Spending Hanukkah in NYC (When You’re a Country Bumpkin With No Jewish Background Whatsoever)

So, ya girl finally made it to the Big Apple. It only took me thirty-two years to get there, but better late than never, right?

To be honest, I always felt like I belonged in the big city. I’ve always joked I’d be the quintessential Musical Gay™ had I grown up close enough to civilization to engage with musical theatre. My measly little school did not have the talent to pull off a full production of anything, let alone something like Rent. And I’d make a badass Mimi. I slay “Out Tonight” at karaoke any time I attempt it. But alas, my hometown is a teensy weensy Skittle in the grand scheme of things, and so my Broadway career was doomed from the start.

Still, when my best friend/bandmate/honorary little sister Ellie messaged me to tell me about a LIT ASS HANUKKAH PARTY in NEW YORK CITY, I was so immediately down. Said party was hosted by a chef influencer who is like, actually famous, and we are but crumbs whose band is still in its embryonic stage, but as fate would allow, we landed those sweet, sweet tickets. The trip was going to be me, Ellie, and Cole, our bassist, who I can best describe as “cool personified.” We all piled into Ellie’s little white car and began our ten-hour drive to NYC, with all three of us taking turns behind the wheel. The drive itself was not especially noteworthy, except for when we finally got to the city and it took us literally two hours to find a place to park, and then we finally said “fuck it” and parked in a big stupid garage that costed us like $200 overall. So yeah, uh, not everything about the city is great. The fees are astronomical.

Once we’d found a place to park, Ellie led us to her family’s Manhattan apartment, where we were promptly ushered in and offered some of the finest hospitality I’ve had the pleasure of encountering. Seriously, my wife has talked up Jewish hospitality (her ex and her best friend are both Jewish), and I can definitely see why, having now experienced it firsthand. Ellie’s Aunt Elana was the first to welcome us, whipping up a trio of dishes and presenting them to us weary travelers like starter Pokémon. Then, her grandmother invited me to play a game of Mad Libs with her, which was a lot of fun if not for the fact that I had to restrain myself from using “fucky wucky” as an adjective. At night, the city streets treated me to a serenade of Pavement and other indie favorites through my open window. We’d explore the city in the morning.

When we woke, Aunt Elana led Ellie, Cole, and I to a diner (ahem, deli) a few blocks away called Barney Greengrass. The atmosphere wasn’t too dissimilar from the Coney Islands we have back in the Detroit area, but the menu differed greatly, with more of a focus on fish and pickled stuff. I ended up trying lox for the first time (which, considering how much I love salmon, is a wonder I’ve not tried it sooner), and also had some lovely latkes. I restrained myself from eating the latkes with a savory tomato and vinegar paste (ketchup), as I would at home. In my defense, I am a. not Jewish, and b. not exactly a bastion of great culinary taste. (My boyfriend, David, on the other hand, eats latkes with hot sauce like a maniac, which I think negates all 10 percent of the Jewish ancestry on his 23andMe results.) The waiter was kind of rude in a charming New Yorker way that I appreciated actually, and immediately clocked me as not being a city native. He thought I was from Portland, and having watched many episodes of Portlandia, I can’t say I blame him for that assumption.

When we got back, Ellie and I put on an impromptu performance for Ellie’s extended family and their friends. We played our extended set with several covers and even threw in a few of my solo songs as a bonus. Aunt Elana even invited us back to perform again, promising to bring more of her friends from the city next time. After our little gig, we rested for a few hours. The main event would be that evening.

After spending that afternoon getting ready for the night, we crammed into a taxi and made our way to Brooklyn, and I mourned the fact that I couldn’t blast my favorite Beastie Boys song the whole way. During our hour-long journey, we got to see so much of the city. It hit me just how enormous this place was compared to Detroit or even Chicago. I was not in the Midwest anymore.

Once we’d gotten to the venue, we had about an hour or two to kill before doors opened. So we took that time to explore the stores on the block, including an art and imports store that sold everything from elaborate knives to ornate rugs and taught knitting classes out of the basement. The shopkeeper was a friendly older Arab man who was delighted that I was able to say goodbye to him in his native language (working in a Lebanese restaurant comes in handy). The next store we visited was run by another older man whose ethnicity I couldn’t quite place, but he was very kind as well. To be honest, most of the New Yorkers I met were very amicable or at least charmingly aloof. Having seldom left the Midwest, I’ve heard horror stories of how wildly unfriendly the outside world is, so it was a relief to have most of our interactions be positive ones. In fact, the only animosity we detected at all was while we were at that store. A few dudes there were talking mad shit about me and Ellie in Spanish — not realizing Cole is actually Mexican and knows Spanish. He decided against intervening, as he didn’t want to start shit and hadn’t clocked them as a real threat, but he ended up telling us about it after the fact for the laughs.

At last, we got to the event. The venue was smaller than I was expecting — a singular room behind a swanky hotel — but it was crammed full of elegant decor and twinkling lights. Ellie and I escaped to the ladies room before the event really got rolling, only to meet THE chef behind the party. I, being faceblind and stupid, did not register that this was her, and so I went on some rambling tangent about how girls should be able to Venmo titty to each other (I stand by this idea). I should also mention that she was like, really pretty. Like, astonishingly pretty. Everybody there was that pretty. Well, the guys were okay. But the girls. DAMN. THE GIRLS.

I have never seen so many sexy Jewish women in one room. Oy.

