A thought I had while out today

Okay here’s the deal I like both of the songs I’m about to discuss.

Sir Mix A-Lot “Baby Got Back” VS Megan Trainor “All About That Bass”

One is a male’s perspective on a woman’s curves and praising them. One is a woman’s view on her OWN curves. BOTH songs call out magazines and “overly thin” models and the media’s obsession with them and both songs sing that you’re beautiful if you have curves.

Yet Megan Trainor gets called out for “skinny shaming” constantly.

If that’s not the fucking actual definition of sexism I don’t know what is.

Look I’m all for anyone using their voice to speak their beliefs and I have mad respect for Mix A-Lot, but that song is from a man’s perspective of what a man finds attractive. Good for him giving love to my thick girls but it’s about what he finds attractive.

Megan’s song is her saying she feels sexy because she’s curvy. That she doesn’t feel the need to subscribe to beauty magazine’s ideals of beauty. But she gets called on saying she doesn’t find a certain body type attractive or as a type she hopes to attain.

She doesn’t want to fit into the stereotype. That’s okay. But apparently to some people it’s not okay for her to sing about this.

Most of the people bitching about her “shaming” skinny women are men.

Sorry we liked ourselves that one time, just the way we are. We’ll get back into the kitchen, I’m sure you need a sandwich by now

Another reason Im mad about whats happening in MO, Journalism during a crisis

 

I’m mad for the people on the ground reporting this story.

I know they’re just like me (mostly) journalists and photogs trying to get the story.

The majority of people on the ground for broadcast media aren’t fucking interested in their opinion. They send you into shitty situations when you’re a “cub” reporter. They don’t send Tom Brokaw or whatever.

When the cops threaten journalists they are threatening you and I. And that ain’t no lie. The are threatening the American people of being deprived of the story and they are putting a gun in the face of someone who probably makes the least amount of money that can be paid to someone in that position.

They are putting a gun in the face of America.

Don’t trip, I know I’m being dramatic but let me explain:

This country that “white America” needs to defend so fiercely is founded on the idea that there is freedom of speech and of the press. We need that. We need to know what’s going on around the country because we need to know when we need to act and these folks (trust me I had some other choice words for them) that run around bleating about their right to carry a gun openly should be shoulder to shoulder with the people in Ferguson.

They’re not.

Racist folks. This is none of their concern after all…

I get so sick. If nothing else they should be (and this is some bare minimum shit right here) be protecting the rights of the journalists trying to tell people what’s up.

When a community, a government, a whatever, doesn’t want people to know what’s going on, they are hiding something.

Even in war zones American Journalists are allowed on the ground. They’re there getting shot at and bringing us the news, but in our own country? They’re threatened with being shot. They have their equipment destroyed by tear gas canisters. They get shot at for doing their job.

It pisses me off because I know the laws inside and out when it comes to being a reporter and what’s happening right now is not cool. It’s not right. It’s not American and it’s stupid.

I’m a dick and if I was the poor camera man who got threatened for doing his job, his LEGALLY PROTECTED JOB (hi we can take pictures, shoot videos of anything we see from a public street, don’t even play, I know what’s up) I probably would’ve said “Shoot me then.”

Not because I want to die or want to be arrested but because it’s important that the American people see what’s going on. Also to see that the people gathering the tapes you hardly ever get to see aren’t the enemy. There are is  a large number of editors and corporations above these people who gladly drop into a scene like this and just go “whatever, I gotta get the story/picture/film”

The people of Ferguson have been amazing to journalists. I thank you as a fellow journalist and media person from the bottom of my heart for not blaming the lot

 

 

On the day you were born

I remember wanting you here before you got here, my sister, my other half. I knew Mom was having a girl, I just knew it even though I was only eight. They were sure you were a boy and even had a name picked out for you and everything, but I knew, you were my sister.

Sometimes Mom would fall asleep and I would read to you while you were kicking it in the MomCondo. You probably don’t remember that, you were all fetal and shit at that moment but I knew you were coming out of there.

When Mom went into labor with you she and I were grocery shopping, her water broke at  Food For Less (classy, this family) and Mom, being Mom even asked me if  I could drive home. Well no, I couldn’t, I was 9 but we got home and Mom was Mom up until the minute you came into the world.

My grandma woke me up to talk to y(our) dad on the phone that night and they told me I had a little sister (duh, I knew that) and later on I helped Mom name you.

