I’m Sailing Awaaaaaaay

So, I’m going on a cruise in a few short days.

Mind you, I have never been on a cruise, and I kind of always assumed I’d never even have the chance. I vaguely remember my much-older sister saying she’d take me on a cruise when I got my high school diploma, but after graduation, it changed to after I got my bachelor’s, and after that, it was my master’s. So I just assumed that was a nice thing she told me so I’d stay in school and not run away to join a rock band or the circus.

Both options are *very* within the realm of possibility, for what it’s worth.

But last year, I was playing in a band with a truly cool frontperson who, despite us not being close anymore, is still someone I respect greatly. They told me about the cruise and how it’s great for networking because you’re basically trapped on a boat with music industry folks and fans who care enough about music to drop a cool few grand to see their favorite bands. That was enough to convince me to exercise my poor credit card and join the excitement. I bought my ticket and a flight down to Miami, where we’ll be sailing off to Mexico, a place I have not ever been to and, again, was never expecting to actually see.

But if playground rhymes taught me anything, it’s that there are REALLY HOT GUYS AT THE DOOR DOOR DOOR.

I’ll be honest, I came close to attempting to recoup what money I could and bailing on the trip many times. My friend who inspired me to buy the ticket and I had a falling out, which made me question why I was even going. Then, rising political tensions made me wonder if it was even safe to travel outside of the country, and I kept getting nightmares that I’d be detained trying to re-enter the country or something. I got as far as posting an ad stating that I’d sell my tickets in the main Facebook group for the cruise, and I almost had a buyer.

Then my dad died. Suddenly, I was standing face-to-face with my own mortality as I watched the single closest person to me fall away into the afterlife. It hit me that I may never have the opportunity to do this kind of thing ever again, and I could hear my dad whispering to just jump in. I remembered his last words of advice to me: be yourself, take care of yourself, and enjoy yourself. He wouldn’t want me to cower and hide away. He’d want me to live in the light. He’d want me to enjoy myself any way I can in this hellhole.

And so that’s why I have my big purple suitcase packed to the brim with all my outfits for the trip and I’m panicking making sure all my reservations are in place. This is certainly the most I will have ever travelled on my own, and while I have some trauma regarding travelling alone (major trigger warning for that link, by the way), I feel much more confident now. Last year, my bosses sent me multiple times to St. Louis, Missouri, to train up some new trivia hosts, and I ended up getting very familiar with the TSA and travel etiquette. So I feel a lot less nervous with that experience under my belt.

Still, it is nerve-wracking, especially since I don’t have any of my partners or friends with me this time, and it’s my first time out of the country in a really meaningful way. I took a train through the mountains of Canada in high school with my family, but that was just a day trip, and I had my parents there the entire time. I’ll know my former bandmate on the cruise, and I’ve been in communication with my cabin-mate, a cute emo dude from California who likes Pokémon too, so there’s that. But I’m trying to view the journey as an opportunity to make new friends. It’s poetic that most of the Warped Tours I attended in my younger years were attended alone, because now I’m very familiar with now to navigate shows and music festivals as a solo audience member. I plan to use my extrovert powers to make a few connections on this trip at least.

I met one of my closest friends for coffee this evening, and I showed him the meat and potatoes of this post before I shared it with anyone else. We agreed to meet because we were both world-weary and desperate for the ear of someone who “got it.” After one read-through, he goes back to the part I wrote about what my dad would have said if he were here, his last words of advice to me. He found it reassuring, in a strange way. And I think I get it now. I think that’s the best way I can honor my dad — by living so vivaciously and so fully that the darkness of the world cannot extinguish my light. That’s how he wanted me to live, and that’s how I want to inspire others to live as well.

And if that involves setting sail on a fuck ass boat with a cute emo guy, so be it.

CANCELLED! (Or, Why Society Needs to Embrace Grace)

Chappell Roan is simultaneously living my dream and my nightmare. Imagine being some random ass girl from the Midwest one minute, and in the next, the eyes of the entire world are on you as if you’re Lesbian Jesus. On paper, she has the exact life I’ve fantasized about for decades. She wrote that one hit song (or two…or three) that will immortalize her for generations to come. She gets to wear some of the most extravagant outfits I’ve ever seen on a performer, stuff I’d die for a chance to wear.