Then, the 400 milligrams of a certain herb that is legal in both the great states of Michigan and New York that I had taken prior to the party started to kick in. And suddenly I was surrounded by all of these beautiful posh Jewish girls from the city and here was my hillbilly ass pretending to fit in as the edibles made me extra strength autistic. I swear that shit intensifies the ‘tism. I clung to Ellie the whole time as I kept worrying the entire night if my face was making a weird expression or something. I did meet a few really cool folks, including a very sweet burlesque dancer and a guy who worked in Africa doing poaching prevention. Sadly, it was really hard to hear in the venue, due to a combination of the loud music, my head being sorely congested from an especially gnarly cold, and my issues with auditory processing, so I didn’t do as much socializing as I would have liked.

The stage would be filled with all kinds of performers and speakers throughout the night, including several talented pole dancers and a very silly drag queen, but I think my favorite moment was the kiddush, or blessing recited by the rabbi, who was, in fact, pretty fly. He spoke about how we need to preserve our sense our empathy for all things— “even the neo-Nazis” as he added, which blew my mind. It’s so easy to lose sight of the humanity in people who don’t recognize the humanity in you. The rabbi’s speech actually left me a little misty-eyed. As I drove away from the city the next morning, I kept his words with me. The world would be better if we all had a bit more empathy for one another. Maybe the first step is experiencing life outside your comfortable corner of the universe and seeing that deep down, we’re really not all that different. Jewish or Christian, Midwesterner or New Yorker, we’re all silly little creatures on this big weird rock in space, and we are all capable of love.

Happy Hanukkah, friends!

Just Do It: The True Secret to Beating Imposter Syndrome

I’m sure you’ve all heard about my newest musical endeavor, The Kalamazooligans. If you haven’t had the pleasure of being trapped in a car with me in the last week or so, allow me to show you our first single. It’s…interesting.

Especially once “Elmo” and the “children’s choir” join in.

Following the “success” of “What’s in a Name?”, the members of the project started cooking up a ridiculous, over-the-top twelve minute monster song that essentially paints me as this benevolent, chaotic musical goddess known as the BEAT MOTHER who has taken all these misfits under her wing and gave them purpose and, perhaps most importantly, sick ass beats. It started as a joke, but it’s a huge role to step into, especially since, between me and you…

I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

How I feel doing literally anything, but *especially* music.

I am not a Certified Audio Engineer™ nor do I have any proper training aside from one semester in the media production program at the local university, which I subsequently had to drop out of due to financial reasons. I have no business calling myself a “music producer” or “sound technician” or “audio engineer” or even “person who vaguely knows what they’re doing with a digital audio workstation.” In short, I feel like a fraud. An imposter.

Surely you’ve heard of imposter syndrome, that awful feeling that you don’t actually deserve to be perceived as “good” at the thing you’re known for, even despite whatever achievements you may have in that field. My old band, Syrin, had a pretty dope song about the subject, although I don’t have a link to it anywhere. Hell, I’ll probably write a song about it myself. It makes for great writing material, but it sure is hell to live through. Frankly, I don’t feel like I deserve the title of “beat mother.” I don’t feel like I deserve to teach music. Half of the time, I don’t even feel like it’s my right to play music.

But I’m learning to just do it anyways. Do the damn thing.

That’s the difference. That’s what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and the grown-up nonbinary folks from the wee enbies. Maybe it’ll be uncomfortable at first, and maybe you’ll embarrass yourself a little. Do it anyways. You’ll never improve if you don’t try.

You can’t call yourself a musician or a writer or an artist or anything if you don’t do the thing. That is the crucial part of the equation. I can call myself a football player, but throw me onto the field and I’m useless because I’ve never done the work. But here’s the cool thing — there’s a very low barrier for entry into a lot of interests. If you wanna learn guitar, all you really need is a guitar. But you have to, you know, practice the guitar. Then, that’s when magic happens. That’s when you’ll start to feel that sense of being an imposter fade away. “Doing the thing” is the mortal enemy of imposter syndrome because it gives you the power to stare it down in the face and say “Well actually, I can call myself a musician because I am playing music.”

You don’t need a fancy degree for most things if you’ve got the fortitude to seek the knowledge yourself. Allow yourself to explore stuff that interests you and learn a thing or two. Most of what I’ve learned about music production, I’ve learned by dicking around in various digital audio workstations. Maybe a formal education would make me a stronger producer, but I’m not going to let my lack of professional experience keep me from already doing what I love to do. That’s where the word “amateur” comes from, actually — the Latin root for “love.” It’s not about making money or garnering fame. Amateurs do things simply because they love to do them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Being an amateur doesn’t make you an imposter — it makes you someone who is in love with the act of learning itself.

Unless your interest is brain surgery, you shouldn’t need formal training to dabble in the things that fascinate you. In the immortal words of Nike and/or Shia LaBeouf, just do it.

The Ballad of Old Dog Tavern

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

Alright, let me tell y’all a little story about how I found my voice in a little bar in the heart of Kalamazoo.

We’d just moved to the city not long after my ill-fated music therapy internship crashed and burned. At the time, I was feeling real down and out about my place in the world of music. My lovely wife, knowing I’m so extroverted I will literally die if I don’t get attention for thirty minutes every hour on the hour, suggested karaoke as a solution. And well, it certainly was the solution. We found friends here that are going to last a lifetime. We found a whole ass village out here, all thanks to the wildly supportive karaoke scene. It revitalized my love of music and even gave me some killer collaborators. And ground zero for this karaoke revolution was a little dive bar called Old Dog Tavern.

