you know, get, you know, you got to take care of these things because you can get on your face.

I really got it on my face. It's a very high percentage of a you can only get shingles if you've had chickenpox. Yes, it is a dormant form of the disease comes back. Well, back in our day, they had chickenpox parties.

I know. Right. The time is got to check a box. You can go play.

So I got a vaccine. So it, you know, you don't want that when you're a kid because if you don't get it as a kid, it fogs you up as an adult. I learned, I learned this when I was studying to be speech therapist, fun fact because I was working in hospital. As a woman, if you are pregnant and you get chickenpox, it's like an 85% mortality for the mom.

Like it's really, it's really bad for women. Oh my God. So if you're a woman and you're, or if you're a girl who's approaching childbearing years, go get your vaccine if you never got it naturally because, um, yeah, that shit, that shit is bad. It's not, you know, it's mostly just, you get itchy and it sucks.

But, um, Robin's touching on the twice. Yeah. Robin, maybe it's role. Is that a Canadian thing?

Maybe they do everything twice. So they're good. So yeah, twice is good. I believe it.

Oh my God. Well, because of Carney this week, and because how much I wish, it's right there, right? Like Steven and I are neighbors. We live about an hour apart.

And I'm like, it's just right there. We could be in Vancouver. I guess it's like right now. We could be in Vancouver.

Um, but also because my youngest and I are re watching Anne with an E, the Netflix special, they said, Anne of Green Gables that we love and Prince Edward Island. And it's, you know, like the late 1800s, I think it takes place early, 1900s and it's so peaceful. And I just, I was like, I wish this were my heritage because they took great care with that show. Like the actors are, I think that woman playing Anne is Irish, but they're mostly Canadian and they have a tragically hip song as the intro, a Canadian band, like they took a lot of great care with this show and I'm really bummed that flex canceled it prematurely because they had to condense it all at the end, but for purists of Anne Green Gables, you'll hate it, but it gets into racism, it gets into feminism, it gets into LGBTQ issues, like stuff that Lucy, my Montgomery could have never tackled back then, but they tackle now.

It's fascinating, but go Canada. I wish that were my, the legacy of my country. But I would, here's a recommend flying out of Vancouver. That airport is badass.

Really, I have to go out of the airport. It is a great airport. Sea TAC, Sea TAC is like, it should be against the Geneva Convention, that place is fucking awful, but if you fly the YBR, fly the Vancouver, and it has never been busy, and I've been there multiple times, and you don't get like a third of their misdemeanor felt tough by TSA, because they have totally different, yeah. If you can fly on the Vancouver, it's worth your time.

And it's not for me to drive for you, but it's less aggravation, so. Yeah, why do you hate Sea TAC though? I like our airport. Oh man, I've seen lines out into the parking lot and it's like they're just so disorganized and they're so just TSA, I mean, my girls have been stopped and family dug our oldest.

Once, years ago, we went to DC land and she for some reason brought her coin purse just jammed with quarters and that stuff off the machine. And she got against the wall and she got pat it down and she got everything, and all because of those, apparently you bring too many quarters to the happiest place on earth and they're gonna fuck you up. But yeah, Sea TAC is just awful, it's terrible, but YBR, man, that place is having a compared and it's so much easier. Okay, I'll have to keep that in mind.

The keeper has a Canadian dollar, so it's cheaper. Oh, I know. Maybe not too long. Trump seems determined to devalue the dollar and everything else American.

That's the fair point, Lawrence, that's the pressing. That's the fair point. I've been dying to ask you, what is your favorite album, Steve? Oh my God.

Favorite album. Do you know Taylor albums specifically? Oh yeah, yeah, no, I mean, yes. Taylor, Folklore is my favorite album of Taylor, I love Folklore.

Next song, X-L is my favorite Taylor song because I love stories and X-L is a great job by the two person. You know how, it's a great song, it's depressing for relationships, but you know, the girl thinks this, guy thinks this about the same topic, you gave no signs, I gave so many signs. And so that's my favorite song. I do like Torch of Poetu.