Imagine getting to wear *this* in public.

And her infinite coolness has even been acknowledged by my own childhood heroes, the Wilson sisters of Heart. Nancy Wilson accompanied her onstage for a cover of “Barracuda,” and she even got to sit down and talk with Ann Wilson on her podcast. Needless to say, when I wished upon a star all those years ago, I’m pretty sure the wires got crossed somewhere and my wish went to Chappell instead. And let’s be real, the girl deserves it. She does have talent. She’s an incredible performer, and her songs are catchier than anything anyone’s else has been doing in this boring-ass pop music landscape. But there’s one aspect of Chappell’s life I’m so glad I don’t have going for me:

The scrutiny. God, the scrutiny.

So Brigitte Bardot died recently. Don’t reach for your tissues just yet, because she wasn’t really someone worth mourning. She actually kind of sucked. Like, a lot. She was literally so racist that the government of France fined her over it. She basically called the entire #MeToo movement bullshit. She called queer folks “fairground freaks” and blamed the destruction of French culture on the gays (as if French culture isn’t already, by definition, pretty gay). That last point is probably the most important to note, as Ms. Bardot has become something of an unwilling lesbian icon thanks to the aforementioned Chappell Roan.

In the opening lines of her song “Red Wine Supernova,” Chappell croons “She was a playboy, Brigitte Bardot,” paying homage to the cinema legend’s exquisite looks. Obviously, it’s a shallow reference that doesn’t address the fact that Brigitte would flick her nose at the kind of fairground freakiness Chappell gets up to. Nobody really took issue with the throwaway line initially — it was understood that Brigitte’s name was simply used as shorthand for the kind of glamour that only existed in a bygone era. She could easily have used Marilyn Monroe, or Greta Garbo, or Jayne Mansfield, or even Elizabeth Taylor, as a certain other frequently sequined starlet recently did. But “Brigitte Bardot” just fit the rhyme scheme better, and as a bonus, Chappell gets to put on a sexy lil French accent when she says it. Everybody wins!

But then, this happened.

To be fair, Brigitte would *hate* this for herself.

If my Threads and Reddit feeds were anything to judge by, the Pink Ponies (Is that what we’re calling Chappell Roan fans?) were livid at the sight of the tribute, which entirely glossed over Brigitte Bardot’s checkered legacy. To be fair, a little while later, she’d post this:

To a lot of folks I encountered online, though, the damage had been done. Her reputation had already recently taken a hit from partnering with MAC Cosmetics, a company that notably supports Israel, after she famously passed on a White House performance over Palestine. But eulogizing a certifiable asshole was a step too far, and Chappell had been officially…cancelled.

We cancel a lot of people. Taylor Swift, who I alluded to earlier, even wrote a catchy ass villain song about it. Sometimes, the cancellation is justified. For example, Bill Cosby? Pretty fucking justified if you ask me — I can’t see a situation in which it would ever be acceptable to name-drop him as anything other than a predator and creep. Same with guys like Diddy and the absolute monster from Lostprophets. As the intro to that one Law and Order spinoff says, sexually charged crimes are especially heinous and should be weighed as such when considering uncancelling someone. But take, for example, Snoop Dogg, who recently came under fire for some questionable remarks regarding same-sex relationships in media. Is it time we retire “Gin and Juice” as a feel-good anthem forever?

We still got this bluegrass cover!

But here’s the thing — Snoop apologized. And he acknowledged he is still learning. In fact, I’d say his apology was damn near spot-on: “Teach me how to learn,” he said in his statement. “I’m not perfect.”

There’s the difference. That’s what separates the rightfully cancelled from the flawed human beings who sincerely want to do better. It’s right there — that self-awareness that you are imperfect, and that willingness to improve. That the secret. It’s completely understandable to want to hold people accountable. That’s the only way advancements will happen in society. But we can’t keep pushing away potential allies for every transgression. We’ll always stay divided.