I don’t know a lot about the lore of the building, except that it definitely used to be something else. Just taking a cursory glance outside (because part of this was written on location, because I’m a weirdo who writes at the bar), it was once part of a paper company. The interior is dark and dingy, but in the way that gives a comforting old dive bar its signature vibe, with largely wooden decor and plenty of mirrors for ambiance. The main entrance opens up into a corridor with an adjacent room set aside for ping pong table shenanigans. But once you enter the main room, that’s where the magic happens. On that stage, everyday civilians transform into rock stars every week.

Where else could I take a picture this cool?

On any given Friday night, Finn will be manning the karaoke machine (well, laptop — it is the 21st century). Ask him for a song and he’ll put you up in his next round. Outside, the regulars are passing around joints and anecdotes, ranging from the heartfelt to the raunchy. A few of us are showing off our newest creations. One occasional regular is a visual artist who brings his materials to work with. Another frequents the open mics as a singer-songwriter and will regale you with stories from the best nights. Under the stars and fairy lights, you can see downtown Kalamazoo bursting with life. The merriment only lasts for a while, because once your name is called, someone yells for you to get your ass to the stage. And that’s when you come alive.

The Old Dog karaoke crowd is the most ridiculously supportive community I’ve ever been a part of, to the point where I often characterize karaoke night as my sort of surrogate “church.” As a recovering evangelical, I yearn for long nights of fellowship and music like I had in the church of my youth, only without the toxicity, nepotism, and homophobia. I feel like I finally found my “spiritual community,” and it’s not even a spiritual community in the traditional sense at all. But we live and love like Jesus did. And let me tell you, I bet Jesus would rather hang out with us than that weird-ass pastor who’d chastise me for voting for Bernie Sanders (when I like, never brought that shit up, yo).

I never even showed him the crocheted Bernie I have displayed on my living room shelf!

This is the kind of community that will cheer you on even if you attempt “You Shook Me All Night Long” and are panting for breath by the end. It’s the kind of community that will shake their asses off while you sing “El tiburón” and make you feel like a freakin’ king. We’ll clap and sing and dance and probably cry if you sing Billie Eilish. We’ll put in requests for our favorites from our friends. Everyone’s got a favorite song they wanna hear from someone else, and everyone’s got their song or artist. David “Karaoke Dad” Parent is known for his Elvis renditions. David “my boyfriend as of last week” Bannon sings the hell out of AC/DC. Mary Emma kills “Never Enough” from The Greatest Showman, and when Steve performs “Minnie the Moocher,” shut it the fuck down. Me, I’m known for Heart and Britney Spears, which probably makes me the only person on the planet who can pull off both Heart and Britney Spears.

You know, I bet Ann Wilson could totally make the snake thing work too.

My point is this place is something magical, and ever since we started going regularly, our lives have improved tenfold. It’s not a secret that we have a loneliness epidemic, to the point where I’m literally seeing the Michigan government putting up billboards that beg folks to just go outside and talk to people. This is the solution, guys. We need more spaces like Old Dog where you can simply go and drop the armor. The bar actually has a little sign up that I managed to snag a picture of, and I really love the sentiment.

It truly is a place where all the misfits and outcasts can be vulnerable and at peace. Every town needs a place like that. I’m glad I’ve found mine.

The Freeing World of Outsider Music (And Why You, Too, Can Make Cool Stuff!)

Here’s a confession: I was originally planning to spend this month locked in my apartment with nothing but my laptop and recording equipment in order to bully myself into making an entire EP in a month’s time. I had a whole plan of action and everything. I was going to do a collection of covers of my favorite recent Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift songs and name it The Rise and Fall of the Life of a Midwest Showgirl Princess because I’m already extra as hell so why not lean into it? And I figured with how relevant both artists are right now, at least someone important would hear my project and like, give me a bunch of money to make music forever.

That’s how record deals work, right? They didn’t teach me that stuff in music school.

But here’s the eternal problem I run into — I’m an extrovert through and through. I’m actually stupidly extroverted at times. I envy the cute quirky introverts that just need like, a book and a cup of coffee to go, because I need at least thirty solid minutes of conversation every hour on the hour or I die. So I decided I’d try to appease both the part of me that wanted to record music and the part of me that wants to hang out with folks by throwing my gear into a sack and schlepping it over to my friends’ places.

And that’s when the real magic started happening.

I’d break out my laptop, load up the DAW, and my friends would hover over me excitedly as I cooked up silly little beats for them to mess around with. None of us are actually rappers, but we like to write raps about stuff and pretend we are. I think the first song in what would eventually become The Kalamazooligans project happened at Luke’s place. He’s a writer, one of my closest friends, and a frequent collaborator of mine. He wrote a really heartfelt verse about finally finding companionship in the karaoke scene, and our mutual friend Willy made up a chorus inspired by a “live laugh love” sign (featuring Kim Jong Un — don’t ask) Luke had hanging up in his living room. Then David (who’s one of my Fairale bandmates, actually) rounded out the second verse, and I took the last. Suddenly, we had an entire song we literally pieced together with nothing but Logic, some Apple Loops, and that Focusrite Scarlett audio interface every fucko with a podcast owns (myself included).

They make them bright red to match the flags that come with having a podcast.

Was the finished product “good” by the standards of the music industry? Absolutely not even close. This is not Top 40 radio. Max Martin (my Swedish pop hero) would not touch these songs with a 39-and-a-half foot pole. The average listener would probably be surprised to learn that anyone involved in the making of this music was actually a professional-ish musician. But something special happens when people who have no business creating art say “fuck the rules” and do it anyways.

