1.
bob dylan -
i don’t want to lie to you, if someone put a gun to my head and told me to recite a bob dylan song title to stay alive, i would die. i’m a musically inclined person but i fell in love with bruce springsteen sitting in the passenger side of my father’s car when i was very young and i let his soulful influence be the guiding light of my masculine musings. it doesn’t matter because i know i’ve felt the impact of your music despite any recollection of listening to it.
i wouldn’t recognize you on the street but i hear someone talk about bob dylan and inherently i know what they mean. a deep feeling individual who found beauty and abandonment in the trials and errors of loving women and lived to tell the tales. a man who grew up as a boy and learned about life through the mirrors of nature. i can’t remember them but i know i’ve heard your songs on coastal drives and by men at old town beach bars slurring the lyrics with their arms on each others shoulder’s. swaying to the rhythm and singing your words like they know what you’re preaching.
but in my experience as a girl who grew up to be a woman, i think a lot of these men joined in arms and missed the meaning. there is a generation of boys who have grown up to be men in a time when dating became a digital game and options became a fun ride. we’re not stumbling upon loved ones in the back of dark places anymore, we swipe right on them from the loneliness of our couches. we’re lazy about love now and we’re all living alone. we don’t go up to the girl we like with body shakes and a quivering lip and muster up the courage to ask her for a dance. we throw our phone number at them and ghost them when we get home.
men have gone too far in the plight to keep their power and their own control will be the hatchet that buries them. there are hundreds of women waiting to love a man and no men to give love to. they’ve all ran away, vanished and not to be seen again because they’d rather live without love than do something courageous. rights have to be brought to the wrongs and something must give. i’ve been pining my mind trying to think of ways to bridge the divide but maybe i’m not qualififed. maybe what the world needs is another album from bob dylan... for the boys to learn what love is again.
below is a mixtape of writings i’ve curated with you in mind. my family didn’t let me sing in the house but one day, my mother and i met at the bottom of the stairs. i’d elaborately sung a song on my way down the stairs, awfully out of tune, like i was the pope of rome entertaining a crowd, as i usually did when i was young. as i paused for air, my mother said “maybe you could write song lyrics since you can’t sing.” i’ve never written a song but maybe you could help me learn to sing my words.
a side
1. what the audience gives
1. a lover to call my own
2. i’m in the womb
3. anywhere i shadow
3. the cherry blossoms
4. bubble boy
4. suck the blood
5. wet clay
6. dead on arrival
7. valentine’s day
6. there are things in the sky
12. this poem kinda sucks lol
14. you made me an artist
15. the white marble
b side
1. are you happy?
1. as soon as i had a brain
2. will i die if i’m not liked?
3. sorry for bothering
4. champagne in graveyards
5. just a taste
6. poison in my cup
7. my 9
8. you thought i should look sad
13. could’ve been me
16. thinking about all the women.
24. colors of love
greta gerwig -
even though you’re number 1 in my heart, i let bob go first because ladies first never got us anywhere. i’ve never understood how etiquette equates to love or how pulling out a chair for me to sit at the table makes my paycheck the same as the man sitting next to me, but they work awfully hard to convince us that they do. my favorite thing to write up is the people i’ve met and the stories of my life. here are some bits to give you a clue.
1. the “moosh” monster
1. skydivedopehead
1. it’s sunday.
3. climbing the mountain
3. mary
12. a mutiny at the dinner table
14. what happened with nyc
15. nick gradone
15. barf
16. thinking about all the women.
jlo -
i saw that you like humming birds on your instagram and i thought you may find the simplicity of this poem to be thought provoking and warm. i get the sense you’re a very spiritual person and that looking out at nature has also taught you the meaning of life.
3. god would’ve stopped at the humming bird
joe rogan -
i think what makes you most intersting is the depth your scorpio moon + mars brings to your personality. truthfully, i had never heard an episode of your podcast before i decided i didn’t like you. my side of the internet doesn’t like you too much and i never cared enough to understand why. but one day, i was at work and having a conversation between my male coworker and my work crush. me and my coworker were talking about podcasts and my work crush asked if we listened to joe rogan. truthfully, i found this to be a yellow flag but i remained open to the idea because i had a crush on him. the next day i would be laid off from my job, i would get my work crushes number and a few weeks later he would ghost me for the rest of my life. i was so bored without a job i was having to find creative ways to pass the time. i found my crush on spotify and followed him because despite the rejection, i needed new music to listen to. i scrolled up and down and every playlist was the exact same music. spiritual, tribal, raw instruments. the type of music that plays when you treat sex like a ritual of love. eventually, i found his joe rogan playlist which was presumably filled with his favorite episodes of your podcast. i was surprised by their titles and relieved that i felt some intrigue to listen to you. i liked what i heard despite hearing some flaws. i thought your conversation with tarantino was painfully boring and disappointing. it was like a long, elaborate list of movies you both had seen. it felt like you two were quizzing each other on how much you knew about the film industry. less of a back and forth getting to know each other and more of a discussion of your knowledge and worth. i felt tarantino spoke too much and was maybe nervous that he has no personality outside the films he’s made which i think is enough but maybe he doesn’t. you felt warm and he felt defensive.
the reason i’d love to be on your podcast is because right now you are just a man for men and i think you could be better than that. i think all men can be more than just a man. i think men and women should hold arms with each other. i think the most powerful combinations are when a man and a woman use their differences to create something more than themselves. your side of life may think everything’s okay but i can feel a dark current coming and if men don’t start healing the wounds they’ve created, both sexes will die off. we’re not making babies anymore and i want to have a child one day. so what’d you say? let’s do an episode together! we can discuss your sky chart live for an hour <3