Harmony and Hardship in a Trans Musician's Life

When Buffy BRATT speaks, you can't help but be drawn into her world—a place where music meets tenacity amid the struggles and triumphs of a trans-hip-hop artist. Buffy lays bare the emotional journey from losing her mother and navigating foster care to finding solace and power in her craft. It's a testament to her unwavering spirit, and throughout our conversation, she teaches us about the resilience that is forged in the fires of adversity. In our candid discussion, we confront the realities of discrimination and the courage it takes to live authentically in a world that often resists change. Buffy does not shy away from recounting episodes of violence and prejudice, yet she finds a beacon of hope in artistic expression. The nuances of transgender life and the beauty of self-discovery are at the heart of this episode, challenging us to understand the kaleidoscope of experiences within the LGBTQ+ community.
       
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Transcript

Trans Hip Hop Artist Buffy Bratz

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi guys and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. You may notice, for starters, that my voice is about an octave higher than normal, because our regular listeners will notice, because I have gnarly laryngitis, so forgive me. I'm going to do my best to not do that, yep. But I also wanted to remind everybody as usual please do follow us on YouTube, just hit us up. There's a lot of supplemental content that doesn't make its way into the podcast and all of it is inspirational. So please do follow us on YouTube. And, as usual, I'd like to say hello to Virginia, our producer extraordinaire, and I truly can call you the lashless lady this week, I think.

Speaker 2 0:48

Yeah, yeah, you can, because I sound nasally, because I just got over fighting COVID for a whole week. It was great. Woo, yeah, we're both doing great.

Speaker 1 0:59

Yeah, I was going to say well, we did take a week off. My mom passed, so I was really submerged in making a memorial. Oh, that's the one thing we didn't tell Buffy. Sorry, you're in the green room, buffy. We'll invite you in, by the way, once I read your bio, so when I read your bio, yeah, and you're going to have a chance to correct me on anything I get wrong, but for the moment we're just chatting amongst ourselves. So, yeah, it's night, or here or there, but we canceled a couple episodes because I was knee deep in preparations for my mom's services. And, yeah, virginia was lucky enough to get COVID.

Speaker 2 1:33

Yeah, first time Did it get it. Never got it actually during actual COVID. That's the crazy part about it.

Speaker 1 1:39

Better late than never.

Speaker 2 1:40

I guess I just had to join the pack.

Speaker 1 1:42

Right, yeah, everyone else is doing it. If you were cool, you'd get COVID, that's right. Anyways, welcome Virginia, and I do hope you will absolutely jump in with questions, just because my voice is unreliable. It will be coming and going. I'm just warning everybody, anyway.

Speaker 1 1:59

So I have a dear friend, ava, who is a big fan of the show, or at least a donor. She's been very generous and she's my Starbucks pal, and she introduced me to a mutual friend who I've actually not met in person we're meeting here in Zoomland but I have listened to a lot of her music. It's amazing. I'm going to rave about it more in a minute. I believe a trans hip hop artist and, again, I'm not a music connoisseur. I have no business critiquing music but I like what I like. So I'm going to maybe give you my feelings about your music. I'm just very impressed. So I'm going to now read Buffy's bio.

Speaker 1 2:39

Buffy Bratz is a 25-year-old Actually, I think this bio is old, right From YouTube. Are you 27 now? Yeah, okay, I thought so, okay. So on YouTube, buffy Bratz is a 25-year-old transgender rapper, slash singer, who writes records and produces all her own music From Los Angeles, california. Buffy was Miss August from the Angels of Change 2014 calendar. She's released four EPs, the first being my Mind to Yours in 2018, followed by the self-titled Buffy Bratz. Her third EP was the addicted type, followed by Hollywood Bratz and Rotten Candy in 2022. Her brand new sixth EP is titled A Different Type of Gangster and it will be available February 2024. All EPs are available on YouTube, youtube Music, instagram, facebook Audio, mac, soundcloud, rapschat and, by 2024, they should all be on every streaming platform, including iTunes.

Speaker 1 3:39

Now here's a slightly more personal bio that Buffy provided us in our pre-interview form. I'm a 29-year-old hip-hop artist. I write and produce all my own music. I started when I was three years old, and all I've ever known how to do is entertain. I was in foster care from age 14 to 18, and during that time, was in a mental institution for most of the time I transitioned. At eight years old, I had a very supportive mother, but she died when I was 14. That's when I was sent to foster care. My father abandoned us when I was eight, so it was just me and my mother when she passed. I lost my biggest and only supporter. Since then, I've been trying to survive, while putting my heart and soul into making music and hoping somebody will notice that's really touching the second one. Do you have any facts you'd like to correct on either bio, or did that sound like you?

Speaker 3 4:39

Yeah, that sounded like me, Just the name.

Speaker 1 4:43

Right, I don't know why it said Betty Brandt. Anyway, well, welcome.

Speaker 3 4:50

Thank you.

Speaker 1 4:51

Thank you for being here.

Speaker 3 4:53

Surprise, you had that. You had that. I'm surprised I haven't heard that in a long time. Which, Betty Brandt? All the stuff that you said was mind boggling right now. I was like whoa.

Speaker 1 5:08

Well, the initial one did come from, I believe, SoundCloud, and then the second one was what you put in our form that you filled out. So I guess, Virginia, you can obviously jump in anytime because I am going to lose my voice, but maybe I just I'll start with my reaction to your music because I was just kind of blown away. I was able to listen to Love is. You know I'm going to keep listening. I've subscribed to, I think, YouTube and SoundCloud both, but I was able to listen to Love is War. Think what you want about me Making moves.