Outsider art is art made by folks with no connection to the “legitimate” scene, aren’t properly trained in their field, and/or often have stuff like mental illnesses and other disabilities working against them. In other words, not your glamorous ideal of an artist. Outsider art includes visual art as well (an infamous example being controversial cartoonist Christine “Chris-Chan” Weston Chandler), but on the music side of the loosely defined genre, you have guys like Tiny Tim, who somehow broke into the industry as a niche act armed with nothing but a ukulele and a wild falsetto. There’s the elusive proto-singer-songwriter Connie Converse, whose tragic life I actually immortalized in this very blog. Even Brian Wilson, the legendary freaking Beach Boy, was considered an “outsider” by some metrics, although this is debated. These are all characters I find infinitely more fascinating than the manufactured pop star image being pushed by the mainstream music machine.

Wouldn’t *you* rather read about *this* *dude?*

I’d like to think the future of music rests with the outsiders. Whether they realize it or not, people tend to gravitate toward artists who have a fascinating backstory. It’s why Taylor Swift managed to captivate so many people despite being born rich and pretty — she was still able to sell herself as the girl-next-door underdog with a guitar and a dream. Fans have been revisiting the drama between bands like the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac for generations now. I feel like artists today are too sanitized and “professional.” We need musicians with personality. We need musicians who take chances. We need freaks, geeks, and weirdos making the music no one else would dream of. We need outsiders.

When I was studying music therapy, my eventual dream was to help everyday folks make music they could be proud of. I knew firsthand how healing the process of music creation could be, and I wanted to share that with my clients. Obviously, that dream died a horrible death — but maybe it didn’t. Maybe this is what I was meant to be doing this whole time. My friend group has been alight with ideas, and my phone has been blowing up with requests for new songs and beats to work with. Everyone is so excited to cook up fresh material, and it’s revitalized my love of creating music like nothing else. The crew even dubbed me the “Mother of Beats,” and I gotta say, after everything I’ve been through with music, it feels good.

I think our culture needs to rethink its relationship with music. Music isn’t only for attractive people, rich people, or able-bodied/neurotypical people. It’s the birthright of every human. Kids are always humming little songs to themselves — until society beats it out of them and says they’re not “good enough” to be singers. I’m fucking sick of that mentality. In a world where you can literally just beep-boop a “perfect” song, get dirty and create something yourself. Make it messy. Get your imperfections all over it. Who cares if it doesn’t sound radio-ready? The grit and grime are what makes it special.

I’m excited to see where The Kalamazooligans ends up. I hope it inspires more “outsiders” to get their hands dirty and create. Perhaps it’s a lofty goal, but I want to start a creative revolution, even if it never leaves this Midwestern college town with a silly name. If I can make my own corner of the world brighter, more whimsical, and more musical, I know I’ve succeeded.

A Daddy-Daughter Dance With Father Time

Do you need time?

We gettin’ philosophical with these prompts it seems. I’ll bite.

When I was little, I wanted nothing more than to be a grandma. I was really close to my maternal grandmother, from whom I got the name Joyce. To little kid-Jessa, she had the perfect life. She didn’t really have any responsibilities. My grandma never worked a day in her life, and she was passenger princess supreme since the day she first drove a car…immediately into a building. All she really needed to do was slather stuff in lard and cook it up, and aside from that, her life was all watching game shows and kicking back in her La-Z-Boy.

Now as a thirtysomething, I keep myself busy enough. I’ve got two jobs that tend to occupy a good deal of my time, an ever-growing polycule (I think I have like, a boyfriend now? Maybe two?!), and a band/collective of friends that has been hard at work cookin’ up creative projects galore.

But I want more.

For a while, it was hard to say what I wanted more of. I certainly need more money — my wife lost her job in a truly fucked up way I can’t really elaborate on at the moment, and we haven’t quite recovered since. A part of me wanted more fame, as I’ve longed to be a rock star ever since I first watched the Bon Jovi Crush tour VHS tape as a child. Maybe I wanted more things to love and care for — more cats, a dog, a bearded dragon, even human children of my own. I have a deep motherly instinct I’m slowly coming to terms with, after all. But I think the overarching theme of everything is that I need more time.

I’m 32 as of writing. I realize I’m a spring chicken compared to a lot of folks, but I’m also not in my prime anymore. I don’t have the stamina I used to at times. I get winded walking up the stairs, and I can’t belt like I’m Ann fucking Wilson the way I did in 2013, when I sang “Crazy On You” for American Idol and actually almost made it. I can’t imagine jumping around a stage headbanging like I did when I played in a shitty pop-punk band, and the thought of sleeping in that tiny ass tour van with my current 30-something spine is the stuff of nightmares. I used to swing dance like a motherfucker, too. I could do crazy ass aerials like these. If I tried doing any of those moves now, I’d snap my neck and die probably. I’m sure some of these things could be alleviated if I actually worked out like I’m supposed to, ate better, stretched, and found a way to intake a certain herb that is common and legal in the state of Michigan that doesn’t involve smoking it (edibles just don’t hit the same, man). But even if I ate the finest organic produce, did yoga at sunrise like clockwork, and smoked nothing more than brisket, I’d still have to contend with the fact that my health will decline someday. No one is young and healthy forever.

All this to say that I’m certainly feeling the weight of getting older. Or to put it frankly, I feel like I’m running out of time.