There's, I mean, there's one I dislike, but it's best album overall. Oh my gosh. I have to think about this so many. My favorite is Reputation.

I am so mad that we're not getting a Reputation Taylor's version. Oh my God, my girl. You can't make it better. Well, apparently she can't do it every time she's gone into the studio.

This is my 19 year old, this is Brenna, and she is a Taylor's fan and he's reputation fan. She does point of reputation and reputation. All right, and my favorite song, Alpha Reputation is ready for it. I freaking love that song.

Apparently every time Taylor's voice has gone into the studio to try to rerecord reputation, to do a Taylor's version, she can't do it. She gets, she gets like singer's block or writer's block or whatever. Yeah, my girl's for months, like even more in the year, I think I think we're gonna drop in now. I heard she was gonna be dropping in this weekend.

They've been waiting for that. Oh my God. Yeah. My oldest, that was her era's outfit that she wore.

I went to the Bank of Amazon and Vancouver, that was her outfit, man, they've been waiting for that. Oh my gosh. I talked about these live shows for sure. I have a hard time picking a favorite album and I even in this story that I'm sharing here, I'm like, it depends on my mood.

But yes, folklore, yes, red, yes reputation. Those are probably, but for single song, it might be lover, like I love the song lover. I love it, I love the video. It depends when you ask me.

But I also love the duet she does the Phoebe Bridgers, nothing new. I think that's on red, the new, the Taylor's version on release tracks of red. Do you know that song? I don't think I know.

It's not coming up top of my head. It's really beautiful. And I wrote a story I should share it here because I shared it very early in my sub-sect days. But my eldest is 17 and so for her birthday, when we drove into school, we made a Spotify playlist together of songs that mentioned being 17 because there's so many.

And she put that song on there. And because it's a red track, even though it just was released, but it was written in the red era, it was written alongside 22, right? You know, that song of course, party song, you know, they'll just keep dancing like we're 22. Tonight's gonna be that night, we're gonna dance all night.

You know, and then alongside it, it's this very wistful song where she says, how could I know everything at 18, but nothing at 22? And will you still want me when I'm nothing new? It's this very introspective song about recognizing it already that she's aging out of, in her mind, am I going to be obsolete by the time I'm in my eight twenties? Because I'm gonna be too old.

And there's one line about meeting a 17 year old and knowing she's about to go through the same thing. Cause she's now wiser and in her early twenties, which anyways, I love Taylor. I was very late to Taylor and I came to her through my kids. And even this is similar experience for you.

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, if we have four girls, they have similarities, they have a lot of differences. And she may be the one artist that like, there's artists that all form will like or tolerate or one to love and she'll be, but she's the one that they were all in from the beginning. They still are. They will, I got, if they ever, she and Travis Kelsey break up, they're gonna be like morning in my house.

So they'll be like, they'll be like epic. Me too, are you kidding? I'm gonna go into some series to pressure up. I mean, we're in church breakup.

Man, if you're a father of four girls and all four of them love one thing or one person or one thing, if you wanna survive, you better check it out. And at least pretend that you like it. I don't have to pretend. I like her music.

And she does, she kind of like evolves. She changes, like reputation was a master change because she was pissed. But I like how she does so many. She's not married to one type of music, one type of song.

So I do like a lot of her music and I went all four of her girls are 100% in. Yeah. And then I'm all four because she's, I'm not saying a role model, but I wrote about that one of my articles that she's a great role model. So.

During which era did you discover her? Like your kids or your oldest daughters are a little older than mine. So like for me, it was 1989 because they were in elementary school and you know, so they brought home the partner. 1989 might be my favorite.

Yeah, I think it was 1989 or what was one right before that? Was it? Oh God, my kids are gonna kill me for it. I always forget.