I think very few people are beyond redemption. Honestly, if Kanye and Nicki wanted to have a massive heel-face turn and walk away from the right-wing grift, I’d welcome them back with open arms, and not just because I want to listen to the indisputable banger that is “Monster” guilt-free again. But they’d need to show some remorse. Grace should be given freely and abundantly, but the person receiving that grace needs to be legitimately sorry for what they did too. It’s a two-way street.

I think the folks trying to cancel Chappell for her Bardot post don’t realize they’re shooting us in the foot by dividing us further. We already don’t trust each other as a society and we’re falling deeper and deeper into isolation. Community is scarce, and there really is an epidemic of loneliness wreaking havoc on our society. What we need now isn’t some puritanical litmus test. We don’t need a “perfect ally” — we just need folks who are willing to stand up for us, and sometimes those folks aren’t perfect.

It’s funny, just this evening I got into a verbal tussle on that godforsaken social media site we all know and hate over whether or not “rest in power” was an appropriate phrase to say in remembrance of a white person. Never mind that said white person, Renee Good, was oppressed in other ways (being queer and a woman, for example) and was literally killed by her oppressor. This person, who I imagine had good intentions, maintained that the phrase can only be used for people of color. That is the kind of over-the-top policing that hardens hearts. How does that black-and-white mentality make us any different from the conservative evangelicals who dictate that we have to do x, y, and z to be saved?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t call people out for egregious screw-ups, or even smaller transgressions that maybe came across wrong (Chappell’s memorial post is a great example), but there needs to be some grace delivered alongside the message. Otherwise, we’re going to cancel each other into the fucking ground. We need to begin viewing each other as people again — beautiful, deeply flawed, and capable of change.

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.

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.

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.

How Ephemeral Love Becomes Eternal Through Music

Brace yourselves, kids. In this post, I mention both Heart and Taylor Swift.

A few days ago, Heart’s original manager, Michael Fisher, passed away. Actually, calling him just their manager is kind of an understatement. In the autobiography of Heart frontwomen Ann and Nancy Wilson, Kicking & Dreaming, Ann tells the story of how Michael was her first love. Their whirlwind relationship inspired one of the band’s earliest and most iconic songs, “Magic Man.”

Why do I mention this? Obviously, Ann and Michael didn’t work out. Michael ended up marrying someone else and having like eleven freakin’ kids, and Ann went on to become a rock star. But their stories are forever intertwined because of that one song. And that’s what this post is about, because when you write a song for someone — or create any art in their honor — you’re preserving a piece of that relationship forever.

I’m a lifelong songwriter. I’m also fascinated by interpersonal dynamics. If you took every song I’ve ever written throughout my life, they would tell countless stories of people who have come and gone and somehow left a mark on me. The songs almost act as containers for the emotions left behind by those old relationships. Each song is a museum of memories. That’s why I have this theory when it comes to songwriting. Well, maybe it’s more of a maxim than a theory. And the maxim is this: If you get even one beautiful creation out of a relationship, it was not a waste of time.

People enter into relationships usually expecting — or at least hoping — to spend forever with someone. The point of dating is to find “your person” (or people, if you’re polyamorous like myself). So when relationships go south, it’s easy to write off the entire experience as meaningless. That’s where art comes in, though. With the magic of creativity, even the shortest-lived tryst can be fuel for a song or a film or a poem or painting.

Taylor Swift is a songwriter I admire deeply, and she’s a great example of this maxim in action. People have given her so much shit throughout the years for writing about her relationships, but honestly, that’s one of the things I like about her writing style. Not because I’m one of those parasocial weirdos who obsess over her dating history, but because that’s how I write songs too. I write about people. She has had many exes, as have I, but I feel like that’s what makes us better at writing. We have these lived experiences we can churn into music, and nothing can take that away from us. Like, she’s not with Taylor Lautner anymore and she hasn’t been with him for over a decade. But “Back to December” is still a beautiful song all these years later, and a song that millions of people still listen to and relate to.