My main, cool job is hosting game shows for the music bingo and trivia junkies of the greater Kalamazoo area, but I moonlight as an overnight caregiver at a nursing home. It’s not the most glamorous job by any means, but it’s a decent enough living. It’s also not something I’m particularly good at — I’m notoriously shitty at my job compared to the other, less neurospicy caregivers who mostly have kids of their own to practice on. That being said, I do enjoy what I do most nights. It’s a pretty carefree job once all the residents are asleep.

But then you start thinking.

At a nursing home, you’re constantly surrounded by reminders that were running out of time. Memento mori, if you wanna get Latin with it. You find it every time you enter one of the residents’ rooms. Look around and you’ll be greeted by senior pics and wedding photos of a bygone era. It’s easy to forget that old people were once just young people like us, each with their own dreams for the future — and each now coming to terms with their own ending. The saddest part, in my opinion, are the dusty keyboard in Ms. E’s room or Ms. B’s largely untouched crocheting kit. This is a woman who, fifty years ago, built guitars for Gibson when the company was based in Kalamazoo. She could have built my old Epiphone at that factory for all I know. And now she can barely hold a crochet hook. The Other Ms. B was an avid swing dancer for years, and now she can’t even stand up independently, let alone do any of those crazy aerials from that video up there. A literal badass combat vet cries for help every night because he peed himself again. This isn’t the future I want for myself, and yet it’s the future we all get, barring a literal tragedy. You die young or watch yourself get old enough to lose sphincter control.

Truth be told, there are a lot of things in the future I’m not scared of, and I’m even excited for. The next generation of Pokémon is Gen 10, and the next Taylor Swift album is her lucky number 13, and while the most recent installments in their lengthy catalogues have been a little disappointing, I’m still hoping my favorites bring their A-game next time around. I’m excited to hopefully watch this political landscape crumble and rebuild into something better for everyone, not just the elites. I’m excited for my next slice of pizza, my next joint, my next song, my next stuffed animal, and my next kiss from one of my partners, but I’m not excited for everything that comes after, when it’s all over and I’m left alone with nothing but my anxieties. I’m really excited to have kids someday, but in a way it almost feels like game over. Like that’s the last big milestone. What comes after that? Menopause? Grandkids? Death? And what the fuck do I do when I can’t hold a guitar anymore?

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be this young again. I remember writing earlier this year, around the time of my birthday, about how all my heroes are getting older, and so am I. It’s a weird feeling, watching everyone grow and change, even as every day feels the same somehow. I’m scared of dying, but I’m also scared of getting older. There’s no winning. I guess I take solace in knowing even the great and powerful Stevie Nicks felt this way once, so I’ll let her sing this one out.

Why I Became My Cringy Childhood OC For Halloween

Meet Ann Valentÿne.

Like I said in the video, she was essentially a drag queen’s take on “Alone”-era Ann Wilson from Heart with a lot less clothing and more sequins, with a bit of a femme Jon Bon Jovi flavor for taste and a hint of a dark-haired Sophitia from the Soul Caliber video games. She was a rock star, but more than that, she was the 20th century incarnation of Aphrodite, and she was tasked with both saving the world and her little sister from an ancient evil. She had a hot beefy boyfriend, but in my stories, she’d always save herself. She was kind of a badass.

I’ve written about her before and how I recently unlocked memories about this character, who was a kind of escapism to middle school-me. She was definitely my attempt at creating a self-insert and was probably something of a Mary Sue if I’m honest, but I loved her. She made me feel powerful when I was a scared bullied little kid. And when I happened upon a certain leotard online that resembled the signature bodysuit I designed for her, I knew it was kismet. I needed some new stage clothes and a new persona for my music career, and I really needed a Halloween costume. Besides, I wasn’t quite sure how I could top Chappell Roan last year.

So I chose to lean into the cringe and live my childhood fantasy, because why not? The world is going to hell in a handbasket and who knows how many more Halloweens we’ll have before humanity inevitably blows up the planet. Why not add just a little bit of childlike whimsy to your world? People are so scared of cringe and looking uncool and it’s sapping all our creativity and fun. There’s a reason why popular music has been in kind of a lull lately. The Black Eyed Peas and OutKast could not have careers in our current zeitgeist. We’re too afraid of silliness.

The scariest part of the season is how many folks take themselves too seriously. I’m not afraid to admit I was a bit of a dork growing up, and I still am. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Embrace the cringe — be your childhood OC for Halloween.

Bullied by My Girl Scout Troop Leader (And Why It STILL Affects Me)

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

Once upon a time, I was wildly uncool.

I realize I wrote that as if I’m now like, the bastion of coolness or something. I don’t want to pretend I’m like, George Clinton levels of cool or anything.

Now *there’s* a Clinton I want for president.

But although I’m not cool enough to front legendary funk collective Parliament-Funkadelic, I’m significantly cooler than I was as a child, when I had to eat lunch in the library to avoid being pelted with ranch dressing packets. Bullying was a pretty constant factor in my pre-high school years. I went through it all — one guy punched me right in the gut, another in the face, two girls conspired to get me in trouble so I’d lose my class McDonalds trip (those bastards), and most of the kids I went to school with typically followed any utterance of my name with “sucks.” I managed to mitigate a lot of it by avoiding my classmates, but it’s not like I could avoid people forever, you know? I could count the number of friends I had on one hand, and for most of that period, I could count the number of friends I had on one finger. And she went to a different school!

Flash-forward to 2025, and while I’m not where I wanted to be professionally yet, for the most part, my life is looking pretty swell. I have a loving wife and a sweet girlfriend and now even a few casual male partners that may turn into something serious. I have a band — I’ve been in and out of bands for most of my adult life, actually — and the bonds I’ve formed through these projects have mostly changed my life for the better. And perhaps most importantly, I have friends. Like, a lot of them. And it’s awesome!