Speaker 1 5:41

Wild West wasn't the type Fly away to daydreaming I'm used to it and fly away, Wait and gone too far and disrespectful. So I just again, I'm not, you know, I grew up playing piano, I just played chords. I was vocal music president in high school, but I'm not a trained musician and I really have no business reviewing. But I just really loved the music because it was cathartic. I loved the hardcore stuff where you were clearly you know what I mean Just getting out some angst. It's cathartic to listen to, but I also just found it very layered. You know, it's almost hypnotic, the way, the little sort of interwoven melodies and rhythms. It was almost hypnotic, if that makes sense. So I loved it, and I guess my first question would be what can you tell us a little bit about your creative process? How do you approach a song? Do you come up with lyrics first? Do you come up with melodies Sorry, you know instrumentation first and start layering it. How do you approach a song?

Speaker 3 6:49

I pretty much. I have a journal and I write every day in my journal. I kind of write poems but I put myself in the emotions of when I was. I go through a lot really, but I'm actually having kind of a better time in life right now.

Speaker 1 7:09

Mm-hmm, it's less to write about or more to write about.

Speaker 3 7:14

For me it's more to write about, because I could play around a lot more Mm-hmm, because I'm a lot happier now so I could think about things a little bit lighter and better songs from it.

Speaker 1 7:26

Have you noticed it's sort of affected your songwriting or what results from it?

Speaker 3 7:34

Yeah, I have a lot more pop songs now. I have a lot of songs I haven't released, that I'm. I seem like I'm making a new song every day.

Speaker 1 7:42

Oh, so you're more productive because you have your needs met. Is that kind of what I'm hearing?

Speaker 3 7:47

I think so, but at the same time I'm writing as deep of music.

Speaker 1 7:50

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, exactly, I mean as a writer I'm not a songwriter, but a writer writer I've noticed when my life is not exactly where I want it to be, I have the luxury. It's the other way around. When my needs are met and I'm stable, I tend to write Kind of tragic endings or kind of manufacture angst, if that makes sense. And then at different other times of my life when I could afford it, I found myself actually writing happy endings. So I think whatever's going on in your life informs the work for sure. All right, we got the absolute angry.

Speaker 1 8:31

And then Sarah McLaughlin once said it takes you a lifetime to write your first album and then, once you get a record contract with a gun to your head, it takes you a year to write your second. When you're kind of forced to come up with content, you know.

Speaker 3 8:45

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 8:47

So you go, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 8:49

For me. I've been hoping that. I want that. I want that structure really bad.

Speaker 1 8:57

Yeah, I'm more productive, believe it or not, when I have my needs met as well. People say, no, you gotta suffer for your art and you gotta have angst, and it's like I've had a lifetime of angst. There's no limit to what I can tap into. But when my needs are met, including a relationship, I actually have the luxury of focusing on producing work, so I relate to that. I wanna go back a little bit, though. So you write almost like journaling, or poetry. You said in your journal how does that become a song? Out of curiosity.

Speaker 3 9:33

Ooh, okay. So I have like two, three phones, and two of my phones are in my studio, nice, and I have like a really amazing, I wanna say, but it's also software too, but it's called GarageBand, right, right, I use it actually. Yes, it's phenomenal, I agree.

Speaker 1 9:58

I've not even anyway, I just do it to lay vocals on existing tracks. I haven't used loops very much, but yeah, your work is so layered. It's amazing you did it in GarageBand. You checked?

Speaker 3 10:09

them out. Yeah, the loops are so cool. I swear the loops are so cool and they come up with new ones all the time. As long as you have your phone hooked up to internet, you'll get it.

Speaker 1 10:50

Nice, and I think I noticed that the SoundCloud account you have. Is there special software? What was that? It seemed like a SoundCloud app as well. So you do everything in GarageBand and then upload it to SoundCloud.

Speaker 3 11:06

Oh, yeah, I do have. Well, first and foremost, I uploaded it to YouTube first, ah, but from there, if the song's good enough, if I feel like the song's good enough, then I'll release it up on other ones. But mostly I just like to use YouTube now. But yeah, I do use SoundCloud.

Speaker 1 11:24

Yeah, let me look at my notes. There was some SoundCloud rap chat. What is that exactly?

Speaker 3 11:31

Oh, okay, so rap chat. I make a lot of my rap music off of rap chat. Is that an app? Yes, yeah, yeah, it's a social like rapping site. They have hundreds of beats there, gotcha Songs, that you could use.

Speaker 1 11:48

So you either produce a song in GarageBand or you do it in rap chat.

Speaker 3 11:53

Got it. I try not to use rap chat as much because it's more of an easier, like laid back thing and I really like to put it into my stuff.

Speaker 1 12:02

You kind of cut out there for one second. You kind of like to put what into your stuff.

Speaker 3 12:08

I said on rap chat, it's a lot more easier to use. I tend to use that one as much because it's easy for me. I like to be like a challenge and I like to like put a lot of new stuff in my music, and you can't do that with rap chat, so you can only use their beats and like record. That's it, gotcha.

Speaker 2 12:25

That makes sense. I mean, because obviously you want to have that depth, yeah, like the audio was saying, all that additional layering too, that just adds to what you're doing with your you know artistic ability.

Speaker 3 12:37

Everybody likes the baby voice that's in the songs. I know it is what's that? Everybody likes the baby's voice that's in her song.

