PEN15 Club
3/1/19 - We revel in Billy Porter’s tuxedo gown, Jason Momoa’s scrunchie, and Selma Blair’s cane. Watching Pen15 on Hulu is giving us all the middle and high school feels. And, remembering soul singer Jackie Shane.
Transcript below.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.
CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
LINKS
Billy Porter’s tuxedo-gown
Jason Momoa’s scrunchie
Selma Blair’s cane
PEN15 on Hulu
Interview with the creators
Bjork’s “I Miss You”
RIP Jackie Shane
Jackie Shane’s “Any Other Way”
TRANSCRIPT: PEN15 Club
[Ads]
(1:00)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend!
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. On this week's agenda cultural moments we are living for including Oscar red carpet looks like Billy Porter's tuxedo jam, Jason Momoa's scrunchie, and Selma Blair's cane. Also PEN15 and revisiting the traumas of early teendom and an amazing obituary for soul singer Jackie Shane.
[Theme Song]
(1:55)
Aminatou: Aloha, Ann Friedman.
Ann: Hello, hello, hello. How's it going over there?
Aminatou: You know, bodies are struggling but we are here.
Ann: I know. I've been making a quilt, baby's first full-size quilt, so I've been watching a ton of TV and listening to a lot of podcasts lately which is a delight except that I can only kind of half-watch TV or watch things that are focused on the sound or dialogue portion, like that are not heavily visual because I'm not staring at the TV the full time. That's what's going on with me.
Aminatou: I love that.
Ann: What about you?
Aminatou: I cannot watch a lot of TV because a lot of the non-bookwork that I'm doing when I'm not writing this book with you is that I'm unpacking boxes from the apartment that I moved into, hmm, three months ago that I have only lived in for like ten days. So . . .
Ann: Oh, so we're both half-watching TV right now.
Aminatou: Right. Well no, I'm not watching TV at all because I can't do both at the same time. But I'm listening to a lot of records that I know back-to-front because it's the only thing that keeps me going. But what I do want to do is just sit down and watch all the television in the world. So when I feel like I've done a sufficient amount of unpacking I just retreat into my computer.
Ann: Did you watch the Oscars this year?
Aminatou: You know I started off not watching the Oscars and then got sucked in like halfway through. I didn't realize that there wasn't a presenter until . . . you know, I was like this is really breezing through. Why is this less annoying than past years? I was like oh, nobody's presenting this mess. That's why. Do this every year.
Ann: Right. There's no tap-dancing Billy Crystal or whatever taking hours of your time.
Aminatou: Right. There's no like "Hi, we brought some fast food to some regular people. We're on the . . ." You know, thank you. All of that nonsense was gone. So yes, I did watch part of the Oscars. It was less bad than in years that I've watched it.
(3:50)
Ann: Wow. I don't watch every year but I had like a stoner Oscar viewing date with some friends this year. I texted you at the very beginning of the red carpet when I clocked the pink velvet scrunchie on Jason Momoa's wrist which obviously became a thing and rightfully so and you're like "I'm not watching." And fast-forward an hour and I was like "She's tweeting, what are you talking about?" [Laughs]
Aminatou: Yes, because you made me realize it was a thing to watch.
Ann: But yes, oh my god, the scrunchie. Yes please. Remember when it was like -- I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, like everyone had to append the word man to buns. Like it couldn't be just like they're wearing a bun or a ponytail; it had to be a man bun.
Aminatou: It's a man bun.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: Oh my god, was this a man scrunchie?
Ann: Exactly. Well I was going to say I clocked a little bit of progress because no one was like "Jason Momoa's man scrunchie." Everyone was just like "It's a scrunchie." And I was like thank you, no more romphim, no more man bun. We can just call these items what they are no matter who is wearing them. And that felt like this tiny bit of progress on a language level that went unacknowledged.
Aminatou: I'm so impressed that you're seeing a tiny bit of progress in an event that is just mired in lack of progress. I'll take it.
Ann: Listen, I mean I'm not here to argue that the Oscars are not mired in like the worst tendencies of the entertainment industry.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: But, you know -- but also this year also gave us Billy Porter's tux dress. Like what do you call it? What do you call that garment?
Aminatou: First of all it was a gown. It was a tuxedo gown. It was beautiful.
Ann: Okay, tuxedo gown.
Aminatou: It was beautiful. That was one of those things that I saw that on the carpet and I was like everybody should go home because nobody will top this.