But sometimes, something will be dragged up out of my memory that puts me right back into the scared little kid mindset I had growing up.

Meet Mrs. Marsack.

She didn’t actually look like this, but it felt like the right image to use.

I think that’s how her last name was spelled. I kind of hope I spelled it wrong because I totally don’t intend to dox this lady. That being said, if anyone deserves awful things, it’s Mrs. Marsack. Because Mrs. Marsack broke my child heart worse than anyone my own age ever could.

When I was in elementary school, I was in Girl Scouts. I don’t wanna shit-talk Girl Scouts because it’s a pretty neat organization as a whole, and everyone knows the cookies go hard. I still grab myself a box of Samoas whenever I encounter a gaggle of entrepreneurial scouts in the wild. That being said, my experience was not all cookies and roses. That’s because I had Mrs. Marsack as a troop leader.

Mrs. Marsack had a daughter in the program. Her name was like, maybe Abigail or Emily or something. Anyways, she was one of the “cool kids.” Most of the girls in my troop were “cool” to an extent. But not me! I was the little weirdo autistic kid who stimmed by making bird sounds and who wouldn’t shut up about Bon Jovi to literally anyone who’d listen. So needless to say, I had a bad time.

Kids who liked *these* guys were doomed from the start.

But I really did enjoy the activities! So when a huge camping trip was announced, I was absolutely thrilled. I’d never been camping before, and we were about to do it all — swimming, hiking, horseback riding, canoeing, everything a little girl could imagine and more. I almost had my bags packed when Mrs. Marsack called my mom in to “chat.” That’s when she dropped the most devastating news.

All the girls were invited…except me.

Apparently I “wasn’t mature” enough to go on the trip. My mother knew it was a bullshit excuse. I was significantly more mature in all the ways that actually mattered. Mrs. Marsack just didn’t like me.

This is the degree of “fuck you in particular” we’re talking.

So I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours. I think my mom had to pry the door open, I was that distraught. I’d always felt ostracised by my peers, but never to the extent that she’d made me feel. That rejection left a scar on my heart that never really healed if I’m entirely honest. Nothing will ever give me that experience back.

These days, I don’t often think about that time in my life. But every now and then, something will jostle that feeling out and I’m once again that scared, sad little kid on the inside. I think that’s why I’m so in touch with my inner child now, as an adult. I never had space to nurture that part of me away from the judgmental eyes of my peers and unsupportive adults like Mrs. Marsack. I think that’s also a small part of why I’m so outwardly outgoing in adulthood. I crave companionship the way a flower craves rain because I was so deprived of that community, that sisterhood. I need to be around people all the time.

It sucks because I had plenty of bullies in my peer group (looking at you, both other Jessica S.‘s in my class), but Mrs. Marsack was the first time an adult showed me not all grown-ups are my friend. I almost feel a little survivorship guilt because this trauma is relatively mild compared to the backstories of many of my friends. Most of their first betrayals by trusted adults were in their own families, and with much, much worse situations. But Mrs. Marsack still left a huge gash in my heart that I still contend with.

So if you’re reading this, let the message be this: be kind to the kids in your life. Especially the weird ones. You never know what kind of influence you might have on them. Don’t be some poor little girl’s Mrs. Marsack.

Farewell, St. Louis! A Look Back on Five Weeks in the “Show Me” State

Hello everybody! First things first — I’m alive and well. My socials have gone dark for the last few days for reasons that I can’t really get into at the time being, but just rest assured that I’ll be back posting your regularly scheduled unhinged shower thoughts and the occasional horny poem when the time is right. For this brief interim, I’ll be using this very blog to communicate my thoughts to the world.

And right now, those thoughts are kinda bittersweet. Because this is my final night in St. Louis, Missouri, a city that was previously unknown to me, but has since become something of a second home to me.

I remember when my boss first floated past me the idea of sending me via plane to train up some folks in a new region of the country. I should probably mention what I do for work before I go much further. I host game shows for local bars. I’m basically Alex Trebek for the drunken trivia enthusiasts of Kalamazoo. And occasionally, the parent company I work for sends me to new places to start up trivia and music bingo shows there. Like last autumn, I made a series of trips to Chicago. But even for those trips, I drove my own car. Getting shipped out to St. Louis was entirely new. The first few times, they flew me down, which was already a whole ordeal considering I was traveling with this thing in my suitcase:

The flights were mostly uneventful, although I found I enjoy killing time in airports a little too much. Did you know you can buy lipstick from airport vending machines?! I promised myself I wouldn’t waste money on anything stupid, but I did need a new dark red, since my old favorite was discontinued. As a result, I am now the proud owner of a Kylie Cosmetics lip kit. Well, as proud as I can be considering it’s got Kylie Jenner’s name on it, and she irks me to no end for a slew of petty reasons.

The hotel they put me up in for all five weeks was a humble Best Western, and honestly, I can’t complain at all. It’s not the Ritz, but it’s comfy. There’s waffles in the morning. Hotel waffles just hit harder, okay? And the front desk lady was a total dear. She came out to one of my shows, actually. I wish I could remember her name. If you’re reading this, Sweet Front Desk Lady, just know I appreciated you!