Speaker 1 12:45

I like all of it. I sometimes so. Do you have backup vocalists, or is it always you? It's always me. Yeah, it's amazing. It's really good stuff. Virginia, I'm going to send you some links. You got to take a listen.

Speaker 2 12:56

Yeah, I will. I wanted to before we actually had Buffion. I just, I, as people know, with COVID, you just pretty much want to really embed and sleep all day. So it's what I did.

Speaker 1 13:08

Yeah, no, I drooled on the couch for two weeks and coughed, which is why I know I have laryngitis. Anyway, this is a really old reference. But does anyone remember? I feel like the answer is going to be no Hellboy Junkies from the 90s. I do. Yeah, in a good way, buffy.

Speaker 1 13:25

Just the hypnotic quality. You sort of get lost in the music, if that makes sense. And I think in hip hop it is repetitive. You have certain intervals that you go back and forth between, and you know. So the actual repetition is hypnotic to me. I just get lost in it. You know it's, it's a good, it's good walking music, and then, now and then, a lyric will wake you up. Like what the fuck did she just say? I guess one again.

Speaker 1 13:48

I'm a member of the LGBTQ community, but, as you know, there are a lot of divisions within that community. Yeah, yeah, there's so little, whereas diverse as the general population, right. So I joke. Like you know, my brush with lesbians is very limited. I think I was out and very not so active in the gay community. I'm a pretty horrible homo. I think they should have taken my card away a long time ago.

Speaker 1 14:14

But in the mid 90s you know, probably almost 30, I started going country western dancing at oil cans and a couple others. What were the raw hide? And you know, literally my whole relationship with the lesbian subculture within the gay community was I'd go ask for a light. You know, on the patio If I was smoking, I'd go get a light. So I feel like there's little intersections, maybe at the Bodhi tree bookstore in West Hollywood or certain coffee shops, but really there was not a lot of shared territory, if that makes sense. And I just wonder if you feel like, as a trans individual, you have a seat at the table when it comes to LGBTQ issues or if you feel like there's divisiveness within the community, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 15:01

I absolutely feel that. Yeah, I feel the divisiveness a lot of the time. Usually it's between like trans girls, like trans girls. There's not a lot of trans girls that really like each other Really. Yeah, it seems like either they like each other and neither they don't like each other, or they're like clicked up in like a little gay group, Right, right.

Speaker 1 15:26

Do you have a theory? Do you have a theory of why that would be?

Speaker 3 15:30

They're richer.

Speaker 1 15:32

Wow, yeah.

Speaker 2 15:34

I was gonna say I can understand that because and this is the first I mean I brought it up a few times on the podcast, but for the first time for you, buffy. So my oldest, who's my biological son, recently came out two years ago as trans and so it's trans in the process, still transitioning to female. But I know when I talk, and my oldest is a Dominic, but now goes by Dominique, and I know for her. She has said that you know she has felt that in the community that she tends to have more friends who are generally either non binary or they are sorry I'm losing my voice now or they're gay or lesbian, versus someone who is trans like she's even told that trans don't really hang out very closely with each other and let's start, which I know is different. But what Dominique told me was, unless they tend to be a drag queen, then it seems like the drag queens tend to be a little bit more buddy, buddy, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 16:43

That's what she's noticed.

Speaker 3 16:45

Yeah, absolutely. They're a little bit more meaner and, like I would say, like trans us. Trans girls seem to have more of the softer side of a woman, you know, like the more. I definitely am not as mean as some of the drag queens I've met.

Speaker 2 17:04

Yeah, and I actually, when I used to work out and I had a couple of friends who are drag queens and I do see the difference between Dominique, my, you know my child versus the drag you know who's trans versus the drag queens, because Dominique definitely wears her heart on her shoulder at all times. Yeah, I mean, it's always right there at surface level.

Speaker 3 17:26

We're very trans. You are very sensitive, yeah.

Speaker 2 17:28

Yeah, exactly, and I've noticed that, because that was like the big thing with with my husband was well, you know, is it not technically, you know, like, oh no, no, no.

Speaker 1 17:39

Well, if I could, if I could I'm biting my tongue here because there might be an identification to a degree, but I will say drag within the gay community, a true cross dresser. The majority are heterosexual, by the way, and because there's an identification, it's a sexualized experience for them. Drag within the gay community evolved as a sort of owning of the misapprehensions of mainstream society. It was sort of a celebration of gender bending and saying look, you all have absolutely no idea about I mean especially way back about gender identity, and we didn't even have terms for it, right, gender identity or sexual orientation or any of that. And so you know, I don't think that drag ironically just became hey, let's celebrate gender bending, let's celebrate the misapprehensions of mainstream society. In the same way we adopted the word gay right, just like the N word was adopted within African American circles. So anyway, I just think it's a totally different subsection of the population and it evolved on a totally different trajectory.

Speaker 1 18:50

I'm not a butch creature on the planet, but I will say I'm a non seen guy, as they call it right. And part of the reason is I learned very early on in my 20s that I don't love the acerbic humor, I don't love the cattyness. It's the opposite of who I am and I quickly learned. You know, just because we share this one aspect of our being doesn't make me kindred spirits with the gay community. I've been attracted a lot of the stuff I was being spoon fed, if that makes sense and I would have said at one point in my life like I really have very little in common with these people. God forbid I get stuck in a convalescent home with a bunch of homos. When I'm older, I jump out the window, yeah, yeah. So do you identify with drag queens? Or are they just the bitchy, catty homosexuals that I'm tired of you know?

Speaker 3 19:37

I'll be the same.

Speaker 1 19:41

Yeah, I think it's entirely different.