Ann: Also made by Christian Siriano who has really made a name for himself in dressing lots of different types of bodies which respect.
Aminatou: Right? It was like way to have a great business model. And also I just love that Billy Porter's, you know, the tuxedo gown was inspired by Hector Extravaganza. I love a gender-norm twisting tuxedo dress look. I also just love a recall to like beautiful ancestors that we have. And, you know, just like generally challenging everybody's idea of what is okay to wear. Also did you notice that it was definitely -- what are those called when you can rip the thing off?
(6:15)
Ann: Yes, it was sort of like a peplum thing, a removable peplem. I don't know what it's actually called.
Aminatou: Right. Like what is it called when the pants do it? Like a rip-away? A throwaway?
Ann: A tearaway?
Aminatou: A tearaway. That's a word for that. I was like excuse me?
Ann: What is it called when the pants do it? [Laughs]
Aminatou: It was beautiful. Also did you see the hotel room next day? Like Billy Porter in his hotel, just in bed drinking champagne? It was glorious.
Ann: It was so perfect. Also did you see the photo of him in the tuxedo gown like in a golf cart headed to the red carpet where it was just layers and layers of velvet spilling out over the sides? It was amazing.
Aminatou: 100%. Also more importantly the GIF of the night, did you see Glenn Close looking at the gown and losing her mind?
Ann: Yes.
Aminatou: We're going to link to all of these in the show notes, P.S.
Ann: I did and it was incredible and honestly if I had been able to witness this look in real life I would have given the same glance that Glenn did, 100%. It was like a list of -- like a look of both lust for that look and respect for it and appreciation.
Aminatou: I loved it. Glenn Close dressed like an Oscar but did not win an Oscar.
Ann: [Sighs] Did you hear her say that her beaded look was like 40-plus pounds of sequins?
Aminatou: Oh, trust. Trust. As a half tuned-in person this year I did not love a lot of the looks on this carpet which is also why Billy Porter will have my heart forever.
Ann: Well it's interesting because I think I used to be someone who was perhaps more appreciative of just a nice gown, you know what I mean? Like oh, this is a pretty gown. I think that in years past maybe that would've been enough for me to be like okay, that's a good look. And this year I'm like we are deep in a really horrible presidential era, like shit is under attack. Maybe just kind of a gender-confirming pretty look is not enough and maybe I'm more excited by either going way over-the-top like Linda Cardellini's pink puff ball situation or something that feels more gender-transgressive or more arty frankly than just this is a nice gown.
(8:30)
Aminatou: I know. I really yearn for the day that starlets will really challenge a little more what expectations of them are on the carpet. I understand the reasons that they don't and the double standard that is there with how men and women dress but the fact that the carpet is so gender-normy is exactly the problem. And so hopefully that day will come. Hopefully it will come but it needs to come sooner.
Ann: Yeah. In prepping for last week's interview I was re-reading some old Gloria Steinem essays and there was an aside in something from the '80s about how androgyny is becoming more acceptable -- this is her words -- but it's always interpreted as tending towards traditional masculine dress. So anyone in a suit is coded as androgynous. It historically has not been someone like Billy Porter in a tuxedo gown, right? And we'll link to a Vogue interview that Billy Porter did where he talks about this a little bit, of actually gender neutrality does not mean defaulting to a masculine look; it kind of means everybody playing in a lot of different directions. And I think there were a few good nods this year towards what a future could look like where everyone is playing around with all of their gendered options.
(9:45)
Aminatou: Love it. You know, one look that I loved, loved, loved in all of the photo coverage of the parties after was Selma Blair. Selma Blair is my queen. Forever and ever and ever I love all of the wackadoodle choices that she makes. And recently she disclosed that she was given an MS diagnosis and she has been very generous and open about talking about her illness and talking about disability. And she does it in this very straightforward, open, matter-of-fact way, keeps it super real, and she acknowledges the amount of pain she's in which it's just been very touching to read about. And watching her waltz down this Vanity Fair party scene and she has this glorious cane that she is wearing was -- it made me tear up so much. We think a lot about disability as something you have to overcome, that's always the language around it, and I love in just this very strong visual she completely shatters that. And it's like nope, I'm here. Here is my cane. This is me. This is my pain. I'm also a human being who does human being things and you don't get to define me. I thought it was just really beautiful.