I think of my own songwriting similarly. I think back to Jacob, whom I had a short-lived fling with my freshman year of college that led to the writing of “Smiles & Anchors” and “Tsvi.” I think about Dylan, my high school crush, who inspired “Off the Deep End” and the unreleased track “Outta My System” off my upcoming album Lore. There’s TJ, the muse behind “Song of the Sea,” and Phil, who never reciprocated my feelings but nonetheless influenced the writing of “Oceanography.” There are even songs I’ve squeezed out my non-romantic relationships and the ones that really went south, like the falling out with a former bandmate that led to the writing of “Ladies Don’t Start Fights (But They Can Finish Them).” I can find closure for relationships I wasn’t ready to leave just yet, and peace in relationships I’m happy are over, all because I’ve been able to transmute the pain into something I’m proud of.

I know I write about songwriting pretty frequently, but it is something I’m deeply passionate about. It’s what has gotten me through many breakups and heartaches and unrequited loves. But none of those situations were in vain, all because I could make something beautiful out of them. Relationships — romantic and otherwise — are the backbone of songwriting. We write about human beings and the way they relate to each other. Maybe those relationships don’t last forever, and sometimes, they shouldn’t last forever. Michael Fisher may have been absolutely miserable had he ended up with Ann Wilson, and vice versa, but the love they shared briefly inspired music that people will treasure for generations to come. And to me, that’s the beauty of songwriting.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

CashApp: $TheJessaJoyce

Venmo: @TheJessaJoyce

The Librarian’s Daughter: A Look Back

It’s been half a year since the release of my double EP, The Librarian’s Daughter.

These EPs were a unique endeavor for me because they started life as Christmas presents for my partners. The Sun version was dedicated to my wife Crass and filled with songs inspired by her, and the Stars version was written and recorded in honor of my girlfriend, Olivia. I always describe my form of polyamory to folks like that — Crass is my sun, and Olivia is my stars, and I love them both in different but equal ways. Although this project began as a private gift, I almost immediately realized the rest of the world needed to hear these songs too. So I quickly but carefully put together what would become the full project, and the rest is history.

The title was chosen because of my partners’ shared backgrounds as daughters of librarians, with Crass’s mother having served as head honcho of her public library and Olivia’s father having worked his entire life in service of his city’s library. I thought it was a whimsical, memorable title that fit the theme of the EPs. I wanted a title that made people wonder — who is the librarian’s daughter? The album art was inspired by tarot and designed by me. I really liked the pretty gold and jewel tones I chose for both versions of the album as well as the “compilation” playlist.

This album was recorded over several weeks in the summer of 2024, primarily in the town of Niles, Michigan, in a small Airbnb my wife and I rented after the fallout of my failed internship. I knew that if I wanted to get this thing finished, it was going to have to be produced quite a bit ahead of schedule. At the time, we were in the process of regrouping and trying to find a place in Kalamazoo, so I wasn’t sure how much energy I’d have to work on it when it was actually the holiday season. So I labored many hours in the steamy living room of that place and set up my entire mobile studio to capture what I wanted.

Since the release of the EPs, not a lot has changed — yet it has. I didn’t do much promo on the album because I was pretty exhausted by the time it came out, and I felt like the people who needed to hear the music the most got to hear it. It wasn’t a breakthrough album. And yet in a way, it was. Barring the Oceanography EP, I’ve never had an album or EP release. Releasing The Librarian’s Daughter showed me I was still capable of doing amazing things in music after what felt like my entire career crashed down in the wake of the internship. It gave me renewed sense of hope.

So if you haven’t heard these songs, here’s a little track-by-track breakdown of everything that’s on the EPs.

“One Way Train”

This song began life as one I actually wrote years ago about an ex, but I didn’t really have any connection to him or the lyrics anymore, so I completely rewrote the words from scratch to be about my wife instead. The title changed between “Wishing Well” (from the opening lyrics, “Made it down the wishing well”) and “One Way Train” more times than I can remember, but everyone seemed to like “One Way Train” best when I asked them. The colors mentioned in the second verse refer to our favorite colors as well as the color of a map, which almost aludes back to “I Can See the Rest of Our Lives From Here,” an unreleased Wake Up Jamie track with the lines “Throw a dart at the map and let’s take flight.” I also threw in a kazoo solo because I thought it would make my wife laugh. (It did.)