Speaker 2 19:45

Yeah, no, no, that's what I say. That's that's the one thing I've learned with you know what, watching what Dominique's gone through, and that's why I was so excited when Dominic told me that you know, we're gonna have you on by these, because you know, a lot of people don't understand what it's like to be transgender, like for us, we were and I don't.

Speaker 2 20:02

I don't know if your family and friends felt this way, but you know, I guess I was two years ago that that Dominique came out, but growing up I know some people feel you know that way their whole entire life. There was no indicators at all with with Dominic, as my biological son growing up did, did very.

Speaker 1 20:25

But would she say the same, though, or would she say, actually I had an inkling, or I never felt comfortable in my body?

Speaker 2 20:32

She never says she felt comfortable.

Speaker 2 20:34

So I'm just kind of wondering, like you know, by these experience with it, because, for, for Dominique, I mean like was never into sports but definitely was not a sports, you know, person at all Not saying that girls can't be in this words to but just sports was never, I mean, was definitely more of the gamer type personality, but you know, definitely was like, you know, like bi-onicles and like Pokemon and you know, played, you know, with Legos, but it was Star Wars Legos, not the Barbie Legos, and you know, has two younger sisters when they wanted to play dolls, did not want to play dolls with them.

Speaker 2 21:09

So it was kind of like you know when, when did the? And what we found out is it was during college years that Dominique started to, you know, explore who she was sexually and on the gender level and that's when she identified finally with who she really was inside. It wasn't when she was here. So I'm just kind of curious, like with you, like when did that? Did you feel that? When you were younger, or was it something, as you got more of a puberty kind of like, what started happening with Dominique?

Speaker 3 21:41

No, when I was, I was very feminine as a child, very, very feminine as a child, extremely bullied as a child for claiming they were. They would claim I was, I was gay, but I never, ever had felt that. I knew I liked boys but I also knew that, like I didn't know the difference between a girl or a boy when I was like five, six, so I would always play the girl in the game for some reason, and in games and stuff I was very extra feminine to where it's just. I mean, it's like I had a. I just so happened to get lucky enough to get a supportive mom my father but she actually let me transition at eight and it was only that she let me do that because my father had left when I was eight. So I was able to have a supportive mom to to get me through that. But that's what I had chose.

Speaker 3 22:44

I know that I this topic is very hard. It's a very hard topic to get into. I feel I feel terrible because people they always tell me that my mom is bad and stuff and it's not true. Because I really didn't. I, even though I didn't know the difference really early on, when I did figure the difference. I knew I was a girl and I was going to tell me otherwise. So, in fact, the day that my mom came to me and told me that I could go out as one or the other to choose, it was only because she found out that I was wearing her clothes or she was gone. And that was when I was eight years old.

Speaker 2 23:28

So that's awesome that your mom was supportive, because I know that's one of the hardest things you know with the transgender community is the fact that a lot of times parents don't understand it or confused. I mean, that's been one of the probably the saving graces for Dominique and our household is because I am in the process of being my licensure for clinical mental health and so I understood the difference between you know what most people would call a choice or decision versus an actual. This is who I am.

Speaker 1 24:01

you know identification, and so I think it's yeah, there's a learning curve, though I'm guessing you know, even for you, being submerged in psychology and counseling, there's got to be a learning curve. I mean, if Cher right admits that she didn't handle it all too well when Chas transitioned, that says a lot, yeah.

Speaker 2 24:20

Well, it's hard as a parent because I mean, when you're a parent and I'm sure if you've had that conversation with your mom, you know you find out you're pregnant and you, you know, if you do find out the gender of your child, you know meaning, you know birth sex, you know, like Dom, you know was very much like, you know spreading, like hello. So it was like you know, yeah, you're having a boy, so you know. So in your mind as a parent, you know, especially someone who's growing this baby. You're preparing like, okay, I'm going to have a boy and these are the things I need to have for a boy. And so your mind just starts to go in that typical societal, you know mind frame.

Speaker 3 24:58

And then I was, and I think that's really normal and that's how it's supposed to be, you know.

Speaker 2 25:03

Yeah, and so I was able to express themselves and say no, this, this isn't who I am. You're like wait? I spent all this time in my head. This is who you are, and now I have to you know. So as a parent, it's really hard because you have to rewire that.

Speaker 3 25:17

You've got to work together. That's, you know, like you've got to do it together. It's yeah, and I'm just thankful she was. She was supportive, because I don't know what I was.

Speaker 1 25:28

Yeah Well, I'm so sorry you lost her too. I know that was a, it was a blow for you, but it's a beautiful thing that she was supportive and you have that memory and that foundation. You know I'm so sorry you lost her, but I want to go back to that decision, Did you? I do we still use the term gender dysphoria?

Speaker 3 25:48

No, mine was I, was I. On my paperwork it says I have gender identity disorder. Okay, exactly.

Speaker 1 25:55

And so did you feel confused, or did you just feel like I know who I am? Let's do this.

Speaker 3 26:00

Yeah, that just happened to come from a very homophobic state I know, I know it's very homophobic state and Idaho and they that's what they decided to call it. I didn't yeah, I didn't feel like it was a disease. I my mom had let me do it at eight, so I had been there for already that long I was watching.

Speaker 1 26:22

Yeah, it's. There's a lot of derogatory language that we're cleaning up now. You know I was born in 1968 and I discovered, of course, going through puberty, that I was gay, probably in 80 or 81. Homosexuality was still listed by the APA as a mental disorder until 79.

