Dear Darling Ones,

Warning: I’m going to be talking about sleazy dirtbag sexual assaulters below & if that’s the kind of thing you can’t bear you oughta skip this one.

It is 4:07 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday, the 376th day of the pandemic. I’m in the midst of writing this entry while also eating an enormous piece of chocolate cake that is bound to ruin my dinner, if dinner even happens. This might be dinner. Who knows? I’m not much of a cake person, but this Pepperidge Farm Fudge layer cake was on sale and it sounded good. On day 376 of the pandemic when something sounds good I go for it, because nothing sounds good at all ever.

Eating chocolate cake at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday is not the reason I am fat, so you can miss me with your concerned lectures.

I’m not even really thinking about the chocolate cake. Mostly, I’m thinking about the sexual assault and harassment allegations against Har Mar Superstar, a local musician with a huge following. I, of course, believe the women slowly coming forward. My heart breaks for each and every one of them because the bravery of coming forward about a shitty dude never ends well for the woman. Not ever once in the entirety of all time.

This isn’t a huge musical loss for me, as though this matters. I’ve been a little uneasy about the man and his music since I saw him open for The Strokes back in the aughts. He performed in nothing but a pair of tighty whities, and it was uncomfortable to watch. I felt like there was a giant inside joke going on that nobody bothered to clue me in on. But, I cannot deny some of his songs were super catchy and fun to sing along with, but not any more.

What is a huge loss is the respect I had for so many men in and around the Twin Cities music scene. I don’t know what I would do if I were a dude whose friend had been accused by many women of being a sleazy dirtbag. My hunch is I would shut the fuck up and offer up as many “I’m sorry that happened to you”s as I possibly could. Maybe that doesn’t occur to men? Maybe men don’t realize when these kinds of stories bubble up every woman they know. . . EVERY WOMAN THEY KNOW. . . is retraumatized about the things sleazy dirtbags have done to her, even if it’s not the one in the news.

For me, I think about every man whose ever made me feel unsafe or touched me without my permission. I think about all the situations I wrote off as “college stuff” but were, in fact, really dangerous and damaging. I think about all the times I should have spoken up but I didn’t because I was afraid and didn’t think anyone would believe me. I could write thousands of words about how being fat, or very tall, or not conventionally attractive makes talking about sexual assault or even realizing that you have been assaulted super complicated and difficult. Because, when you are are any of those three you are taught from a very young age that men will not be attracted to you so you should be grateful for any attention they pay to you.

See what I mean? I did not want to think about all that while eating my chocolate cake.

It’s a lot for us to carry and men centering themselves in the stories of these brave women or waiting for something “more credible” than woman saying, “this is what happened to me” are only making things harder.

“Why does everything have to be so much all the time?” I shout to an empty room and the heavens at least once a week
I’ve already added the *dirtbag to Har Mar Superstar’s name in the card catalog that is my brain. I keep that asterisk nearby, because I know he won’t be the last one, and at the same time I send up a little prayer hoping I don’t lose a man whose music actually means a lot to me.

It’s hard out there for a feminist rock & roll fan,
Jodi

P.S. I’ve also had to *dirtbag Marvin Gaye after reading a biography of him where he claims his misogyny like a quirky personality trait he says something to the effect of I can’t help it, I just believe women are here to serve men, and he also had a long-term relationship with a sixteen-year-old when he was in his thirties. This was all brand-new information to me and I miss living in ignorant bliss.

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Hi Darling Ones,

Guess what? I’m still really angry about Ryan Adams. I discovered this the other day when someone on Twitter was giving Jason Isbell shit about how his “Ryan Adams hate was tiresome.”

The fuck?