There's something in between. It was fearless right before right after. I don't know. I think it was fearless before.

I think it's. You know, it's now red. 1989, I think. Yeah.

So I think it was fearless red right there. I mean, when she was everywhere all over the, every, it was. Red is 2012, 80, and then 1989 is 2014. Okay.

I think it's a plus-me-dron red. It was cause like my oldest, she turned 22 on FODG Day. So she found, she was born on FODG Day, which is kind of cool. So, but yeah.

So she of course found the person that went big sister like something, three little sisters, they're gonna be back when they looked up to her about everything and now they're like, but so they, yeah, she's the one artist that all four of them can agree. And my wife is convinced that if those who get married is gonna be in secret, they'll come out one day. Hey, we're married. That's already true.

Because she goes, because came out in the spectacle. And we're talking like English, Princess Queen. I mean, it would be, I mean, yeah. I think I want that, then they're gonna get, I'm gonna show up.

Yeah, we have a marriage six weeks. I mean, it'll be something like that. But she's gonna have stuff gonna happen. Good Lord.

Even when they have children, the media, the spectacle. It's gonna be like American royalty. I think I'm gonna be like, Hey, wait, we're the actual royalty over. No, sorry.

Oh, hey. I can feel really late. I'm an era's tour convert. So I went to go see the era's tour movie.

And at the time I was living in LA and we went to one of the fancy LA theaters that has like this super mega ultra surround sound. And it blew me away. I like first that like she just could perform for three hours nonstop basically. And then just like, I mean, I'd heard and loved particular songs, but it was the era's tour movie that maybe like go down the rabbit hole and research the whole scooter bronting and the what was going on with the Taylor's versions.

And that just made me absolutely love her. She's wicked fucking smart. She's such a great role model for kids. Yeah.

He is. And that show Lawrence, it's almost four hours. So I'm putting the link back in here again because I put it in a little bit prematurely. I came to Taylor late because I, you know, I lived under an indie rock most of my life and I was like whatever, pop tart, blah, blah, blah.

I don't listen to this kind of music. And then my kids brought home 1989 and I was like, okay, this is cute. I can't argue these are well crafted songs, whatever. It's pretty dismissive.

And it was really not until I heard, like I started like hearing bits of folklore and stuff and was like, oh, this is a different direction. And I work with the national, et cetera. But then I heard the 10 minute version of all too well. And I was like, I've never heard about her song in this.

I can't get over musically lyrically. Like the depth of the song is extraordinary. And then once you hear, I heard her like that. I was like, oh my God, this, my own internalized misogyny made me very dismissive of this, you know, pretty young woman who was singing pop songs.

And it was, it underlined kind of a broader message that I needed to hear, which was young women's stories are valid and important and culturally that we tend to ignore them because we're, it's like, oh, that's just for teenage girls. But it's the boys stories that tend to be more important. In fact, earlier in the chat, I saw Wendy was joking and said, Brandon, if you're a dude and you like Dan of Green Gables, you must be gay. And I have a working theory that if young boys were read the same stories that young girls were, that the little women, you know, little women and of Green Gables, little princess, all those classics that feature female protagonists, the world would be different because only the little girls read them or have them read to them when they're small, could be long stocking.

You may have heard these by name or you may not know that, I've never met a guy who has read these stories unless he has young daughters. And then maybe he encountered them. And I felt very similarly when I went to the Taylor Swift show, I'm monologuing a bit, I'm gonna shift and then turn the mic over. But we went to Taylor Swift, I tried to go to the Seattle show.

Did you try to go to the Seattle show, Steve? Yeah, it was hard to get, because you had to win the email lottery. And my wife won it twice, I'll tell you about that, I'll tell you your story now. Okay, we did not get to, and I didn't know quite how big he is was going to be, right?

I didn't get a pre-sell ticket and I was like, oh well, I didn't get that ticket. We'll see other shows. And then I came to realize like, this is the single, like, the same reason why we splurged and I bought Hamilton tickets years ago, where I was like, this is a cultural moment in their upbringing that is singular. The greatest artist of the time doing like her opus.