I helped Mom with your baby book because she hates her handwriting. You were “mine” from the minute you showed up, even when you threw yourself off the porch or cried like a lunatic constantly. I was there when you said something for the first time, when you stopped pooping in your own drawers, all that. It was me and you.

Because you were a mean little shit when you were a kid you and your friends used to wake up hella early on sleep over party weekend nights and climb all over me in bed and beg me to unleash the Pepsi or cookies or whatever it was that Mom said you couldn’t have and just to get you little shits to stop bothering me, I’d do it. But I also used to stage some pretty dope games of “pretend” for you and your friends and Barbies and whatever unwilling participant was around. We made a movie once with your best friend and you guys were the best (worst) actors in the world but it was super fun.

You went to college in the town I lived in. You met your now husband there and I remember the phone call, when you were still new and nervous at life, about if you should go on a date with this guy and I listened to you tell me all the nice and wonderful things he did for you and told you a million times, yes, go out with the boy, if he sucks, don’t go out with him again and I’ll have him killed.

You went out with that boy.

You married that man. You got an amazing second (or in our case third family) I cried through the whole thing because you feel more like my daughter than my sister. And it’s always felt like I’ve known your husband and his family my whole life. Like when I met the lot of them on your graduation day I felt like they were my family too.

And so today, my darling, my bowling ball head, the absolute true love of my life who isn’t a cat, is your last day in the town your fell in love with your husband in and ironically the apartment complex you used to live in. And you, my darling, my fearless, elegant, seriously insanely smart and perfect baby sister, my baby… you’re off to another state and I am sad, because I will miss you. I hate that you’ll be too far to see whenever I want. I hated that when I left this area the first time. But I know you’re in good hands (your own, although you husband does make me feel like at least there is another set of eyes on you, because if anything happens to you, someone’s getting seriously injured) and you’re moving to a wonderful place and I am no more than a text message/phone call/facebook post away and if anyone looks at you funny, you know I’ll be there in like less than 10 minutes, space, time, physics be damned. Ain’t no one gonna hurt my baby.

I love you and I am proud of you and I am proud of your husband, excuse me, my brother. I love you both and wish you the best in the Emerald City.

 

Let’s talk about the time I almost got murdered probably.

Back in 2007 I was newly single and also for the first time living in my home without any sort of roommate, romantic or otherwise. At night to fight the feeling of being alone, I would often stop into Mr Ricks, a bar and grill in Avila Beach to see my friends who worked there. I’d stay for a beer or two and sometimes trade music with a bartender or two there and on Monday’s I’d watch Heroes with my friend Gary and my friend Kristin. 

One night I went in there and it was pretty dead. It was winter time and I was dropping off a CD to Gary and I was bored as all hell so when this good looking man sat down next to me and started talking to plain little ol’ me, I was glad for the company and also kind of flattered for a second.

Then he got weird. Like hyper aggressive weird, letting me know I was going to be taking him home that night. I shook my head and explained, politely and clearly that I didn’t take strange men home from bars, that he was barking up the wrong tree. He told me he was buying me a drink and I refused the drink.  I said I’d paid already and was ready to go. He was very intimidating and I quickly lost all interest in him being attractive by this point, especially when he ordered me another drink and the bartender on at the time had no idea this guy had been harassing me and made it anyway.

The guy kept invading my space and insisting I was going to take him home.

I wanted to leave. But leaving would have put me outside without cameras and eyes and extra hands if… when this guy decided to hurt me. So I smiled and sat there, contemplating how I was going to get away without him seeing me leave.

My bartender at the time picked up on it at some point and the minute the guys back was turned the bartender grabbed my hand across the bar and nodded at me. I followed him and he let me into the closed restararant next door and told me very firmly “RUN, to your car, don’t stop till you’re inside and text me when you get to your house, go, I’ll keep him busy”

And I did just that and didn’t think a thing about it until I read this in the paper a few days later:

Shell Beach Man Sentenced For Fatal Bar Fight

Oh, right, that happened. And this is exactly who it was. I knew my creepdar was going off but damn son… Dude’s got a rap sheet a mile long.

