The Moment I Became a Lady Gaga Fan

I’ve liked Lady Gaga’s music for years. She’s a beautiful and interesting creature. Her work ethic is one of those crazy unparalleled missions that exhausts me just thinking about it.

A Star Is Born has been on billboards all over town. Hadn’t really given it much thought one way or the other. I mean, it’s the remake of the remake of the original 1937 movie.

Thursday night Lady Gaga was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. I wasn’t sleeping, as per usual, and was finally tapping into my CBS All Access subscription.

What happened next was mystifying. This woman’s attitude and openness was not only unexpected as I kind of thought it would be the typical beginning of the Oscar campaign, but poignant and emotional without drama or flair. She stated her mind and paid beautiful homage to one of the bravest women in the country, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. In the process she reduced me to tears, not difficult, I know. But this was a deep wrenching gut twisting realization that women are not alone. I am not alone.

Not to mention she left Colbert speechless. Has that ever happened before?

And yet, as of yesterday, Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, was confirmed. The world just keeps getting scarier.

The elections are one month away. All voices, those with national platforms and those with tiny blogs, must vote. In the end, that is our loudest voice.

The very least we can do.

photo stolen with respect from ktla 5

I’m afraid. A lot.

Things don’t usually get to me. But lately, I don’t know. There’s just so much going on that feels on beyond.

Control is an illusion. I get that. Somehow the violence in the world is now infiltrating my neighborhood in a way that I never imagined.

My life is one of privilege, make no mistake. I am white. I am educated. I am extremely lucky to have had my parents who raised me to be who I am.

I am also a woman fed up with our misogynistic society and yet still unsure sometimes about how to make it end. I am a victim of workplace harassment and personal relationship assault.

Stand up for yourself. Myself. Stand up. #MeToo #TimesUp #AlwaysKeepFighting

Last Tuesday I can’t get home. My street was closed because a murder, gun violence, happened on my block. My street. The street I chose to live on so many years ago because it felt safe to be a pedestrian.

The unintentionally homeless population is growing and with it a segment, whether due to substance abuse or improperly addressed mental health issues, of predatory and often violent individuals. There are assaults in broad daylight, attacks on men and women, young and old.

Then there are mass shootings. I remember all the way back to Brenda Spencer who hated Mondays and a few years later the McDonald’s massacre. Last year Las Vegas, now a school shooting in Florida.

These kids in Parkland though, they are something else. These young survivors of have more composure and grace and strength than the theoretical grownups running our government that is supposed to protect them. They are articulate. They hail from a screwy place: Florida ain’t no kind of normal. Maybe that’s what it’s going to take cause these kids reaction is anything but normal. These kids kick ass. And they are about to be of voting age. #NeverAgain

So stand with these kids in the one way we all can. If you will be 18 years old by November 6th, register to vote. Do it right now. It is the very least we can do.