There's a great interview that she gave in Vanity Fair that we will link in the show notes and then her Good Morning America interview with Robin Roberts, also iconic. You know, and in both she talks about how she was really scared about talking about being sick because she thought that it meant that people would not hire her to work. And watching her really push back against that is great.
Ann: 100%. And also, you know, still serving us iconic looks. To go back to our runway conversation I mean just looking 100% incredible and like fully in charge of her choices and her aesthetic in a way that is, yeah, pretty fucking inspiring.
(11:45)
Aminatou: I love this. Cane is such a strong look. The look is strong. Love Selma Blair forever. I'm excited about this era of Selma Blair work. It's going to be iconic.
[Ads]
(14:42)
Ann: Tell me what else you're excited about.
Aminatou: So the other thing that I'm doing when I'm not unpacking is watching TV at the end of the day and just retreating into the fact that my house is a mess. I've been watching PEN15, this Hulu teen -- like millennial teen girl situation. And it is . . .
Ann: Wait, is it PEN15? PEN 1-5? Penis?
Aminatou: PEN15. It's Penis, Ann. I've been watching Penis, the Hulu's new comedy Penis. [Laughs] And it's really -- like I can't even talk about it because it's two things. It's like 1) I'm like yes, I am so happy that there is a middle school girl gross-out comedy and at the same time it is triggering every single middle school memory that I have and it's too much to watch. [Laughs]
Ann: So the . . . just a little bit about the show, the creators who also star in it are IRL friends who are in their early 30s and they play -- their adult selves, them today, they play themselves in seventh grade. And all of the other actors cast as their castmates are actual seventh graders which is usually very funny. Occasionally super cringe worthy and sometimes I'm like oh my god, they are . . . I do not know how they're getting away with this kind of thing. But by-and-large the fact that they are so conspicuous in these adult bodies actually does the job of making you -- or at least making me tap into feeling so conspicuous in a newly semi-adult body as an actual 13-year-old.
(16:30)
Aminatou: That's so real. And obviously in this family we love watching Big Mouth. [Laughs]
Ann: Maya Rudolph forever and ever and ever, amen.
Aminatou: My Rudolph forever, like hormone monster feelings forever. And, you know, we've watched Big Mouth as Team CYG together as a delightful post-tour how do we turn our brains off? And I cannot believe in all of my enjoyment and watching of that it had not occurred to me that there was a possibility that there could be something like Big Mouth centered around young women's bodies. And every episode of Penis -- PEN15 -- every episode of PEN15 challenges everything that I think I know about just how gendered our expression of sexuality is for young girls. And it's been -- like I cannot tell you how much I cringe at watching the show. I cringe and I laugh at the same time and it truly is hysterical. I just don't . . . I don't know. Well played. Well played, Hulu.
Ann: So wait, okay, tell me. Who was 13-year-old Aminatou? What are the cringe triggers in this show specifically for you? Because I feel like I have a few of mine.
Aminatou: So I am only two years removed from where these beautiful humans are because this is in 2000. In 2000 I was in tenth grade so it still holds pretty true. The places that this show has taken me that I just could not believe are 1) The school band and choir situation. [Laughs] Like I actually . . .
(18:15)
Ann: Taking you back to your flutist years?
Aminatou: Oh my god, baby Amina playing flute and also I couldn't sing so I did not join choir because choir was social suicide at my school. But I was also -- and that is an utterance I have made. You know, everybody was in choir except for me. All the girls were in choir except for me because I was the only one who couldn't sing. The Performance -- I think it's the fourth episode -- really, really, really destroyed me. I just remember looking at other friends who were very musically gifted and I'm feeling hopeless or having a few days to learn a part that you should've just been practicing for like months and months and months, and then that tension of like my dad coming or not coming to the school thing is something -- it was too much. It was just like too . . . it was too much. It was just too much. The performance aspects of middle school were just I couldn't -- I could not handle.
Ann: I have to say that like I picture you as like a forever-cool person, like more Lizzo with the flute than like Dan nerd with the flute.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: Because truly it's a funny thing when there are friends who you've only known as adults who truly I'm like you've just been forever cool to me. It's very difficult for me to picture any awkwardness.
Aminatou: Listen. Listen, I know that I was cool in middle school. I just don't think there was consensus from other people that I was cool. And also there's no way to get out of middle school without a thousand humiliations and so that's what it was. Also the opening scene where Maya's mom gives her a bowl cut slayed me because I did not have a bowl cut but this thing of your mom fixing . . .