But see this is the thing these InCel or misogynistic bastards putting out hit lists on women don’t realize: We know you’re fucked up. We can smell it for 400 miles back because we’ve lived our whole lives being afraid of you, of angering you, of provoking you in some way… We live our whole lives wondering not if but when you monster motherfuckers are coming for us. We watch and wonder every single day if the guy who is the “nice” guy in our class or office is going to fucking flip out and try to rape us in a stairwell or blow our brains out for not going out with them. We see you, we do, when you look at us with such contempt but also a contempt that’s tinged with lust. You see us as an object that you require for a purpose, and when we don’t achieve that goal for you right away, we are useless in your mind.

I’ve been pouring over a lot of stories about violence against women the last few days and the one thing all stories about women being brutalized have in common is this: You don’t care WHO we are. You see WHAT we are, which is a gender that you’re attracted to. You are attracted to or want to lord power over a gender, a set of parts. You have no fucking idea or desire to have an idea as to what’s inside our heads or hearts. We are just here to do something for you. All you misogynistic fuck tards could give a fuck what we’re really like as long as we fill the need of a fantasy or whatever the fuck you think we’re here for.

If I had, as a lot of that one fucker who shot up Santa Barbara’s supporters said, just given out a “pity fuck” or “done my job” or “acted like a lady and serviced” this guy in this bar on that particular night, I might be dead now. He was clearly dangerous and I like millions of other girls who don’t want to talk to some of you, trusted my gut. And I was right.

The man who tried to take me home from a bar who I refused murdered someone not long after. And he raped someone else. 

I don’t know what told me to run from that man that night. It’s the same thing that tells millions of women all over the world to run from guys like the Santa Barbara shooter and the Men’s Rights Activists and the InCel community… we can smell your hate. We as women aren’t perfect but we damn sure didn’t force anyone to become a violent misogynistic racist fuckface. The Santa Barbara thing just reminds me that I need to be forever vigilant and forever suspicious.

the one where i freaked out on that santa barbara shooter

I am a woman.

I am a woman who thrives on being independent and doing what I want. I go out alone. I dress how I want. I speak how I want. I hang out with whomever I please and I do not talk to people I do not want to… except I do. Constantly.

Elliot Rodger is every man I meet on the street as far as I’m concerned.

Last night in the wake of this tragedy I was out, alone like I always am getting a burrito while I waited for a cab. The city of San Luis Obispo, California is an hour and some change from Santa Barbara/Isla Vista. I’m in a burrito joint I go to frequently enough that the owner, a nice Hispanic woman with a ton of cute and awesome kids, knows who I am.They usually even know what I want to eat. She’s let me “hide” in their side dining room a million late nights until some weirdo that’s bothering me left, etc. Last night there was this spoiled pretentious self entitled fucktwat of a guy asking me why I wouldn’t fuck him. I was just waiting for my burrito but this dude he wouldn’t back the fuck off no matter which part of the burrito place I moved to get him to stop talking to me. No matter what I said, I have a husband, okay dude you caught me I’m gay, no really I’m not fucking interested, get away from me.

They called my name for my food and when I walked up to get it this dude followed me and started harrassing the woman who owns the burrito place and I had just fucking had it with him at his point and turned around and got right in his face and said “Do not fucking talk to her that way, have some fucking respect for someone, if only yourself, just this once. Shut the fuck up.” Nice Mexican Mommy who owns the joint looked like she was going to cry because she was so overwhelmed someone spoke up for her (he was being a racist asshole on top of everything else) and one of the other dude bros in the place walked me to my cab.

Last Christmas when I still lived downtown I was walking home one night, something I should be able to do without fucking giving a fuck who’s around me, some dude started following me in a truck. He started with “hey little girl” (ps fuck you) “get in the truck, it’s cold, you shouldn’t be walking.” I was polite, why? Why did I start off polite…. I said no thank you. He kept following me and suggesting it’d be in my best interest to get in the car, he was just trying to be nice to me, it was cold and a pretty little piece like me should be with him. I turned to him finally, in front of a house that was all lit up and said “You have three choices. Drive away and I’ll never fucking think about you again. Or I get in the truck and rip your balls off and choke you with them. Or I call the cops which by the way I’m already doing (as I show him my cell in my hand) and go inside this house.” He peeled out and left but their isn’t a doubt in my mind he meant to hurt me.

Or there was the time I was on a public beach, laying out like everyone else and I had some fucker come up to me and start talking to me and it was pleasant enough until he brought up going out sometime. I said I was living with my boyfriend and he straight threatened to rape me, right there in broad daylight because I was dressed “like a slut” wearing a regular and conservative bathing suit on a public beach in broad daylight.

