Oh Wincott, don’t you know that you’re insane?

What’s the best dadrock for dads? Because I’m a proud father of a beautiful son with my beautiful girlfriend. Love is all you need indeed. Have a great weekend.

How the fuck does anyone vote for Ted Cruz for anything. Oh and another thing: Fuck you Liberaterians. You’ve gone from useless to counterproductive in the span of one evening. You’re a bunch of shitbags.

Brohemian Rhapsody

It’s so strange. The first time I went to the cemetery where Morrison is buried I was 22. My brother and I decided to go to Europe and, as I’m sure a lot of Americans do, we went to the Père Lachaise Cemetery (a place everyone should go, regardless of age, just to experience both it’s beauty and the insane amount of geniuses buried there ((also Jim Morrison))). Anyway, the first time we went the grave was an absolute mob scene. People were dancing, some dude was playing guitar, and I’m pretty sure there were multiple criers. Flash foward ten years later, and I went back to the cemetery (really go. Oscar Wilde is buried there. So what if it makes you feel like a tourist? You are a tourist. No one actually thinks you are French. Look at your clothes!) and, hand to God, it was actually kind of difficult even to find it. And when we got there, the piles of cigarettes and flowers and burning incense were totally absent. It’s like everyone moved on. It made me sad, so I left the Heineken I’d bought from the street vendor in tribute.

But I went back and got it. Because I like beer.

Meditated on this further, and like damn what a good role model she is for girls.

This past week, I called my mom and she told me for the I swear 15th time that she’s leaving her emotionally manipulative (to put it kindly) husband, only to post on Facebook yesterday that she’s back with him. It’s like this pattern that she keeps going back to, continuously perpetuating dysfunction that she bore witness to with her parents’ and her relatives’ relationships. This has happened with like the past 3 people she was with as well. Emotional manipulation (if not also abuse), with guys who shit talk all their exes and blame all of their problems and shortcoming on them, taking no responsibility for themselves, their relationship, or their mental health and placing that burden at the hands of the women in their life. Women, especially from older generations,who felt an immense pressure to get married and start families, often with men much older than themselves who sought relationships with teenage or barely adult girls (Not my mom specifically, but so many women in her parents generation who had impressions on her). Women who were then expected to just submit to the will of these men bc the Bible and their church and all the men and women in their lives told them that this is what you’re supposed to do to have a happy life. Pressured to go into every relationship expecting marriage to result. Blaming themselves if the relationship goes wrong. Being hateful and resentful towards past people they’ve dated (sometimes rightfully, but sometimes bc it’s just what’s expected, and like besides the men do it too.)

She didn’t have an Ariana Grande to tell her that it’s natural and normal for a relationship to end which needs to end. She didn’t have an Ariana Grande to show her that what’s important is that you learn something about yourself and why this relationship didn’t work, and not to just internalize and fall back into the same patterns with a similar guy. She didn’t have an Ariana Grande showing that there is more to life than resentment and codependent relationships. She didn’t have an Ariana Grande telling her she’s worthy of love and that the relationship she has with herself is perhaps the most important one of all. The media she had as an impressionable child didn’t allow her to see beyond the dysfunction and abuse she witnessed and experienced as a child and young adult.

It’s been hard for me bc as my mom’s child, it’s inappropriate for me to be her therapist or relationship counselor, especially when I’ve never had a successful relationship myself (partly due to watching how all of her relationships have played out), and especially when her relationships have an effect on my life in some ways as her child. But it’s like her support network outside of me is unstable or ineffective a lot of the time. Married childhood friends who shut her out when she’s single or facing relationship problems, bc their husbands are afraid a single woman will make them cheat, or bc they think her “drama” is contagious. Churchgoing friends who can only offer her biblical advice about “sticking with the marriage even when it’s tough, bc it’s what god wants for you to do.” Except when they say “tough” they mean “toxic.” And she’s afraid of being honest and open with an actual therapist, bc she’s afraid of mental health stigma and also her traumas are really severe and painful to confront. So she’s been using me instead of a therapist since I was like 9 yrs old to now to process all of the trauma she’s endured and to work through all of her relationship problems, and reading Christian self help books. And it’s like the complex and the anxiety has been passed down to me.

Fortunately I’ve made lots of friends in healthy relationships, and I’m learning from her mistakes, even if I am existentially terrified at the prospect of entering into a relationship even though I really want that for myself. Plus internalized transphobia and homophobia. But I’m never going to put any of this on my kids (if I have them) like she did to me. I’m stopping the cycle.

This is a really roundabout way of saying that I realize that artists giving examples like this can’t solve everything or save every impressionable girl in this situation. But damn she has legions of young girls and gays who hang on to every word she says, and it makes me so hopeful that she’s giving them such good life and relationship advice through songs like this and the way she carries herself. That has to be such a hard thing to do on her part, dealing with all this painful shit in the public eye. But I’m so glad that the generation z versions of girls like my mom can at least look at one of the biggest pop stars of their generation and see a model for healthy relationships, setting boundaries, leaving toxic relationships, self love/care/affirmation especially in the face of trauma, and growing as a person through each tribulation, if they don’t have someone in their lives showing them that. I admire her so much because of this.

❤️ Bless

My position is: If I didn’t know the album existed when I wrote last week’s AOTW, then it’s eligible for this week’s. And since I came up with the damn column and have written literally hundreds of them, I get to make the rules.

Fun fact that I couldn’t fit in the column: Ariana released “thank u, next” 20 years to the day after Alanis Morisette released Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, which contains one song called “Thank U” and another (“Unsent”) on which Alanis name-checks a bunch of her exes.

Oh phew, the headline made me think he did something homophobic which would’ve been severely disappointing. I’m glad he’s bringing more attention to it, that security guard is a fucking bigoted lunatic.

Good on her. Repubs shouldn’t be able to simultaneously chide famous figures who support progressive policies and their “New York California Hollywood Coastal Liberal Elite” values while using their artistic output and cultural relevancy to promote themselves and their agenda.

Literally, they should just soundtrack their rallies with “Bawitdaba” and “Cat Scratch Fever” and that rapper, Whiteboy. See how far that gets them.

❤️ Bless

I don’t know about eye rolling, but it the Go Vote stuff is getting exhausting. We get it, we know. There’s some implication we’re unaware or just stupid with all the badgering from every direction, particularly in places it doesn’t belong, like here.

I don’t think “disappointment” is the feeling against homophobia in your own show.

Should we further alienate white women from the democratic party by lumping them all into one bucket?

Intro paragraph was eye-roll inducing.

Please dont.

I could see the argument for giving Classical Gas any number from 5 to 10.