Dear Darling Ones,

Recently, I had a social media that has been stuck in my craw since happened.

On this particular day people are ranking their favorite Wilco go albums from best to worst. Since I stopped paying attention around “Sky Blue Sky,” I didn’t participate. Besides, everybody knows “Summerteeth” is the best one.

However, I did jump in when one man said, “Hell yeah, dads are ranking Wilco.”

Grrr. Extra annoying because women were obviously participating in the conversation. Because this is a hill I will never stop dying on we had this exchange.

ME: Bursting the masculine bubble: when you make jokes about Dads talking about music & Dad Rock you alienate a ton of women & people who are not dads. (p.s. Summerteeth for life)

HIM: I would hope I live my life as a witness to dad being a gender and offspring neutral lifestyle

ME: That’s wonderful, but our language isn’t there yet and not everyone sees the word as neutral. It’s not inclusive despite best intentions.

UGH. Nice try, buddy, but words still mean things. Dad literally means “a male parent.”

I’ve been rolling it around in my head why I was so annoyed by this exchange and it hit me last night while I was brushing my teeth.

Why are all the terms that are supposed to be “gender neutral” male-coded? Dudes. Guys. Dad rock. apparently.

We’re told those terms are mostly gender neutral at this point and yet we never call a group of people “gals.” Does anyone even use the word “dudette?” And I’m sure “Mon rock” is some crappy band people like to shit on like Maroon 5 or Father John Misty.

This is so frustrating because I know men do not listen to women not just musically which I know men don’t appreciate women’s art, but also just in conversation in their daily lives.

Men don’t have to think about women if they choose not to. Especially women they’re not having sex with or aren’t related to them — mom, sister, daughter, etc. They don’t have to pay attention because this world is centered on white men.

The world revolves around them, and as they are slowly moved out of the center we get things like a second fucking Trump presidency. Again I blame the masculine bubble for this nonsense.

Men live in a world where the majority of people they talk to are other men, the listen to music made by men, watch movies written, directed, and starring men, they watch TV shows about men, read books written about men by men.

Everything is male-centric and they never have to leave that masculine bubble if they don’t want to. It’s very clear they don’t want to. A lot of men think they’re allies of women and trans people. And in their hearts I’m sure they really are, but their actions show this is an intellectual alliance at best.

When it comes to incorporating non-men into their hobbies, into the art & media they consume of it’s all men most of the time. The share mostly men-created things on social media. A week after Turnip was re-elected they’re only share male-penned commentary on the election. They’re making A-Z lists of bands they’ve seen that are 97% male.

What gives, Dudes? For real.

Curiously yours,
Jodi

The post Dudes, Guys & Dad Rock Are Not Gender Neutral appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hello Darling Ones,

On behalf of Childless Cat Ladies, I’d like to say, you could do a lot worse. The US, any company, the universe, your life, your household should be so lucky as to be run by a childless cat lady.

Childless cat ladies are great and they come in all different kinds. Some are partnered up, some are single, some are trans, some are queer, some are cat ladies of color, some are international pop superstars. . . I tell you, childless cat ladies are legion and loving and warrior queens all at the same time.

You ever go to battle with a nine-month old kitten with needle/knife claws over a pair of pants you want to put on? I got scars to show you and stories I could tell.

It should come as no surprise that Turnip’s Shillbilly VP choice said something as ignorant about how the US is run, “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.”

Here’s the thing J(jackass)D(dirtbag): 1. Cats are rad. 2. Being a childless cat lady is a choice too!

I know the Republican party doesn’t believe women should have choices at all, but we still have a few left.

As a young lady I thought cat lady was the ultimate slur and a terrible fate. Men love to wield that phrase like a cudgel. It’s basically their way of saying you don’t give me a boner or you rejected my boner so you will die alone with cats.

Pop culture loves to play into this trope too. Remember that episode of Sex in the City where Miranda chokes and she’s afraid her cat will eat her face when she dies?

I bought into this nonsense for far longer than I care to admit. I felt like a failure as a woman and a human because I didn’t reproduce, I also never shackled myself to some man until death do we part.

This isn’t easy for me to admit, but I was wrong. So wrong. The wrongest. If I had really, truly wanted those things I could have gotten them. I thought I wanted them because society told me I did. But I didn’t want them enough to really work for it and for that I’m grateful in retrospect.

Being a childless cat lady rules.

Because I never had kids I had the time, patience, and money to be a very excellent Aunt to my niblings. I spent so many summers with them. One year at the State Fair I took all five of them to Build-A-Bear.

I’m still pretty rad at it even though they’re adults now.

Because I never had kids I was able to buy a house by myself and fill it with cats and other things I love. Why would I be miserable about those choices?