That’s when I realized that Ryan Adams had a new record come out yesterday and that I got to cancel a bunch of social media men of my acquaintance because the shit they will tolerate from men is more than I can tolerate. I get it, this isn’t easy. It’s hard to evict someone whose art has taken up residence in the corners of your heart. I loved me some Ryan Adams for a very long time. I liked Ryan Adams so much that I went to his concerts alone. Alone. Because these things happened before I had Ryan Adams’ liking friends. I liked him so much that he hearted one of my tweets once and that shizz gave me shower-nozzle masturbation material for weeks.*

I present this as evidence to show that I wholly understand how hard it is to cancel someone. I present this as evidence because men frequently say to me that I didn’t like an artist enough if I can so easily cancel them. It is not easy. I miss the song “Dear Chicago” as much as I miss some of my old friends. “When the Stars Go Blue” is on repeat in my head as I type these words.

Honestly, I don’t expect to ever be able to purge my soul of his music. However, it will be forever asterisked in my brain, and next to that asterisk is the word dirtbag. One of the unfortunate side effects of being a GenX woman is there are a lot of asterisk dirtbags in my brain.

So while I don’t expect people to carve the songs of Ryan Adams out of their souls, I do expect them to not let new ones in. Like I said, I cancelled a few people yesterday which is sad and disappointing, but not as sad or disappointing as I feel when I think about what he did to Phoebe Bridgers and Liz Phair and teenage girls. Fuck that.

You know what those bozos shoulda done instead of listening to a new Ryan Adams’ record? Listened to Emotional Motion Sickness on repeat and every time she sang I hate you for what you did, and I miss you like a little kid. I faked it every time but that’s alright. I can hardly feel anything. I hardly feel anything at all their balls would withdraw into their own bodies.

I am still so angry. I might never not be angry about this.

Though, I do want to say, that I am fortunate enough to have a few good men in my life. Yesterday I was complaining to Wolfdogg about one of our mutuals listening to the new record. “Doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “He also rarely mentions female artists.” And Areg, another of my Westernerd pals, told me how he sold all his old RA records back to the record store awhile back.

And my heart grew two sizes.
Jodi
 
*This is a “Heathers” reference, obviously. My shower is the size of a phonebooth (youth, google it) and ain’t no claustrophobic got time for masturbating while in there.

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Today did not go as planned. I had a tidy To-Do list with pressing items waiting to be checked off. My plan was to pretend that nothing was going on in all the land.

This went well right up until Dr. Christine Blasey Ford started to testify. It was a hard to watch and I’m angry. However, thus far I’ve managed avoid collapsing into a fiery ball of fury and tears. Here’s how.

1.) I listened to Neko Case’s “I Wish I Was the Moon” during every break in the hearing. I listened to it nine times today. I sang along, full-voiced every time. Neko, as I told my friend Christa, is a goddess who walks amongst us.

2.) I remembered to eat.

3.) One of the things I ate was a cozy stew with beans and I ate it with my brother-in-law who brought garlic bread. Garlic bread helps a lot. So does exasperated yelling with someone who listens and understands your rage without trying to fix it.

4.) I checked in with and was checked on by many caring people it is my honor to know.

5.) I discovered “Legally Blonde” on a random channel and I’m gonna eat a cookie while watching.

The post Day 65 of 200: How I’m Working to Avoid a Rage Hangover appeared first on I Will Dare.

Sixty-five women who went to high school with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh say he was a nice guy. Barf.

The thing with #MeToo is it makes me furious all the time. Every story of some guy being a total dirtbag or some dirtbag making his “comeback” makes me re-live every dirtbaggy thing ever done to me.

This Brett Kavanaugh business is hitting close to the bone and I’m full of rage.

As I’ve mentioned before I was bullied profusely in junior high and high school.

Every single day in 10th & 11th grade, Mike LaRoche would come up behind me, pinch my butt, shout “Oh yeah, Harley mama,” and then make vroom vroom noises as he walked away. He was always surrounded by people laughing at his hilarity. When I was in 8th grade he would follow me down the hall calling me Go-Go Gorilla.

I bet you could find 65 people who could look back and say, “Oh yeah, Mike was totally a good guy.”

He was not. It’s been 28 years since I graduated high school, and when I think about what he did to me my cheeks burn with shame and tears come to my eyes. Still. Twenty-eight years.

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