“Taco Bell”

Musically, I wrote this song as a challenge to see how many times I could change the key without it getting weird. (I call it the “I Walk the Line” gambit.) Lyrically, it’s a testament to mine and my wife’s strange, unique, beautiful dynamic. We’ve never been romantic in the traditional sense of the word. Our idea of intimacy is eating Taco Bell and watching bad movies together, and I honestly prefer that for us! I mention how she hated me at first, which is not a lie, and in the bridge, I actually sneakily incorporate my wife’s name into the words. The “big fat…grin” was inspired by The Maine’s “Into Your Arms” — “She had the most amazing…smile.” I thought that was a real fun, cheeky line, and I love The Maine, so that was a kind of my small homage to them.

“Chicago”

This is my take on the “run away with your lover” song trope. At the time of writing, we were plotting our next move, and it was looking like either Chicago or Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo won out in the end, but I couldn’t find a way to fit the word “Kalamazoo” into a song for another half a year. So “Chicago” was the end result. I’m particularly proud of the guitar work in the finished product. I literally drenched my tone in reverb for the opening bit and it gives my guitar a very characteristic and unsettling sound. The solo is one of my favorites I’ve written. I’m not much of a lead player and I’m sure one of my buddies who can really shred would have elevated it to the next level, but I did the best with the resources I had, which was literally just me.

“Olivia”

Onto the Stars version! “Olivia” was my attempt at channelling my inner Paul McCartney, who is one of Olivia’s musical idols. The piano features heavily throughout the song, although it’s not a real piano but entirely painstakingly MIDI-programmed. This one also features several key changes, both flipping between parallel major and minor keys (between the verses and choruses), and jumping up for the solo and once again for the last chorus. Overall, it’s a real short but sweet tune about the night I met Olivia at a Valentine’s Day-themed show we both were performers at (and yes, there was a real kissing booth!).

“When You Tell Me Goodnight”

The origins of this song are murky at best, because it actually wasn’t originally about Olivia. I’d penned a very primitive draft probably way back in 2012 at the earliest, although at the time I couldn’t think of a good enough muse to truly dedicate it to, so it languished in my drafts. But Olivia gave me the missing piece, and the song came to fruition with her inspiration. It’s a very barebones song, with nothing more than my voice and my Stratocaster with a nice twinkly setting on it. It’s stripped, and I wanted it to be that way on purpose. I feel like so many of my songs are big and over-the-top, and this is a simple love song. It means a lot to me though, and soon, Olivia and I will be releasing on a new version together that incorporates her chiptune work. I’m excited to share that with you too.

“I Wanna Fall in Love With You”

Finally, the song that was the biggest nightmare to produce, but it was absolutely worth it because it turned out breathtaking. I used a lot of synth for this track, so it took a while to piece all of those sounds together. The guitar solo was inspired by “Without Love” by Bon Jovi, from their timeless album Slippery When Wet. Ifyou listen closely, the guitar and synths are playing in unison, and I wanted to achieve a similar effect here. This song contains some of my favorite imagery and one of the best lines I’ve written: “Someday when I am gray and old, I’ll look back at this night at know / For a moment, life was beautiful.” I think that’s the overarching theme of these EPs — the love in my life make all the struggles worth it.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

CashApp: $TheJessaJoyce

Venmo: @TheJessaJoyce

Creativity Overdose: What It Is and How to Fight It

So my wife and a good mutual friend of ours recently staged an intervention in my living room over a glaring problem that’s been worrying them for a while.

(Okay, it wasn’t an intervention, but it sure felt like it, dammit.)

You see, I suffer from something I’ve dubbed Creativity Overdose.

It’s an insidious beast that comes at the intersection of bipolar and ADHD. Creativity Overdose is when your ideas start to come at the expense of people around you. Another good name would be “Eddy from Ed, Edd, & Eddy syndrome,” since it’s basically what he has. Every three seconds, you come up with some hairbrained get-rich-quick scheme or the newest version of The Best Idea Ever™ that consumes your entire being. And that would be fine if you a. followed through on these ideas and b. they weren’t coming at the detriment of your loved ones.