Speaker 2 26:43

Yeah, no, that's, that's right.

Speaker 1 26:45

So I went to the library. Of course I have a whole essay about this. I went to the library. You know I wasn't freaked out when I put two and two together and I said, oh, that's what it means to be gay. You know I've been calling people they threw me through around the words gay and fag my entire childhood. And the minute I looked at the lifeguards at the pool and thought, oh, okay, that that's me.

Speaker 1 27:05

I slept very well that night. It didn't bother me and I do remember I went to my little Bible it was called the way, it was a little hippie Bible and I looked gay, homosexual. There was zero cross references, right, god forbid you even speak the word. So I slept very well that night. You know I had heard it was bad or wrong, or the Bible said it was found nothing. So I slept very well that night.

Speaker 1 27:27

But the next week I thought, you know, I should go to the library and research my condition, right? There was two books in the Burbank Public Library. One was the David Copey story, which is a football player who happened to have come out in the seventies, after he retired, of course, and then the other one was a very Freudian book called a preventing homosexuality. So, like this is what you know, going through it at 11. This is what I have access to the library. But I was smart enough. At 11. I had a pretty good bullshit detector and when I read all the cliches like oh, distant mother over sorry, distant father, overbearing mother, all gay boys played with dolls I thought yeah, I mean. They even went on to say and, by the way, they don't do well with aging, so they will frequent dark alleys and secure and then die alone. Like that's what I had to look forward to.

Speaker 2 28:19

That's horrible.

Speaker 1 28:19

So I think things have come a long way, but we still have some language we need to clean up, you know, and in France the word for the gay community is la communauté pédée, meaning pederasty. That's still the word for the gay community. Anyway, sorry, virginia, go ahead.

Speaker 2 28:35

I was going to say well, gender dysphoria is still in the APA diagnostic value. What about?

Speaker 1 28:42

gender identity disorder.

Speaker 2 28:45

Yeah, and gender identity disorder. They're both in there. The difference now is because they're recognizing that obviously not. So I guess here's the way to best explain it. There are individuals who do have body identity dysphoria, and so that can be anything from being anorexic, bulimic or thinking, you know, gender-wise you are in the wrong body. So there is still a condition. In that way, people who have the gender identity will usually outgrow it after they get through puberty and into early adulthood. Then they will start to be comfortable with the way they look, and it's usually because they don't like how they look. It's more of when they see themselves in the mirror. It's not how they feel, you know, and mentally see themselves. When they see themselves in the mirror, they just don't like what they see. So therefore they want to change it, and so there's reasons why that will happen with the gender side. But someone who is a true trans individual that's not the case. Those markers are not there.

Speaker 1 30:02

All right, Buffy, I want to hear from you. We should be listening to you and learning from you.

Speaker 1 30:07

Our goal is to enlighten our listeners. So is there anything more you want to share with us? I mean, I'm really honored that you shared your story up to this point. Anything else you want to sort of share with us? As far as your personal experience, you know, I would say within the gay community there is no one gay story. We're all very diverse, so there may or may not be a trans experience, but I think there's a hell of a lot of universals, you know. Is there anything else you would want to share? Because there is a lot of ignorance out there and there's a lot of needless controversy, especially, like you hinted at, when it comes to how parents handle it. So, anyway, anything else you want to say about your personal experience, because I want to sort of bring it all back around to the songwriting at some point.

Speaker 3 30:52

Oh yeah, I did actually want to say that just recently for trans people. This is also for your producers, dominique or whatever it's lately, it's getting a little violent for us.

Experiences and Perspectives of Trans Individuals

Speaker 1 31:10

Yes, so that's one of my questions is the disproportionate amount of violence directed at the trans community. You've experienced that personally. Correct A lot. There's a lot of it now. Do you mind telling us how? Even prejudice or discrimination, but outright violence. What have you been exposed to?

Speaker 3 31:28

Honestly, I don't think you will believe me if I tell you, but I'm going to tell you.

Speaker 1 31:32

I saw one picture that Ava showed me you were bloody, but that it may anyway.

Speaker 3 31:38

That was. I think that was my best Accident Right. That bus driver that just wanted to beat me to the light.

Speaker 1 31:47

Holy crap.

Speaker 3 31:48

Oh gosh, that's holy crap.

Speaker 1 31:51

Anyway, anything you're willing to share, we would be honored to hear it.

Speaker 3 31:59

It didn't used to be this way. This is actually just surprisingly. This is while Biden's been in office. Even when Trump was in office, it was bad. Wow, that's just honesty. I'm just being honest. Biden is the one that says all trans women are women. I didn't think that this would start happening. But even the commercials are awful now about us. They're terrible. I see a brand new commercial every day pointing out bad stuff, saying bad stuff about us, saying that we're like they basically choose a disease that you could catch, and I don't like awful. It's a lot of people out in public to act like that too, Of course. Of course they could catch us. They could catch what we have. If they are not nice you know what I mean I understand They'll catch what we have. I hate that shit. It makes me so mad. It happens every other day. Now I want to say, because I live in, I wasn't going to say this, but I live in my car, I am home.

Speaker 2 33:05

Sorry to hear that.

Speaker 3 33:07

I live with my husband in my car.

Speaker 1 33:14

You're more vulnerable. I would think right, you're more exposed.

Speaker 3 33:18

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, I come across it every day. I open my car door while I'm asleep. Wow, things have progressed to where people have realized. People that walk where I park every day are starting to realize what. I am coming back later, that's horrible.

Speaker 2 33:39

I'm sorry to hear that. I know, Dominique. They can just have a job again, but lost their job because of a lot of this.