For the most part men, and Republicans specifically, are terrified of women — childless or otherwise. It’s why they hate us so much. But men are extra-super-duper scared of women who have no need for a man. A woman who pays her bills and runs her life and is happy at the end of the day with her cats? A fucking horror show.

Sorry dudes. While I don’t need you, I do like a lot of you and occasionally even want some of you. So do me a little favor, get your boys in formation and elect a lady for president. Do it. I promise your weiner won’t fall off.

Cattily yours,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

Today’s a big day of deadlines and I’m squeezing this one right under the wire. Here’s some things I’ve been appreciating this month.

Guilty Verdicts

This needs no explanation,.

Many Patients Don’t Survive End-Stage Poverty

This is my not-entirely-irrational fear. I’m in this weird place where my poor people insurance is pretty good, but being poor is not so great.

Kathleen Edwards, “Only Lie Worth Telling” [Paul Westerberg Cover]

One of the best things about being alive is discovering your favorite things have a relationship outside of your own heart. So yeah, Kathleen Edwards covering Westerberg? Yes, please.

You Are What You Read, Even if You Don’t Always Remember It

“I have to constantly remind myself of this. Especially in an environment that prioritizes optimizing and maximizing personal productivity, where it seems if you can’t measure (let alone remember) the impact of a book in your life then it wasn’t worth reading.”

Hot Honey Mustard Dressing

I tend to eat seasonally. Is that a thing? From about October to April/May my diet mainly consists of soup. May-September it’s mostly salads, and I’m always on the lookout for good salad dressings because I’m entirely too lazy to make my own. This stuff from Target is my new favorite thing.

Patriarchy According To The Barbie Movie

I’m moderately annoyed that this very good video is by a man and quotes a book by a man, but I also know that men rarely listen to women. So…

No, You Don’t Need to ‘Decant’ Your Groceries

I love and hate this article in equal measure. Jarring your marshmallows is dumb. I get what the author is saying about wastes of time and materials and the weird hyper-organized aesthetic.

But, here’s the thing, since the stroke I decant a lot of my groceries. Almonds, trail mix, coffee, anything that comes in a ziploc bag gets dumped into a container with a lid. Those fucking bags are the bane of my existence. I can never open or close them without many swears. So yes, my almonds are in cute jars, but only because I had the jars. Most of my stuff is kept in deli containers.

Cake, “Fashion Nugget”

My brain has decided if I don’t hear this whole album once a day I will die. It also needs to hear their cover of “I Will Survive” at leas three times in a row. I have to sing along quite loudly while doing my best chair dancing. Welcome to a very special 1996 of my mind.

Appreciatory yours,
Jodi

The post Appreciation 5.24 appeared first on I Will Dare.

Oh Darling Ones,

Being a Replacements fan is sometimes the worst. Being a female ‘Mats fan is always the absolute worst.

As you may or may not know, the “Tim (Let it Bleed Edition)” was released today. It’s a remastered version of “Tim” with a whole bunch of other amazing stuff. Specifically, “Can’t Hardly Wait (Cello Version)”.

As is to be expected, boners are up all over town about this record. I was so excited I stayed up until 2 a.m. listening to it.

However, unlike a lot of ‘Mats fans, I am not myopic sycophant. I believe you can love a band and still be critical.

So last night I was on Bluesky, the Twitter clone, complaining about the box set because it’s four CDs, one LP, and some other stuff. It cost $90! Sure it’s expensive, but more importantly what in the hell am I gonna do with four CDs? Listen to them in my 1999 Chevy S10, which I still cannot drive because of the stroke.

And I get it, the ‘Mats are not required to cater to my specific listening habits.

What bothers me is the guy I’m having an argument with on Bluesky is all “well, there’s one vinyl.”

REALLY? I HAD NO IDEA!

I’m a dumb girl who was invested enough in the new release to listen to that Cello Version 100 times and find out there are four CDs, but I stopped reading after that.

Come on, Dude.

You’re ‘Matsplaining to someone who has the words “I Will Dare” in her username. Did you really think I didn’t know there was a record included?

Just seeing that username should have given him enough information to figure out I would have known about the record.

What sucks is this is not unusual. I get ‘Matsplained to all the time. And it’s frequently by men who email me from the Paul Westerberg site I created and maintain.

What sucks is that men will tweet about the ‘Mats and address their tweets to Dads. Hello?

I’ve been a fan for thirty fucking years, and that gets me nothing because I am a woman. I guess love of rock & roll and knowledge of it is stored in the testicles.

It’s so frustrating, and especially maddening this week after the Jann Wenner bullshit.

Wenner just said the quiet stuff out loud. Rock Dudes everywhere are rushing to condemn him for the racism and misogyny, as they should, but those very same Rock Dudes never hold space for anyone else to contribute their thoughts about rock & roll.

