Free Man in Paris

Every once in a while, in the course of watching TV on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon, I stumble upon a truly brilliant series. The latest example? Girls. That Lena Dunham! Hilarious, unabashed, edgy, and unafraid to confront hard issues.

Tonight's episode featured Lena digging into sexual assault, and she did SUCH a brilliant job with it. My boyfriend and I argued about it, because he wondered whether the man was really wrong to do what he did, and I felt it emphatically true that he was. There was an age difference and a power dynamic -- not a level playing field by any sense of the phrase.

Thank you, Lena, for making people squirm while watching this timeless, ubiquitous, and ultimately destructive practice unfold. This is necessary if, as a society, we're going to stop shaming and blaming victims while making excuses for perpetrators.

Speaking of heroes, the soundtrack to the episode tonight featured a gorgeous song from one of mine:

The way I see it he said
You just can't win it
Everybody's in it for their own gain
You can't please 'em all
There's always somebody calling you down
I do my best and I do good business
There's a lot of people asking for my time
They're trying to get ahead
They're trying to be a good friend of mine

I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favours
And no one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song

I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If l had my way
I'd just walk through those doors
And wander down the Champs Elysees
Going café to cabaret
Thinking how I'll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine

Badass Woman

Today I went to the Women in Leadership symposium, and the keynote speaker starting talking about the sexual assault she survived in her childhood. I watched while people around me started to squirm uncomfortably, grateful that this woman had the courage to share her story. She talked about how it took away her joy, and her personal agency, and how she got it back. It wasn't perfectly told to serve as a keynote at this particular conference -- the ties to leadership were not really made -- but I think we have to start somewhere with talking about the sexual assault that keeps so many people from shining with their whole selves and what can be done about it.

This woman's story was that in order to be at peace with what happened to her, she had to go back to the scene where it happened and face her fear. How this helped her remember the joy she embodied before the assault, and what it might look like to reclaim it. She also talked about how empowering it was for her, when this same man was accused of a crime, to tell her story in order to round out the picture of who this man was so that he did not get released prematurely. How the combination of these two things helped her reclaim her life.

How her theme song is Badass Woman:

I’m a badass woman (Ooh)
What’s wrong with that?
Can’t hold me back
Yeah, I’m a badass woman
Just made like that
But I’m proud of that
‘Cause I’m a badass woman

Never second guess me
‘Cause, baby, I’m the boss
Don’t underestimate me
‘Cause I’m the one in charge

I am smarter than you give me credit for
And I’m way stronger than I ever been before
I’m a force of nature that you can’t ignore
You can’t ignore, you can’t ignore no more

As for me, I'm still working on telling my story. I'm still discovering what it takes to reclaim my joy.

And my theme song is everchanging...

'Til It Happens To You

I decided pretty spur of the moment to go visit my friends in Milwaukee last night, and I was extra glad I did when I realized that the Oscars were on. I haven't seen them in a few years -- not having a TV means I'm not as aware of when these things are on and don't have a good way to watch it.

I didn't see as many movies last year as I usually do or would've liked -- hopefully some new movie dates will come into my life in 2016 -- and in a lot of ways I would have been fine with giving the Oscars a miss again this year.

But then Joe Biden took the stage to talk about the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, and introduced Lady Gaga who gave what might have been the most powerful performance I've ever seen of 'Til it happens to you:

You tell me "it gets better, it gets better,
in time"
You say I'll pull myself together, pull it together,
"You'll be fine"
Tell me what the hell do you know,
What do you know,
Tell me how the hell could you know,
How! could you know

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How it feels,
How it feels.
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real
No It won't be real
Won't know how it feels

You tell me "hold your head up"
Hold your head up and be strong
Cause when you fall, you gotta get up
You gotta get up and move on."

Tell me, how the hell could you talk,
How could you talk?
Cause until you walk where I walk,
It's just all talk.

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How it feels,
How it feels.
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real (how could you know?)
No It won't be real (how could you know?)
Won't know how I feel

Till your world burns and crashes
Till you're at the end, the end of your rope
Till you're standing in my shoes, I don't wanna hear nothing from you
From you, from you, cause you don't know

Wow. Just Wow. I could tell by the way she sang it that she herself had been sexually assaulted, and indeed, she was, when she was 19 years old:

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How I feel
How I feel
How I feel
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real (how could you know?)
No It won't be real (how could you know?)
Won't know how It feels

My own assault happened when I was much younger, and one of the reasons I'm writing a memoir is so that people to whom this has happened will feel they have a voice, in the same way Lady Gaga gave the survivors she shared a stage with a voice:

Till it happens to you, happens to you,
Happens to you.
Happens to you, happens to you,
Happens to you ( how could you know?)

But it's also so that people who haven't been through it will know, or at least understand a little better, how it feels:

Till it happens to you, you won't know how I feel