Speaker 3 33:48

Oh yeah, oh hey.

Speaker 1 33:50

Well, that's maybe the discrimination.

Speaker 3 33:52

I'm not going to lie that there's some other trans person going through it, because I did start to feel like I was the only freaking one going through this.

Speaker 2 33:59

Yeah, Well, that's horrible because I mean, especially listening to what Dominique was saying and, like I said, I haven't had chances to listen to your music I mean it sounds like you're a very talented person, so I think people should see that and see how beautiful you are.

Speaker 1 34:17

Yes, and I saw the Angels of Change calendar. Oh yeah, the little YouTube video. You're adorable. I liked that version of you too.

Speaker 3 34:27

Thanks.

Speaker 2 34:30

Tell us a little bit about the Angel of Change calendar, because I'm just kind of curious a little bit more about, like, what made you want to do that.

Speaker 3 34:37

Oh, I was okay. So when I was 18, I was desperately trying to get into the industry. I was grabbing anything I could get into, and that just happened to be something I found at the Lesbian and Gay Center.

Speaker 1 34:52

Oh, really Wow.

Speaker 3 34:53

By Bambi Salseda.

Speaker 1 34:55

And they're still making it right.

Speaker 3 34:57

Yeah, they're still making it, but it's not by Bambi anymore.

Speaker 1 35:02

And where do the profits go to? I don't know, fighting this, hate crimes, or where do the profits go?

Speaker 3 35:12

And you know what? I never actually really knew that.

Speaker 1 35:16

Well, it's called Angels for Change. Is it just sort of the exposure and the visibility that?

Speaker 3 35:22

That's all. That's what it did, and I mean it was in the bar and they made. They got us like professional makeup artists to do our makeup, actually have a real show with choreographed dance and all that it was. It was pretty fun, but I think it had a cause. It might have been for HIV, I'm not sure, though.

Speaker 1 35:42

Yeah, yeah, I'm guessing, go ahead.

Speaker 2 35:45

The center does a lot of good work with a lot of the different stuff with me to put out.

Speaker 1 35:51

Yeah, I almost taught art at the Gay and Lesbian Center in LA, but I think that was my first glimpse of the divisiveness we've been talking about within the community.

Speaker 3 36:01

Yeah, was that the one on Shrader?

Speaker 1 36:04

This was years ago, Maybe they moved right.

Speaker 3 36:07

Yeah, not for a while. The one on Shrader is the one that's recent, the one that I know about.

Speaker 1 36:13

I think that. Yeah, I think we were already in that location when I went. But you know what I'm saying. It was like a lot of infighting and if you've seen the movie Bros, it's pretty typical. Every sort of round table discussion becomes a knockdown drag out.

Speaker 1 36:27

Yeah, and it's like there's competition too, Like my woes compared to your woes. I remember there was a triple minority, a black lesbian, paraplegic, and she kind of ran the show because she was a triple minority, Anyway, those kind of politics. So I made a quick exit and I did not end up teaching there. I think you have wonderful things. I'm on Project Angel Food as we speak. It's keeping me alive.

Speaker 2 36:57

So let's go back around. Come bring it back around. I know, donnie, can you want to bring it back around too? So with your music, have you found that a lot of? Now that you're in a better place and you're able to sit and focus and write, are you doing a lot more reflection and past experiences and finding the positives to help with the lyrics to what you're writing now, or is it just totally new and fresh?

Speaker 1 37:22

Well, the words in the bio you filled out were something like I process my trauma through my songwriting.

Speaker 3 37:30

Yeah, well, I've been through too much to talk about. I've been through a lot and that does help me with my writing. My writing definitely is a story. I'm telling a lot of my stories in it and it's either. Some of my songs are from something I've gone through recently or from something way back then when I was 12 or 13. I can put myself in that emotional feeling Because then I just have that gift of being able to feel what I was feeling back then and write it Beautiful. But I think it's because it's trauma, so it never goes away.

Speaker 1 38:10

Well, yeah, unfortunately, PTSD, chronic anxiety it kind of stays with you, I mean. I would hope, though, that the creative process is cathartic and it is a release of some kind. Do you feel like at least a momentary relief when you write about something that's been bottled up, or no?

Speaker 3 38:31

Yeah, but I'm not a good processor, so it never goes away for me. I always feel the sadness when I think about it. I just sometimes I just have good days and aren't thinking about it.

Speaker 1 38:47

Well, maybe there's some solace in the fact that others will identify with your lyrics and they will have the catharsis.

Speaker 3 38:55

I hope, because I make it for other trans people Absolutely Nice.

Speaker 1 39:02

Yeah.

Speaker 3 39:03

Yeah, new Buffy Black bitch. Hey Ha, let go, let go, let go, big bitch, big black, speak tits. Buffy black, that bitch, your nigga wish he had this. Yeah, yeah, your nigga wish he had this. Yeah, yeah, because he's weed your dessert. Chubby glass, big as birds, buffy niggas and I gotta swear Pretty pretty bird Black match. Bad bitch, you can't handle this. I'm gonna make a switch. I'm with my money. Big as your bitch. Hey, this ain't nobody, this is only drip Rock rock baby, is my girl Watch?

Speaker 2 39:45

the clip boy. That's my tits. Hey, just watching up With your music, do you feel like that you've kind of hit any type of a transformative period in your life with your music?

Speaker 1 39:54

No, that's been coming out more regularly. Like you're, saying you still carry around a lot of trauma. Surely it's made a difference over time in some way. I'm not gonna give up on you. I have a theory but you know, has it made a difference in the trauma? You know that you carry around.