We can't miss this. So I tried to get tickets for that Vancouver show, impossible. Miami show, cause my family's down there, impossible. I thought I got tickets to the Indianapolis show, but it was long story I got scammed out of $500.

And I was like, I guess we're not going. And then I hadn't traveled with my kids yet because of COVID, we'd never been overseas. And I was hitting that point of like, my ears with them are growing short when they are obligated to travel with their mom because they're stuck to me. We have to go to Europe.

We're gonna go see the Arizona store in Europe. This like last summer. And I researched a bunch of cities. I almost picked Vienna and I'm really glad I didn't cause we all know what happened to Vienna.

Oh my God, I didn't know that. I didn't know you almost picked Vienna. It was like, it was gonna be because of the dates and the cost. It was gonna be the Warsaw show, the Vienna show or the Munich show.

Right. picked Munich, thankfully, have friends in Berlin. So I was like, we're gonna start our trip in Munich, see Taylor Swift and then we'll spend a couple weeks traveling in Europe. And it was, I mean, it was, it was obviously so much work, so much expense.

It was like my youngest especially, it was just, it was, she loves Taylor Swift, but like doesn't like crowds in loud noise. And we had floor seats. Like the way they divided it in Europe, it was actually cheaper to be on the floor than in the stands and the stand seats that were left weren't great. And so the cheapest thing to do was to buy the back half of the stadium and then the front half they quartered.

And so we had front left. So a quarter of the front left part, she's also very tiny, like, you know, about five, almost five, two and you know, 80 pounds. And we're on the floor. So trying to jockey for a spot where she had a line of sight to the stage was really hard.

It was all of these things. It truly was singular. Like it was extraordinary. And having gone to such great length to get there, it made it only more extraordinary.

But it was like a Broadway show for one. I mean, she has backup dancers and singers who are also amazing, but like she gets out there, she got out there, the tour's done now, every night for three and a half hours. The costume changes, the set changes, the the attrex on the stage behind her, especially for the torture poet set, because that got added. So I think they took it up a level like, it was like watching a movie being performed live because they were performing it for the screen as much as they were for the audience.

And she never misses a mark. She never misses a note. Like it's extraordinary. And it's always exhausted from watching it and cheering along for the three and a half plus hours.

And the article is 17 minute read on Medium. And it was really just touching on highlights and sort of what it meant to do this in a foreign country and to make this work for your kids. In addition to the show, I really want to hear about the Vancouver show too though, because that was the last one. Yeah.

You guys got to see the finale. Were you with the final eight? No, we were the Friday, the first night out of the three. So we had- We were going to go with Rono.

So to get a ticket, you had to put in your email, right? And then you were, and then you had to be online at a certain time to see if you got into the lottery and all that kind of stuff. And so all six of us, we were like that. We had laptops and we were phones and we were like, like, like, like NORAD.

We were just like, oh, and then- I love it. And then my wife got it. And of course, you can only buy four tickets. You can buy any more than four and there's six of us, right?

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So my wife and her like, all right, well, we're going to take it. I guess, wherever we go.

So we got tickets to Toronto. It was in November or sometime, like just like week before Thanksgiving or something. And we were trying and so we got the tickets and then we were trying to figure out places to stay, lodging and all that kind of stuff. And it was super expensive.

And then she added the Vancouver dates. And my oldest Gracie is like, well, let's try for that. And then if we get that, then we'll sell Toronto. And so we did again, again, my wife got it again.

And some of her friends are still pissed. They're like, you got it twice and we didn't get it once. So we got the tickets to Vancouver for tickets again. And then we end up selling and we did face value to like a couple of Gracie's friends, actually, who went.

So we went to Vancouver, it was that Friday. And it was, and then we, and then after the end of the happen, there's no, there's no taking. All right, you can do that anymore. And Vancouver is saying you can't be on site.