In fact, I met so many kind people in this town. The owners and bartenders of the first bar I hosted at, Brothers Beer and Bourbon, welcomed me with open arms, and I befriended many of the patrons as well, including a really cool silver-haired woman who loves green and listens to Sabrina Carpenter. We talked for a long time after the show last night, and that was really the first time it hit me that this is goodbye. The owner of the bar made me his special cocktail, the Hippie Mule, one last time to take back to the hotel with me. (It’s a nonalcoholic version of a Moscow mule that substitutes the vodka for THC liquor, so it’s perfect if you’re Cali sober like me!) I actually teared up a little as I sipped it. The trivia show I started there has begun to take off, and now my baby’s grown and ready to thrive on its own. It feels good, if a little somber.

The second bar, OSP Tap Haus, was also a lot fun to host at, even if they only had me for two nights. That bar has one of the best (and only) nonalcoholic porters I’ve ever had, Deschutes NA Black Butte, which I am going to proselytize to every bar in the greater Kalamazoo area until they start carrying it too. Music bingo there was a little more subdued than I’m used to — my main shows back home always get wild — but it was still a blast. I’m sad I didn’t get a chance to try any of the food there though.

That was just my shows, though. I took myself out on lots of field trips while I was down here as well. I figured I’d have way more fun exploring the city than sitting alone in my hotel room. I checked out the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which was packed with so much vibrant life. I really enjoyed the arid climate atrium, which housed a little oasis in the center that looked like it belonged in Marrakech, not the Midwest. The fountain made for a great impromptu photoshoot.

Definitely almost dropped my phone in the water for this shot. Worth it.

Here’s a sheep sculpture that was part of a series of sheep sculptures. The artist’s write-up said they intended the sheep to be used as benches and encouraged people to pose with them, which I thought was kind of neat.

And here’s some flowers:

The zoo was an enjoyable excursion as well. I managed to get real close to some hippos and a polar bear, and I spent literally a half hour watching an elephant play with her food. She keep picking up hay with her trunk and slamming it down, watching it flurry in the air. I also rode the carousel, because I literally do not give a flying fuck if I am well into my thirties now, I am holding fast to my sense of whimsy ‘til the day I die. Listen, do you want to be a stuffy adult who has no fun, or do you wanna ride an ostrich?

Blueberry Hill was the last thing on my list of stuff to check out here, and I made sure I swung by at least for a little bit tonight. I’d be remiss as a musician if I didn’t plan a trip to such an important and historic landmark in music history. Chuck Berry, a St. Louis native, performed there regularly, and he’s one of the founding fathers of rock and roll. It was certainly humbling to stand where he probably stood there at that bar. Sadly the stage wasn’t open for me to check out, but at least I got to take a look at some of the memorabilia scattered about. I wish I would have snapped a pic of one of Chuck’s famous gitfiddles that were sitting behind glass near the entrance.

As of writing, it’s almost 2:30 and I have to be up in two hours to catch my flight back to Michigan. I might not even sleep, to be honest. I kind of just want to sit up and let it all sink in. My heart is in Kalamazoo, but now I know I’ll always have a home in St. Louis. It’s funny — before I came here, I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name of the city. Like, I always assumed the “s” was silent (like in Louisville, Kentucky, where you will probably be crucified and subsequently fed to the local fauna if you articulate that “s”). I also never realized how vast and metropolitan it was. I’m a Midwesterner through and through, and while Midwest emo and Chappell Roan have done a decent job making us look cool in the media, we still have a reputation as “flyover country.” I’ve lived in this region my entire life and I’ve heard it again and again that Chicago and maybe Detroit are the only cities here worth visiting. This trip taught me that that’s simply untrue. There are so many hidden gems out there, and I’m blessed to have a job that allows me to go out and explore them at times. St. Louis has been so good to me, and I’m already plotting my next trip down here. I can’t not come back, even if it’s just for one more Hippie Mule.

Until we meet again, St. Louis!

Between Sorrow and Schadenfreude: A Progressive Christian’s Response to the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

I am so fucking sick of living through major world events.

If you’ve been on some remote retreat in the Himalayan wilderness and haven’t had access to literally any media anywhere, alt-right influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a college event in Utah. I saw the infamous video. It was pretty wild to witness. I’ll confess, a lot of emotions washed over me in that moment, some I’m not proud of. Did I feel a twinge of schadenfreude at the death of man who advocated for me to be put to death for being queer? I’ll admit, maybe a little. Did I feel a bit of relief that he can’t spew any more hateful rhetoric. Absolutely. Let’s get one thing straight — Charlie Kirk was not a good person. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to click that little link up there. He is not someone to idolize or even eulogize, the same way you wouldn’t write a sweet memorial piece for Scar.

“He was a loving uncle and fierce leader for his people.”

All of that being said, I want to make another thing clear: I consider myself a follower of Christ. I feel uneasy using the word “Christian” as of late because of how horrifically perverted American Christianity has become, but my theological beliefs line up most readily with Jesus’s teachings. The real Jesus, not the evangelical one. You know, the wildly subversive pacifistic brown-skinned Palestinian Jewish man who repeatedly preached against tyranny and the wealthy? I’ve always been fascinated by His life and ways, and while some of my personal theology contradicts the established dogma of most denominations, I consider Him to be my spiritual guide and savior.

And that’s what’s making this hard for me. The part of me that’s human wants to dance on the dude’s grave. Yet the part of me that has been redeemed by Christ, that divine inner voice, wants to honor the fact that he was still a person, and he was a child of God too.