Speaker 3 40:12

Yeah, I would say that. I mean I'm out of the mental institution.

Speaker 1 40:16

You're ahead of the game.

Speaker 3 40:18

Yeah, like I'm not back in there and that's. That's a great day. I'm proud of that. I've been in there for a very long time.

Speaker 1 40:27

If you don't mind, could we? I know you do want to talk about some things and some things are probably too personal or painful, but it is in your bio. When you were transitioning, you were in and out of mental institutions. Is that because you just they decided you had this disorder?

Speaker 3 40:43

That was part of it. I don't I didn't know how to deal with that when I got. When I went there, they I I seems to be the only one that I had saw there and I knew the case because I had seen a gay pride parade out there once and that there was plenty of people there, but it seemed like living there was none. I was the only one in school. In my school I was. There was only one other like gay person there who was known for being gay just because they wore, like girls, cowboy boots. But they weren't a girl. They weren't a girl like I was.

Speaker 1 41:18

I was, believe it or not, even growing up sorry, there's a delay growing up next door to Hollywood, in Burbank, right here in Southern California, in the seventies. Again, I was born in 68. You know, all we had was Jack Tripper on Breeze Company and he wasn't even gay. He was pretending to be gay to take advantage of rent control, like zero examples, and I called it looking for intelligent life on Mars. Yeah, yeah, I was. You know, I think I was 21 and starting at Disney when I finally met some real homos in their native habitat. You feel pretty isolated, you know.

Speaker 3 41:56

Did you say at Disney?

Speaker 1 41:58

Yeah, I worked at Disney feature animation and you know, I think in college I was aware there was, you know there was a gay student union but I was busy with college. I remember at Disney was the first time I really had lunch right with a fellow homo and you know, it's kind of sad that you can grow up in Burbank and it really feels that isolated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awful.

Loss, Healing, and Bratz Dolls

Speaker 1 42:21

Yeah, anyway, surely nothing compared to what you experienced. But so you're no longer in an institution. I think your songwriting is serving others, right. There's some some beauty in that, but I also. I well, if you maybe think about the difference you are making for others, and sometimes, when we serve others, that is our healing. It's. A lot of people make lemonade of lemons by taking their own trauma right and then turning it around and that becomes their purpose. I think you're doing that, thanks. I just hope at some point you will feel that it's making a difference you know for you.

Speaker 3 42:58

I hope that it shows a difference, at least soon. I hope people see it more. It doesn't seem to get many views.

Speaker 1 43:05

Well, I think sometimes we make we're calling it transformation right, but we make changes on the inside and we grow and we learn and we evolve, but it takes a while for circumstances to reflect that. You know, I call it our circumstances and conditions. I've grown spiritually a lot the past three years since actually, my age diagnosis and spent 18 days in the hospital and almost died. I've put my spiritual growth on the front burner and had a huge, huge learning curve. But you know it's not. I'm not homeless like you, but I'm a step above. If I had a car I would be living out of it, yeah. So I'm kind of waiting you know what I mean for circumstances and conditions to reflect all that growth. It takes a while.

Speaker 3 43:48

Yeah, I guess it got me a car.

Speaker 1 43:51

There you go it is. You got to count. You know, count the baby steps Absolutely.

Speaker 3 43:56

Yeah, I think you're right, Absolutely.

Speaker 1 43:58

And ride the momentum too. Once you start recognizing little baby steps, you got to ride that momentum. Anyway, I have high hopes for you.

Speaker 3 44:07

I like what you just said.

Speaker 1 44:08

Well, thank you, I have laryngitis. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm envious that you're drinking Starbucks, yeah, Isn't it like so bad?

Speaker 3 44:19

It's everything.

Speaker 2 44:20

I'm actually sure that we have Starbucks out by me, because we didn't have them for the longest time.

Speaker 1 44:27

Well, because it's a bunch of Mormons in Utah, right yeah, yeah, is caffeine even legal?

Speaker 2 44:33

It's here. It's here. So I live in. Just so you know, I actually live in St George, utah. I'm from, I'm actually from the area you guys are all living in. I'm from the LA area. I moved out here 18 years ago for my husband's job and I do so I, as you were talking about, you know being out of Idaho, I was going. I understand that small community a lot now that I'm here and there are days I love it and there are days where I just look at people and I'm like are you that ignorant?

Speaker 3 45:02

Yeah, yeah, that's it. I liked it too. There was some nice things about it, but most of the people out there need help.

Speaker 1 45:11

Great potatoes right In Idaho, Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 45:16

So when did you end up out in Southern California? I was born in Bakersfield.

Speaker 3 45:22

Oh okay, so I was born in Bakersfield and me and my mom lived in front. We moved from Bakersfield as a baby to Hammett Hammett really, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I moved in to Hammett and then when my mom died at 14, I moved out of Hammett. I got sent away to my father who lives in Idaho and he just didn't want me. So I tried to kill myself there, got put in a mental institution there and then moved from that to another mental institution, the state mental institution. I needed help. I couldn't process my mom dying very well.

Speaker 2 46:01

Sounds like she was such a huge support Still not, you know. Yeah, I think, losing your mom and obviously I just went through this himself and my mom is still alive, so I don't know if that would be for a few more years, but someone who's such a big support like that in your life, losing them is not an easy thing.