My poor wife has had to deal with approximately 6,348 new ideas since January, and getting back into academia and becoming a specialist on the way AI affects the brain on a psychological level was the straw that broke the camel’s back (I’m shocked it wasn’t my short-lived oil painting business). I don’t envy her for having to deal with my manic ass on a daily basis, and I want to be a better, more reliable partner for her. She deserves that much from me. So here are four ideas I’m putting into practice to negate my struggles with Creativity Overdose and keep the mental and interpersonal peace:

1. Write down your ideas (instead of burdening people with them)

This is hard if you’re an autistic extrovert like me. Sometimes, the neurospiciness kisses the extroversion just right and you feel the need to infodump about every grandiose idea you’ve ever had to your loved ones. I can assure you, they don’t want to hear about it. I know it hurts, but for the most part, it’s true. This is tough love. Nobody wants to hear about your Parakeet Circus idea, especially when the last time you tried to start a Cirque du Soleil featuring parakeets, you blew up three parakeets. Unless the project is cued to be finished or released, absolutely shut up about it. Not everything is about you. (I’m talking especially to myself here.)

2. Write down all of your current projects

Okay, now that we’re not telling everyone all the shit we’re up to, let’s figure out what we’re actually up to anyways. Write down every single thing you’re currently working on, no matter how small or insignificant. My current list has all the musical projects I’m working on, my two jobs, school stuff, my podcast, and even getting my passport. Write down some steps you’ll have to take for each one, too. Putting it all down on paper will help you see how busy you really are and maybe give you a little more perspective on how much you actually need to fill your plate. When you’re excited about stuff, it’s easy to underestimate how much it really takes to get things done.

3. Pick one thing to hyperfocus on for a month

Here is the tricky part. You’ve gotta prioritize. Label the projects on your list from most to least important. Like, “you’ll die if you don’t do this” to “this can wait a few months or even years.” Shelf the stuff that can wait. If writing the book that’s been on your heart for years can wait a few more years, that’s perfectly fine. Like, I’m probably gonna end up releasing Venona at an absolute snail’s pace, but I’m not worried about getting the story out there at this point. Unless something goes terribly wrong, we’ve still got a lot of time on this planet. Don’t worry if you can’t get to everything in the next year or so. Pick one thing (maybe two, since you’ll probably need to pick whatever your main job is for survival reasons) and really buckle down and get it done before moving on. It feels good to get something done for once, trust me.

4. Help someone else create something instead

Here’s something I’m really learning — it’s better to collaborate than work alone, and sometimes it can be just as rewarding helping your loved ones meet their goals as it is meeting your own. My wife wants to be a professional artist and merchandiser, so I’m going to step aside a while and let her work on that. I’m going to take a year off school so she can save for the equipment she needs, and I’m going to support her any way I can. See what your friends need for their endeavors and ask how you can help them. Assisting someone else in reaching their dreams can be a good feeling in and of itself, and it can further inspire you in your own dreams as well. The best part of having creative, ambitious people in your circle is that you can all help each other up.

So what do you think of Creativity Overdose? Have you experienced this in your life? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

CashApp: $TheJessaJoyce

Venmo: @TheJessaJoyce

Remembering Dad: A Eulogy of Sorts

It’s been a week.

I’ve been dreading this moment for my entire life, ever since I learned the concept of death. I knew that when it finally came for my father, I would be beyond devastated. I distinctly remember curling up under my parents’ bed as a toddler as if hiding from death would stall it somehow.

But last Wednesday, my mom called me and told me to say goodbye to Dad. I was dumbfounded and didn’t know what was happening, but I uttered a weak goodbye through tears. He took his last breath with me on the phone.

It’s been a week. I’m still catching myself crying here and there. It’s getting better. But it’ll never be okay. I miss my Daddy, and I’ll never stop missing him. There’s a piece of my heart that’s forever gone now.

I try to think of the good things when I feel down, which is partially why I decided to immortalize him via this blog post. He didn’t receive a proper funeral, which was his and my mom’s wish, as he was never into formalities. But apart from the Woodstock story, which I told in my last post, there are so many tales of my dad I would have wanted to tell as part of his eulogy.