You can't be anywhere. So like we can't leave the girls there for like four hours, five hours in line time and all that. So we try to get tickets. So the day before about two tickets from behind the stage, for more than we paid for the first four.

So we did that and the girls each had their own outfit for a different era. And my piece I wrote about it. And they're just pictures of them on there. And then we got stopped by a new screw.

And they interviewed the four girls and they made them sing. So they sang Romeo and all that kind of stuff. They sang that and they got interviewed by some new channel. And so we just like walk around to that.

This actually happened. And so that's linked in the story as well. And it was, so then so the girls had their four seats. And they were facing the stage, but they were a few levels up.

But they were facing stage. My wife and I were behind the stage. So we had to be in different lines to get them there. And we were just texting them.

And one of the things I wrote about is that concert, I understand why it was, first make $1 billion, first make $2 billion. And it's not just because of the music. It's because of what it did for everybody watching it. Because there's lots of, like I've been to Bon Jovi.

And that was three hours. I've been to multiple concerts for three hours long. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's amazing. But the vast majority of women were dressed up in just one era or another.

And they different races and heights and weights and skin color and everything. And everyone's, you look fantastic. You look fabulous. You're having a bracelet.

You're having a bracelet. Nobody was self-conscious. Nobody was judgmental. Nobody was anything.

And you don't see that anywhere now. And my wife and I, we were behind the stage. And there's this woman next to us. So we just passed in time talking before concert.

And she had tickets to all three Vancouver shows. And she said that adding those three, she was going to go nine times. Now it helped out that she was like a five-time for Southwest or something. But still, the amount of money that she put down for tickets for everything, for all that.

Because and Taylor was a genius where she changed her every night with like the girls for the whole time and the band. What's she going to play at the piano? What's she going to wear? There's always a little bit of tweaks there and there.

Of course, she was kind of blown away by everybody. And every single song was sung by the entire audience start to finish. Yeah. There wasn't one song where I mean, and nobody sat down.

Nobody sat down for three and a half hours. And every single song being belted by the audience from start to finish, every single song. And it was like, it was unlike anything I've seen. And you mentioned Dana that in the end, I felt, this is the worst part of the experience for me.

We were in line. My wife and I were in line. These two girls from Calgary were right behind us. And they were like 2022.

And they were like excited to the end to agree. They had been scanned once before. They showed up and they got scanned. And the one girl was checking on that.

I wrote about her a little bit. She was like, I don't care. Because her friends are like, calm down. She's like, no.

Just one night. I'm like, what can I do? What I want to do? And I'm like, and she was like, and she was training bracelets with security people walking by.

And everybody's used to laugh and have a blast. And when we got up to the park where they scanned your tickets. And then they put you in these like little pods things. And my wife and I were at the very beginning of them.

We were like, oh, man, we're texting my girls. We're first. And I'm like, oh my gosh, make sure he gets an emergency. Because they have the immerse.

You know, they'll get merged. And the girls have the blue sweatshirt and all that, right? But then I happened to look over at the ticket booth. And these two girls were there.

And they're sobbing. They're crying. They're desolate. They have been scammed again.

But they were sobbing. And they were sobbing. And I got their attention. I kind of mouthed them.

Are you OK? And they're like, no. And I found out when we were talking to them. And my guys were in line for hours.

They spent more. They were in our section too. They were behind the stage. They spent significantly more than we spent.

And I was a little worried. I was a little worried. But people paid all kinds of credit. And some people paid like $10 to piss me off.

But yeah, some people got like the day of some tickets was went on super cheap. But so we were taking our tickets for behind the stage. And the section next to us was talked over. And I was just thinking, I was like, I hope they took care of these girls.

I hope they didn't do anything wrong. They just, I mean, there's a special place for hell. Because people were scamming these people out of these tickets. And I was like, I hope they did something.