Or the guy at my apartment in Chico who groped me in our apartment swimming pool. I used to play with his kids before and thought he was a generally okay dude and one summer morning he just tried to kiss me and tried to put his hands in my suit. Just straight grabbed me in front of people. I was too shocked to do anything but leave the pool. Or the dude in Chico who tried to pull me off of my bike one Sunday afternoon when I was riding from the grocery store where I had to ditch my bike at a pizza place and run inside to call the cops. Or the guy I used to run into at McCarthys here in SLO all the time who used to always ask me to go watch a movie with him at his house, like I’m fucking stupid or something and no matter how many times I said no, he kept fucking asking. Or the guy that used to go to our club night and harrass me when I lived here before.

These dudes behave in ways that if a woman acted as so, they’d be locked up. But this is all boys will boys and apparently boys will be boys to the point that they can kill women for not wanting to fuck them.

Let’s get this on the real: I fuck who I want to fuck. I do what I want to do. I am not weak and I am not fucking afraid of you. You are opening a can of worms when you talk to me the way that the Brat Prince Elliot wrote about women. You didnt earn my time and if I’m not trying, I probably didn’t earn yours. I’m not a fucking newspaper you’re casually going to read on the A train to wherever. I am a person with the option to decide that you are not an option and that doesn’t warrant me ending up dead. That thought should never cross a young man’s mind.

There’s a topic on twitter trending today that is #yesallwomen and it’s scary accurate, because yes, all women have been harrassed by someone and I feel like shit when I’m initially a dick to a real live nice male human being. But here’s the thing: y’all are too quiet when your buddies say some sexist violent bullshit. Some of you are so amazing that I can’t even deal. Most of my friends are actually dudes, so hear me out on this one… I love you, sweet, smart not disgusting examples of the human race, but honey baby sweetie child when you don’t speak up on our behalf when you see some shit like this? You’re part of the problem. 

It doesn’t make you weak to have our backs. It doesn’t make you less of a bro to tell your male friends when they’re being absolute garbage bags of a person. It makes you more of a human to have our backs, than to try to put us on our backs.

Just remember that the next time you talk to a girl in a bar or on the street or whatever, she probably doesn’t know you’re not another Elliot. And if she declines the offer of your company, move the fuck on, seriously. It may not even be you, but what is you is not understanding that women go into public spaces for themselves, not for you. We’re not government cheese, you’re not entitled to us.

Just as we are not entitled to you. It should be a mutual respect that brings us together, not some fucking fuckwitted sense of entitlement.

This is a mess but im angry and sad.

this is gross

I know, I know I haven’t blogged in awhile but I’m freakin’ pissed and now you get to hear about it

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/23/iggy-azalea-crowd-surfing_n_5198716.html

I flipping love Iggy Azalea. 

The fact that she or any female artist can’t do exactly what male artists do at shows makes me so angry I want to shake. My boo Macklemore jumps in the crowd all the time. So either he don’t give a shit if people grab his junk or he’s not talking about it or IT’S NOT HAPPENING.

The comments on the articles about Iggy speaking up disgust me to the highest degree as well. “What did she expect” “Well jumping into a pit of horny rap fans wasn’t smart” blah blah blah blah

Drop dead.

No one, male or female has the right to lay hands to anyone, regardless of their fame level, gender, ethnicity, fucking anything. Keep your hands to yourself until you have permission. If you walk up to someone and say “Gee may I penetrate your body with my body?” and they say “yes that’d be swell!” then penetrate away. Don’t be walking around touching anyone without asking. It’s rude for one but its also illegal and gross. And what should be illegal and gross as well is the idea that it’s “Asked for”

Pardon my French here but fuck you. No one asks to be violated. If someone you touched feels violated, guess what, you fucking violated them. Asking for something is consent, it’s saying yes. It’s going “i would like to join my physical being with yours”

Don’t fucking assume because someone is outwardly a fan of sex, enjoys sex, talks about sex, dresses sexy, is sexy, is famous, is whatever that they “want it”

Idiots. What did she expect? She expected to be treated with decency but clearly this world has completely forgotten how to do that for anyone. 

Louna

Man, you think you’re oppressed, you should try living in Russia where everything it s pretty much the way we left it when the cold war ended. (Sorry about that Russia, we have lots of oversites in our lives and we totally helped fuck up Eastern Europe, et all etc )

Luckily there are people in Russia who still will stand up for themselves, the LGBQT community and anyone without a voice.