Ann: You did in the early aughts when it was cute and alt. [Laughs]
(20:00)
Aminatou: I did. I brought it back in the early aughts. I did not have one in middle school. But just this thing of making a very bad style decision like giving yourself layers or whatever or like bad bangs then your mom has to fix it in an immigrant mom kind of way, like that also was too much for me to handle. I was like this, this is a lot, a lot, a lot. Maya and Anna's friendship is so cute because they pump each other a lot and they reassure each other all the time but truly they're just mired in self-doubt and they don't know what they're doing. [Laughs] That was a lot. Or when Maya gets called the ugliest girl in school that really destroyed me. It really, really destroyed me. Like going back to that era. Not that adults don't do this; we've obviously seen this in our adult lives. But that instinct of like ranking people and just how -- and how much more devastating it is at that age because your world is so much smaller also. It's just a little . . .
Ann: Yeah, it really gets at the cruelty.
Aminatou: Ugh, you know, it's a lot. But also remembering that Maya and Anna can also be cruel, you know? Where they're like "I'm not as ugly as XYZ" or whatever. [Laughs] Like everybody has their own line. Another thing that show brought out so much is it's like the masturbation episode is so good. It's so good and it's so trasnsgressive because it's like oh. I was like Big Mouth kind of does this but it's a cartoon. This is real life young girls getting stimulated by truly anything which is also hilarious. I was like yes! The spectrum of things that turn on young girls is mad. It's amazing. Like the double standard between expectations around young girls' sexuality and the shame they feel about it and young men's when it's like it's an expectation that they will explore that part of their body and their sexuality. Really that was very painful to watch.
(22:00)
Ann: Yeah, and it really made me wonder how much some of this is changing if at all because I obviously didn't talk openly to my friends in junior high or early high school about how often we were all rubbing one out, right? Like that was not this open . . .
Aminatou: In very unglamorous places. [Laughs]
Ann: Oh please, are you kidding? Yes. I just find myself wondering for daughters of some maybe awesome feminist parents or maybe kids who were growing up with decent sex ed, things like getting your period are maybe destigmatized a little bit from generations past. And I wonder about other expressions of sexuality and I wonder if today it's still seen as incredibly gross and shameful that a young girl would be horny all the time whereas her male peers are already starting to watch porn together. That is a scene from that episode as well of the boys kind of being open about starting to have a sexual identity and the girls are being very pushed to keep it to themselves, have a lot of shame around it. I mean that whole episode is about the shame that Maya feels because she's jerking off all the time.
Aminatou: And yeah, you know, but also it's so visceral in this way where you just see her wiping her hands across the carpet or humping the pillow. And I'm like this is real. This is so real and I am screaming and cringing and loving it at the same time.
Ann: Yeah. The episode that I really related to the most is the t-hong episode.
Aminatou: Oh my god. [Laughs] I thought about you when I saw that.
(23:50)
Ann: Not because of the specific -- not because of their relationship to this thong that . . . so the plot summary which is not a spoiler is that they come into possession, the two of them, they come to posses a single thong between them. And when they wear it they feel this sense of like, you know, extreme sexual power and confidence when they walk down the halls of the school. And it's like this talisman almost, you know? It's this symbol, this loaded symbol of adult femininity or something like that. And I did not have any t-hong experiences when I was 13 but I do relate to that feeling of there are certain items that have almost mythic power because they represent a femininity that is only associated with adults or that is primarily associated with sex and being a sexual being and that I did not have access to or I couldn't express interest in openly.
Like for me it was more like makeup and baby tees. I remember I bought a baby tee at the mall once and it was like maybe a little bit of belly was exposed because I have a long torso. And I remember my mother being like "Are you really going to look like that?" Not so much in the sense of you young harlot or whatever but more in the sense of almost judging that I was trying to get ahead of myself sexually or something like that. Like I remember a lot of shame over wanting to wear that. I remember a lot of shame over wanting to wear mascara or something like that and reaching for certain things that now as an adult are no big deal. Like sure, wear a thong I you want. Wear mascara if you want. Wear a belly-revealing shirt if you want. It's just like a funny . . . it really put me back in a specific emotional place.
Aminatou: It just means so much. Like for me that was always I loved showing a little bit of bra strap so I love that Anna does it. [Laughs] And I remember as a middle schooler definitely always being like oh yeah, I wear a bra. Here's a tiny bit of strap, like it was always showing. And I remember going to the mall to buy a shirt that was definitely too sheer. I don't know how I got away with wearing it because my parents let me . . .