Two things can be true at once. Charlie Kirk can be a truly despicable person and the world can be better off without him, and we can also mourn the fact that humanity has devolved to this point. We can mourn the humanity in him, the part he willingly killed in himself years ago for the sake of extremist politics. We can mourn for his kids, who didn’t ask to have him as a father and now have a disturbing core memory to contend with. We can mourn for our trans brothers and sisters, who will inevitably be scapegoated for this. And we can mourn the fact that we’re heading to a very dark place if something doesn’t change quick.

I recently read a post that said that the true test of a Christian isn’t whether or not they love Jesus. It’s whether or not they love Judas. Jesus is easy to love. Judas is much more challenging. And in a lot of ways, Charlie is my Judas. He is proving very, very difficult to show compassion toward. The man got what he had coming to him. To paraphrase the Good Book itself, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. But there’s another relevant verse:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”

Matthew 5:43-44

We can’t fall into senseless hate. That’s what Charlie would have wanted. The best way to “honor” his memory is to fight back against everything he stood for, including violence and hatred. This isn’t to say there’s never a time when violence is the answer — we had to kill a lot of Nazis in the 1940s to ultimately save a lot of innocent folks, and even Martin Luther King, Jr. understood why folks lash out violently at times — but we also can’t become desensitized to this shit. This can’t be our new normal.

I’ve been worried about the state of the world all day, and I’m praying this won’t be a Franz Ferdinand situation and WWIII doesn’t spring from it. But I’m scared it’s too late. People have become so brainwashed already. I called out my first boyfriend on Facebook for waxing poetic about the man as if he were a saint, and he responded with some of the most vile, vitriolic, hurtful bullshit I’ve ever had directed at me. It was bizarre. He was such a sweet kid, but it goes to show you how effective these conservative influencers are in manipulating young men. We’re dealing with a lot of propaganda and disturbing messaging in the media.

My heart hurts for the state of the world and for the future. I always dreamed I’d become a rock star and have children and live to be a little old lady like the ones I work with. I don’t want to go to war. I’m a lover, not a fighter. This isn’t the future I want for me, and I hope it’s not the future you want either. I sincerely hope with every fiber of my being that we can turn this around. In the words of the late great Ozzy, maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.

Maybe the Prince of Darkness and the Prince of Peace had more in common than you’d think.

All I know is I can’t handle much more of this. I was simply not made for times like these.

3 Going On 30: The Loss of Childhood in the Media

I got into a fight with a guy on social media this morning.

Well, it was more “me picking on a prude on a Sabrina Carpenter post.” They make it very easy to do on Sabrina Carpenter posts because whenever there’s a post about Sabrina Carpenter, the prudes love to get on their high horses about how they would never stoop to taking off their pants to sell records.

As if anyone would pay to see *your* hairy gams, *Greg.*

Of course, I said something inane about pants being a crutch anyways and how nobody should wear pants, because I love creating awkward moments for folks who comment slut-shamey things about girls’ bodies. Then, the guy I was talking to said something that I’ve heard many, many times before. The classic line. You know the one.

Think of the children!

As if that’s a valid argument when the artist in question is a few short years from thirty and has no interest in making music for children anymore. God forbid a grown woman make songs about things that interest grown women instead of pandering to the same base she had as a 14-year-old. I’d be losing my shit if I had to essentially stay artistically 14 forever. Maybe, I argued, parents need to be parents and monitor what their kids are listening to.

But, I realized, you can’t just say “Well, put on something else for your kids!” and not have a dang clue what that alternative even is.

All this to say that children’s programming is pretty abysmal as of late. We don’t have “cool” adults like Bill Nye, Steve Irwin, or LeVar Burton teaching our kids basic subjects anymore, save for like, Ms. Rachel maybe. Nobody even knows the main players in children’s entertainment anymore. I make a living as a trivia host and a few nights ago, a question was asked about Cocomelon, one of the top three YouTube channels by subscriber count and the premier platform for videos for kids. Nobody got it right. And by the way, how did Disney’s latest movie do?

I might not be the most qualified person to write this blog post. I’m not a parent, at least not yet. But I plan to start looking into avenues into motherhood in the next few years, and I want my future kids to have entertainment that actually allows them a childhood. I love Sabrina Carpenter, but I’m not letting them listen to her until they’re able to comprehend that “House Tour” (my new favorite song of hers, by the way) is not literally about showing off your new home.

“And I promise none of this is a metaphor.”

They say to be the change you want to see in the world, and I have a feeling that when I do pop out a baby of my own, I’ll likely try my hand at creating children’s music myself. I’ve toyed with the idea already, but I feel out of my element trying to make content for kids when I don’t really have a child of my own yet. Still, I know when Cadence is here, I need to make sure she has music to enjoy without me worrying she’ll pick up impolite language. Because if she’s anything like I was when I was little, that girl is gonna have some echolalia going on.

The world is a fast-moving place and kids are growing up quicker in a lot of ways. We need to make sure the next generation is getting positive messages. It’s not just about keeping kids from seeing or hearing about sex and violence, but also about encouraging the good stuff. That’s why the recent cuts to funding for PBS are so disheartening. I’m cynical enough to believe the shift is deliberate. Kids are more useful to corporate interests when they’re essentially little adults buying products. Look at the trend of literal children buying anti-aging skincare and showing it off on TikTok. You can’t convince me Big Cosmetics isn’t partly to blame. But at the end of the day, everything rests on dear old mom and dad.

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s questionable parenting choices.

It breaks my heart to think that kids these days don’t have the same kind of warm, wholesome childhood I had. We’ve abandoned car rides with Barney cassette tapes for iPads loaded with click bait and rage bait. And that, my friends, is no way to grow up.