 

Louna is amazing. I was going to write a bunch more but I’m pretty sure they’re going to write their own ticket. They’re welcome on my couch any time.

 

“Behind the Mask” comes out in April.

No More H8

The sheer amount of cynicism I’ve seen online today shouldn’t surprise me, since I’ve been on the old tubes of informations since my Freshman year of high school and I’m freakin’ 33.

Okay I get it. Changing your facebook photo does about nothing in the world. But do you ever think that maybe it makes some LGBTQ kid in some far off place that all they have as an outlet is the internet, feel just a damn bit better? To see that there are so many people in this country who don’t think they are wrong just for being who they were born as? Don’t you think that helps? Even if what the VAST majority of my facebook friends were doing today won’t do jack all crap towards the fight (and really we shouldn’t still be fighting about this, I don’t care what you have to say as to why, your stubborn logic hasn’t impressed me yet and it’s not going to) for GAY MARRIAGE, it’s giving younger LGBTQ kids hope that in the future they’re not going to have to be afraid of who they are. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

It makes it easier for kids raised by Gay parents to be “out” to their allies. I’ve had quite a few friends, who all turned out just as straight as anything raised in a gay loving home and it was hard for them sometimes because they we were without allies.

I’ve been sitting here, proudly scrolling through my facebook, looking at these allies. Because you know, these people hating on Gay marriage or same sex relationships are almost unnatural to me. Love is the MOST important thing in the world. You find your love in church? Cool go for it, I think religion is freakin’ fascinating and would gladly listen to you. You find your love in your husband or wife? Great I’m super excited for you too! Because love is amazing. You love your boyfriend? You love your girlfriend? Great. The point is, love is the underlying theme.

I LOVE my boyfriend. I think we could get married. I know we could. But I can’t do it with people TAKING that right away from two other consenting adults.

You might have guessed I have a lot of gay friends. Not the point. I know inequality when I see it. My baby sister and I marched in a No on H8 march together actually…

Because it’s not cool to keep people who love each other from realizing that commitment in a really big way. I really hope to see the day that this all gets sorted. You can’t CHOOSE who you love. Or WHY you love them. Get your head on right. You fall in love with who you do, not because you chose to but because love is a beautiful thing. It’s not against your God. It’s not because some girl never got boned right or because some boy is a sissy and it’s not because someone can’t make up their mind about which gender to love or be. It’s BECAUSE love is just that, love. I’ve felt that way since I even knew there were LGBTQ kids out there in the world.

I went to Washington State in December because I wanted to officiate my friend’s wedding. So I took my ordained self up there and married them on the first day it was legal and it was effing awesome. Because love is love.

Please California, understand.

(and yes, I expect the trolls who will post about beastiality, molestation, rape, incest, etc… don’t bother, I approve comments.)

My Chemical Romance

So this morning I get on the internet and I see My Chemical Romance broke up. I’m not a MCR fan at all. Like I think I know one song and I am actually more familiar with Gerard’s wife’s band than MCR. But I do know this band meant a lot of things to a lot of kids, especially troubled kids who needed to feel understood. When they came out I was a little “old” for that need so I never paid attention. But I saw how they affected kids and I understand that their music made these kids feel less alone, less fucked up and weird. I felt the same way when I heard Nirvana. And I felt destroyed when Kurt Cobain died. So I feel you guys. Just know that you’ll always have that music. You’ll have something else soon that will feel life saving and amazing. I recommend Off With Their Heads, Against Me!, Reggie and the Full Effect and Alkaline Trio if you haven’t gotten to them yet. I promise.

But anyone who makes fun of you for being gutted at this news is just an asshole. When you fall in love with something, even a piece of music, you fall in love with your whole heart. But eventually it will be less sad. I promise.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/23/my-chemical-romance-split-band_n_2939440.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment

Yo, it’s coming

I am ashamed to be honest… I used to do the Irish Drinking songs game a month out but as it is we’re starting today. So here we are, every Irish Drinking Song I find worthy between here and St Patrick’s Day… starting off with U2!

I know its super cool to hate U2. Except they are really from Ireland. And aside from being crazy successful, they’re very talented. One of the best shows I’ve ever been to was seeing U2 and PJ Harvey with my dad in So Cal. Say what you want, but you get your money’s worth seeing these guys.

I’m taking this party to the air on the 4th. So if you want to hear something….