I complain a lot about how men do not value art made by women, but they also don’t hold space for women to talk about music made by anybody.

I saw a tweet after the Wenner stuff came out and the guy said, oh this is probably a think piece I’ll write.

Oh joy! What we really need is another white dude rock pundit, and his thoughts on sexism and racism in rock & roll.

The problem isn’t just that Jann Wenner is a misogynistic racist, he’s always been that way. It’s that he has been allowed to influence a large swath of pop culture history.

He’s not alone. A lot of men erase the work of women and people of color all the time. This is why it’s so problematic when we let white men be the ones who write the history of rock & roll or pop culture.

Last year Chuck Klosterman wrote an entire book about the 90s that was lauded by a lot of people, and he completely erased third-wave feminism and Riot Grrrl. That happened in the 90s, but you wouldn’t know it from his book.

It’s not that women and people aren’t there, aren’t important, or aren’t influential. It’s that their work is deemed less than by the men who get to write about rock & roll, and pop culture. They don’t see the value in it so it doesn’t get written about, and that is fucking garbage.

Love & kisses,
Jodi

P.S. I have to say that the male Westernerds of my acquaintance have always held space for the female Westernerds. In fact, one tweeted today about how “‘Mats fans” would enjoy something, and not how “Dads” might like it.

The post Men Explain The Replacements to Me appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hey Darling Ones,

Last night I started Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer and it’s giving me fizzy, Pop Rocks brain in the best way.

This is wonderful because I’m bored to death of anxious prairie dog brain, which involves my inner-monologue shouting,”EVERYTHING IS WRONG IN HERE” every 42 seconds lest I forget I had a stroke and my body is now composed of floppy scoops and lead.

I’m only three chapters in, so I don’t have any real opinion on the book. However, I am already arguing with Dederer even though I haven’t heard her entire argument. I love to argue so much I annoy myself.

This isn’t about the book, though. This is about Liz Phair’s phenomenal album “Exile in Guyville,” which turns 30 today.

I’m linking this book and this record due to Dederer’s definition of fan (at least thus part of it)”

“An audience member is a consumer of a piece of art. The audience member is not defined by that piece of art. A fan on the other hand is a consumer plus. A consumer beyond. A consumer who is also being consumed. She steals part of her identity from the art, even as it steals its importance from her. She becomes defined by the art.”

There are problems with some of the latter parts of her definition, but we’ll get into that another day.

Instead, I would like to tell you that I, 100%, use Liz Phair’s art to define myself, and I have for 30 years now. So much of my identity is wrapped up in loving Liz Phair it’s hard to imagine who I would be without her.

Probably a boring buzzkill. Probably much more likable,

There’s a line in “High Fidelity” where Rob Gordon tries to argue one’s value as a person is based on what you like and not what you are like. While I wouldn’t go that far, I do believe the art you love telegraphs a lot about you.

I have a whole rant about dudes who love Arcade Fire (pre-allegations), Wes Anderson movies, and books by Jonathan Safran Foer or Dave Eggers or Michael Chabon.

So what do I think being a fan of Liz Phair and “Exile” specifically says about me?

That I enjoy sex but am wary of men, which is a rough as a heterosexual woman. I struggle with embracing my sexuality without being reduced to just that. It says I will never not call out a Guyville when I see one. Not even once. It says I love The Rolling Stones even though they’re problematic. It also says the things I love are not above scrutiny and critique. It says I’m cool, tough, vulnerable, and luscious (wrong record, I know).

It says so much more, but I am running out of steam. The most frustrating side-effect of the dumb stroke is that typing is not just difficult, but exhausting. Even when I take breaks, my floppy scoop gives up after a few hundred words.

I was gonna point all the writing I did on Liz Phair during I Will Dare’s 22-years, but I clicked through nine pages of archives when I finally got bored. I’ll add a bunch of links at the bottom.

So happy anniversary “Exile in Guyville,” I’m so glad you exist.

Love,
Jodi

As promised, some historical writing on Liz

Klosterman Should Keep Liz Phair’s Name Out of His Mouth

Even When Talking About Art Made by Women Men Do Not Value Art Made by Women

Your Collarbones are Overrated: On ‘Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville’ by Gina Arnold

Greatest Hits According to Me: Liz Phair, in honor of her birthday

The COVID Diaries: One Thing About the Ani & Liz Convo

How Do You Keep Your Mind Off All the Tyranny?

‘Soberish’ is Goodish

The COVID Diaries: Flap My Wings & Fly Away From Here

Day 18 of 200: Flap Your Wings & Fly Away From Here

Barb Abney, Sleater-Kinney & Being a 40something Woman Who Creates Things

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