(26:00)
Ann: Wow, you and the sheer shirts forever.
Aminatou: I know! But it's the kind of thing where today now I'm like that's hadam (?). I can't wear that shirt. [Laughter]
Ann: And you do anyway.
Aminatou: I know, and I do anyway. But I can't believe that my parents let me get away with it and I can't believe it was a shirt that I had the confidence to wear. But I also remember just that tension of you wore the thing and because it made you feel good in your body, it made you feel -- or it made you feel adult or you were doing something you were getting away with, but at the same time I could never handle the attention that came with it. That was always a line that I was negotiating with myself, like I just did not know. The other thing that I endlessly appreciate about Maya and Anna being 31 and all of these boys being 13 or whatever it is truly that reality of like all of the boys I had crushes on at that time were the tenth of my size. They were always these tiny, small human beings and all of the girls that I knew were growing at astronomical rates. And so that always just kills me and makes me laugh. It makes me very happy.
Ann: 100%. 100%.
Aminatou: It makes me very happy.
Ann: That feeling of being like too big for the world or being this like overgrown beast is a feeling that I definitely had at that age. It's interesting because in their interview they say that they wanted to make the show because they went to a party together as adults and were feeling many awkward feelings that they had thought were perhaps relegated to their junior high selves. And they realized this stuff keeps recurring. And one of the great pleasures of watching this show is being able to do some self-excavation of like okay, what are the things from my teen and preteen experience that keep recurring? That I still continue to feel? And that feeling of oh god, I'm wearing a baby tee before I'm fully ready is occasionally something I experience where I'm like okay, I'm going to push this fashion boat out a little bit further than maybe I'm comfortable and see if I'm ready.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
(28:10)
Ann: You know, or that feeling of being like the biggest person in the room. Some of that stuff really is deep in there, you know? It's really embedded.
Aminatou: Right, that's so funny. The thing too that I love is again it's content about late bloomers, you know? And everybody just keeps saying that they're a late bloomer and now I'm just like are we just all -- did we just all bloom on time and American Pie lied to us about when you were supposed to be peaking? All of this media that is -- especially this teenage stuff that's like made by men for men. That imagery and iconography just does not exist for us and so I love that things like this show are creating that.
Ann: Right. Like Sweet Valley High they were not wiping the fluid off their fingers into the carpet, you know what I mean? [Laughs]
Aminatou: Babysitter's Club. [Laughs]
Ann: Yeah, Babysitter's Club was not about -- well actually maybe there was some attempts in Babysitter's Club to talk about for example racism and how it plays out in teen popular politics. I don't actually remember. But that's another great example of things that you're like wow, in retrospect with the modern politics I have some things going on are so starkly obvious. And when you are muddling through it without much language for describing that experience you're having whether it's sexuality or racism or stuff about your body, whatever it might be, it's really difficult in real-time.
(29:48)
Aminatou: Right. Also, yeah, the racial politics of the show also really made me very emotional. Maya's relationship with her family and her own Japanese heritage and Anna learning wokeness in real-time on AOL and just like all of the ways that we hurt each other or don't have a vocabulary for what we're feeling. It made me incredibly emotional.
Ann: Yeah. Okay, I'm also curious because given what you were just saying about media or narratives not always reflecting teen girl experiences is there something that you remember reading or watching when you were a teenager that you felt really seen by?
Aminatou: No, I was reading the Economist when I was a teenager. [Laughs]
Ann: Oh my god, I'm throwing this microphone across the room. I don't even believe you. This is why I thought you were like Lizzo with the flute, not awkward person with the flute. I'm like you have always been the coolest.
Aminatou: Listen, honestly I don't remember reading anything where I felt seen but I remember reading a lot -- I remember reading and watching things where I was like oh, my entire experience of being in middle school and especially in high school was just one of I cannot wait for this to be over. Like I'm just biding my time, you know?
Ann: Same.
Aminatou: And it wasn't traumatic at all. All of the middle school and high school indignities happened to me but I truly didn't care. That's like the good thing about going to a very small school when you are as emotionally cocky as me is looking at all these people and going okay, I'm sorry but you don't get to be the arbiter of what is good or bad. We're all going into a bigger world where I will find my people. But I also just don't remember looking at any media where I was like oh, I'm an international, black, fat person. What is -- where am I feeling seen? I don't remember that at all. But I do remember reading a lot of feminist texts and being like oh, these people think like me and one day I will be around people who think like this. So that experience of feeling very seen reading something or watching something, that didn't happen to me until I want to say three Sundances ago when I watched a French movie. It's like oh, this is wild. But yeah.