Like, I’ll never forget the time we were all driving around — him, my mom, and me — and we passed by an old building that we’d passed by many times. Only the signage had changed, and it was now a taxidermy shop. Except my dad had no idea what taxidermy actually was, so he kept insisting it had become a tax place. Meanwhile, my mom and I were like “It’s taxidermy! They stuff animals there!”

(He eventually listened, but I’m pretty sure I had to point out the deer painting on the sign for him to get there!)

Another time, I get this call, and he says he’s driving up from Downriver to where my wife and I were living in Ypsilanti to bring us six pounds of cheese — in a snowstorm. I told him he didn’t have to, but he insisted. It took him an hour, and I bet he was white-knuckling the whole time, but he made it. And he gave me the biggest hug when he got there.

That’s always how he was. His love language was finding out what I liked to eat or needed in my everyday and buying it in bulk. I can’t tell you how many times I’d be going throughout my day and I’d get a call from him at Sam’s Club or Costco or BJ’s or wherever the hell he was shopping. He’d always ask me if I needed anything, and every time I visited home, he’d load up my car with toilet paper, jugs of Arnold Palmer, huge bags of popcorn, and more. He loved being a provider.

I got a good chunk of my love for music from him. He always hummed little mindless tunes to himself as he did things, a habit I still have to this day. He never went out of his way to listen to music, but he loved the stuff that I played for him. He had good taste — he did go to Woodstock, after all. And he was my biggest cheerleader when it came to my own music career. He bought me my nylon-string guitar when I went off to study classical in college. He’s part of the reason I went to school for music — I was going to go into pre-med, but he knew music was my passion. He’s the reason I went to university at all, actually. He always pushed the importance of education and hard work.

I’ll miss his speech patterns. I’ll miss how he’d say “warsh” instead of “wash,” going as far as to talk about “Warshington” or “warshing machines.” I’ll miss how he’d mix up words like the time he called my older siblings “Kay and Jelly” instead of “Jay and Kelly.” Or how he’d call my cat Krubby “Scrubby” and always ask how his grandkitten is doing. I think what I’ll miss most is when he’d call me silly nicknames. Meatballs was one. I was especially fond of Sweet Pea. That was the name my grandfather called me when I was in the womb, I believe. He died shortly before I was born. My dad made sure it lived on.

The story that stands out to me the most, though, is the story of when my wife and I first got together. I’d never been in an openly queer relationship and I wasn’t quite sure how my parents would react. I’d “soft” come-out to my mom as a teenager, but she’d initially brushed it off. I had no idea what my dad would say. So when he found out my now-wife and I were dating, he called me up all serious-like, saying “We need to talk.” So he scoops us both up, takes us to the local Coney Island, sits us down, and basically says screw what anyone else says, he loves and supports us unconditionally. That is what real fatherly love looks like. And I’m so glad I got to experience it, even if only for 32 years on this planet. Some folks never get to have a love like that in their lifetime. I know I was greatly blessed.

My greatest regret is he won’t be there for my symbolic wedding to Olivia, whom he also adored. In the last few weeks of his life, all three of us visited him, and it almost felt like getting his blessing. I never outright told him that we were polyamorous, but I feel he knew, and he just wanted me to be happy. He entrusted them with making sure I’m taken care of, and they promised him they’d give me the best life possible. He died knowing I have a strong support system.

My father was my rock, and it’s a little scary to realize I’ll never be able to run to him again. But he’s still there with me, somehow. I’ve been seeing him everywhere. The stupid William Hung cover of “Circle of Life” was playing at the bar when I went with my closest friends the night my dad’s death. At first it felt insulting, but then it felt weirdly poetic. We used to love watching American Idol together when I was little, especially the “bad” auditions. And it made me smile a little. I think he’s watching out for me. He’s got a sense of humor. I know, because I’ve got that same sense of humor. We gave each other dad joke and silly cat calendars for Christmas every year. (He’d send me the best dad jokes when he sent me my mail from home.)

I knew the song had to end eventually, as every song has to end someday. But I’m glad I got to experience the music that was my father’s life. I’m glad I had him to teach me to dance. And now that I can stand on my own two feet, it’s up to me to keep his song and spirit alive.

Here’s to the greatest dad who ever lived.