Ann: Aww.
(32:20)
Aminatou: When did you have this experience? Tell me.
Ann: Well I don't know. I really -- I was super high recently and revisiting Bjork's Post which was an album that was very important to me in my early teen years and there's a song on that album that is essentially about longing for someone you haven't met yet. Or it's not about teen longing in the sense of I have a crush on you person sitting two desks over from me but it was more like I realize, much like you were saying, that the bigger world is waiting for me and I will find things and people who make sense to me outside this fish bowl that I'm currently in. It's called I Miss You, LOL, and it's like a dancy, fun song.
Aminatou: Aww.
Ann: But I remember listening to that song and just feeling very seen.
[Music]
Ann: You know, she is not like ugh, why won't he love me longing in that Romeo and Juliet style way that was very ascendant when I was a teenager? It's basically like her singing about how she thinks she's cool and great and someday someone is going to appreciate that too. And that is 100% where I was because the thing I don't relate to in PEN15, PEN 1-5 Penis, is the fact that they really are extremely hungry for the approval of their classmates. And I remember being very stung by being made fun of by my classmates but I don't ever remember being like their approval is the important thing. I didn't think they were that cool, you know what I mean?
Aminatou: Yeah.
(34:10)
Ann: I was like Bjork is cool. You are not that cool. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Definitely not.
Ann: So yeah.
Aminatou: I really relate with that and I think that is a -- you know, now I just have the interlude of I miss you stuck in my head. [Laughs]
Ann: I mean maybe Gina can play a clip for us.
[Music]
Aminatou: Isn't that when she says "When will I get my cuddle? Who are you?"
Ann: When will I get my cuddle? Oh my god.
Aminatou: Thank you.
Ann: Then she says "Who are you?" and it's like yes, like I am not in love with this floppy-haired boy two desks over. I am in love with some faceless future person.
Aminatou: I know. That's the thing. It's like whenever I watch these middle school or high school nostalgia content I just don't feel values-aligned. And not in the sense where I don't think -- I think that it is truly a different strokes for different folks -- strokes, LOL -- different strokes for different folks kind of situation here because I so did not care about the approval of my peers. I just did not care at all. And it's not to say everybody was bad. There are people I went to high school with who listen to this podcast. You're fine.
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: It wasn't that. It's just from the time that I remember being a person who had my own thoughts I was so focused on the future, just always wanted to be older, always wanted to not be where I was. And I think also for me so much of that was tied into everywhere that I lived with so . . . it was like my parents' job. My dad's job was the driver for the entire lifestyle that we had. All I wanted was to make my own decisions, whether it was where will I live? Which granted every child has that. I think for me it just presented in this very specific kind of way. I was so focused on being an older person, like I wanted to be 18 the entire time I could think after I was born. And then once I was 18 I was like I can't wait to be 30 and now I'm very focused on 65.
Ann: [Laughs]
(36:18)
Aminatou: [Laughs] So it's just this is who I am. There was nobody that I wanted to be such good friends with in middle school that it also altered my feelings about that. But you know also what it was is that I just did not have -- I didn't have a person like that like Maya and Anna have for each other. My Maya or my Anna was a composite of many different people but there was never just like one person that I'm like I'm experiencing all of life with you. I was never a pair probably until I got to college. And I was like okay, I am now experiencing all of the middle school feels that a lot of people got out of the system a long time ago. I'm doing that in reverse.
Ann: Ugh, see, actually I was in a Maya/Anna dynamic in high school -- shout out to Bridget who's still one of my best, best besties. But you would have to put some black lipstick on one of them and make her more sullen and detached from the world of high school in a different way than I was. But 100% I relate with the kind of beautiful co-dependence of the tween girlhood.
Aminatou: Oh my god. Did you guys go to the dance together?
Ann: Oh my god, did we not go to the dance. Are you kidding?
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: No, we did not go to dances. We did not go to farm kids drinking by a bonfire events like the cool kids did. Like we watched Absolutely Fabulous and played Tetris and got stoned and drank soda together. That's what we did.
Aminatou: That's so funny. Were you also friends -- you know what, I take it back. I was in a friendship like that, like I did have one year of that, but that's because I was always friends with kids who were older. I did have that in high school, shout-out to Agnes, and then she granted on me and I had to be in that place for myself for two years. It was awful.
Ann: Oof.
(38:00)
Aminatou: I think part of the reason that this also never resonates with me is I was always friends with older kids. [Laughs]
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: Then I had to navigate that cruel, cruel world by myself. So it's fine.
Ann: I also have a disproportionate number of friends, even today, who are in that kind of like three to four years older than I am range. Not everyone but a disproportionate number for sure.
Aminatou: Totally. I also really liked being by myself. That was the other thing. That's something that has not changed. I've always greatly enjoyed my own company.
Ann: Oh, 100%. Like me in my room for hours just pushing around candles that I had. I'm like how did my parents let me have so many lit candles? It was like a weird-ass altar in there.
Aminatou: Tell me where baby Ann was buying candles. This is cracking me up. What kind of candles are you talking?
Ann: At the thrift store or garage sales. I did all of my shopping.
Aminatou: Were they like cool candles or were they just candles? Like what was going on?
Ann: What do you mean? Cool candles didn't happen until well into the 2000s. This was probably just holiday decorative candles I bought and assembled to just burn stuff and push the wax around while I was bored in my room alone making mix tapes. Not even kidding.
Aminatou: You know, I was talking to a friend who is a parent right now and we were supposed to hang out -- shout-out to the parents who do a lot, they raise the babies -- but there was just no time to hang out that week because there were so many activities. There were just so many activities. The kids do so many activities. And this friend has older kids. They're teenagers. And I was talking to her about this and I'm like "You know what? I just feel that kids today are not allowed to be bored anymore." So much of my childhood was being bored and I want to say that some of my best ideas and my best time came from not having to do anything at all.
(39:45)
Ann: I'm pretty sure that this is an Atlantic/New York Times Sunday Review, like let your kids be bored more. I'm sure I have read that at some point.
Aminatou: Oh my god, somebody should write it because the kids are not bored. The kids are always doing activities and it's not cool. Mostly it's not cool for me because I'm friends with your parents and I would like to hang out with them so stop doing activities.
Ann: Ugh. I feel like we have gone so far into our teen self rabbit hole. We were like . . .
Aminatou: I know!
Ann: I guess that's what watching a show like this is about though is it's not just watching the show; it's about watching your own teen self and clearly that's what we're both doing.
Aminatou: I know. You know, and American Pie doesn't make me feel that way. Even Big Mouth that I love doesn't make me feel that way so shout-out to PEN15, Penis, PEN 1-5. You are doing it. That just -- it feels good to be seen in a small and a big way.
Ann: So before we go I just want to shout-out to a fantastic obit that I read this week for the soul singer Jackie Shane. Are you familiar with her?
Aminatou: Of course, Jackie Shane, the best. I did not know a lot about Jackie Shane though until I read this obit which made me very sad.
[Music]
Ann: So last year they re-released some of her older records including this song Any Other Way which I listened to a lot and played out. I was clearly not reading the press about Jackie Shane. I did not know that she was a trans woman and she had been giving some later-in-life interviews including a profile in the New York Times in 2017 where the wisdom that she is coming out with is just incredible. She's like a one-woman Pinterest mood board of amazing quotes including this idea of what you were born to be or where you are born does not have to determine who you are for the rest of your life. I mean she immigrated to Canada after she witnessed some acts of racialized violence in the US and basically never looked back and she did an interview with the CBC right before she died where she said "Most people are planted in someone else's soil which means they're a carbon copy. I say to them uproot yourself. Get into your own soil. You may be surprised who you really are." You know I love a plant metaphor for life.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Can't wait until the people read our book, planet metaphor every four lines. No, I really love that. I love a good obituary that is actually chronicling people -- the people of our times who are doing fantastic things and not just old white men that we're supposed to know about.
Ann: Yeah, 100%.
Aminatou: This is great.
Ann: And we'll link to the obit so you can read it which links to a bunch of other great articles and interviews with Jackie Shane whose music you should also check out. I mean a soul icon.
Aminatou: A soul icon. It's the best.
Ann: All right, and I guess I'll see you on the Internet then.
Aminatou: I'll see you in person boo-boo.
Ann: Oh my god, you're so right. Book Zone. I'll see you at the Book Zone.
Aminatou: I'll see you in the Book Zone. You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.