Speaker 1 46:24

So no, I am experiencing it to a much smaller degree, but I do feel, you know. I mean, mom's are uncanny. They love you unconditionally, they accept you regardless. Right, she's my safety net. So I would say my entire life. I have a ban on an issue. You know I used to pray every night as a kid oh please don't let Blackie and Tootsie die, my two black labs. Please don't let Blackie, like, talk about abandonment issues.

Speaker 1 46:54

So I've been aware you know a lot of my writings are about missing mothers or the sleeping goddess. You know, clearly, my entire life my biggest fear has been losing my mom. But now that it's happened on January 3rd, you know, it's really just that I feel a little more alone on the planet. I feel like, yeah, who knows what's going to become of my nuclear family and who knows how tight we're going to become as a result or if we're going to drift apart. I very much feel the loss. You know what I mean, just in that you call your mom when you want, when you have a boo boo and you want to kiss, you know. But I also feel a little less safe, if that makes sense. She was my champion, the way your mom was yours.

Speaker 3 47:33

Yeah, I absolutely agree.

Speaker 1 47:37

So you feel like you never mourned it or you just still carry around that loss in some way.

Speaker 3 47:42

I feel like that loss never, ever, ever, ever gets better ever. It's pretty hopeless at all times because she's gone and I think it's just because I didn't have a father that cared Right right, like any foster parents really cared much either. I think the most person that cared was a nurse at my mental institution pretty much.

Speaker 2 48:06

Is there a song that you wrote that was, like ever, directed specifically to your mother or about your mother?

Speaker 3 48:15

Yeah, I have a song that said didn't get to say goodbye, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 48:19

I have to go listen to that.

Speaker 1 48:22

I think that's one of the ones I listened to. Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:25

I tried to dog your memory.

Speaker 1 48:27

Well, I have a list of the ones I listened to, anyway, but I did subscribe, I'm going to keep listening, yeah no, I'm definitely going to listen to that.

Speaker 3 48:34

I have a new album that I am working on called Bratz vs Barbies.

Speaker 1 48:39

Nice, nice.

Speaker 2 48:40

Oh, I love that Thanks.

Speaker 1 48:43

Now I have to. Since you mentioned it, I did work on a Bratz. So the Bratz are the slutty little dolls with the right bellybutton rings and big head, yeah, so I worked on a little CG animated feature. That was a new line of dolls from MGA. Right, mga is the company that makes the Bratz, and I guess they had a new line of dolls and they were trying to promote it. So let's make a movie, a little CG animated feature. It was direct to video, but I was production designer. I spent about nine months on it and then Mattel sued them the button and Mattel is Barbie, right, though the feature got shelved. But anyway, I have an ongoing relationship with the Bratz. They have a whole, do you remember? I mean, your name doesn't come from the Bratz, does it?

Speaker 3 49:31

No, no, actually I wish it, but no, it doesn't.

Speaker 1 49:35

Anyway that whole, because I found them back in the day I was like, do kids really need this? Right, you know, barbie did her own damage, but is this really what you know young girls need? But they had a whole chart. They would bring out this chart and go well, she may have the belly button ring, but here's, you know, here's the extrinsic quality and here's the intrinsic one. So if they seem superficial and materialistic on the outside here and they had a whole chart like justifying how sort of you know materialistic they were anyway.

Speaker 3 50:07

Sorry, excuse, my language Say it again I said I freaking love Bratz. Good for you. I think they're just. They were what I needed when I was a child.

Speaker 1 50:18

Oh, I love that. Well, that's what these execs were saying like, but they have a heart of gold, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 50:25

I think Bratz was such a good doll to have come out because it helps break that stereotypical you know unrealistic body shape.

Speaker 3 50:35

Yeah, that big head thing was really affected to me. I liked it.

Speaker 2 50:40

Yeah Well, they're a curvier too.

Speaker 3 50:42

They had hips you know, that came off, you know exactly.

Speaker 1 50:48

My Kendall in the late 60s and early 70s was not anatomically correct. That was very disappointing and actually as a gay man, like I'll say, I really didn't have an inkling until puberty. Like you mentioned earlier, virginia, you know thinking I used to say, you know, I really didn't know until I went through puberty. Then I think guys know what they're whacking off to really. But I would say as an adult I was like actually I did have a strange attraction to the Jolly Green Giant and Mr Clean, the brawny paper towel guy. I just didn't identify it as a crush, you know. But what was my point? Oh, like I had a neighbor that who's still in touch with her. I just saw her at my mom's services and she tried to seduce me into the Malibu Barbie. She got a Malibu Barbie and she was so excited about it she tried to get me to play with it and I just couldn't go there. I have a very Italian blue collar thug of a father. So I was like, yep, can't do Malibu Barbie, sorry.

Speaker 2 51:52

So I'm curious if you mentioned that your album, the F coming out, is Barbie versus Bratz, what made you come up with that title, bratz?

Speaker 3 52:00

versus Barbie.

Speaker 2 52:01

Oh sorry, bratz versus Barbie. What was the inspiration behind that title?

Speaker 3 52:07

I noticed that a lot of the new music nowadays is people taking shots at each other, and a lot of the girls that are up and coming right now are taking shots at the girls that are under them, like the ones that are, let's say, like underground. I am underground and I would say Bratz represents the underground and Barbie represents kind of like the mainstream. Oh yeah, totally so it's that.

Speaker 1 52:37

Yeah, there's a lot of dishing and clapping back going on right. I love that because Barbie. Did you see the Barbie movie by chance?

Speaker 3 52:46

I didn't. I wish I could.

Speaker 1 52:48

It's about, kind of what you're saying, the power structures and the. You know, as Virginia mentioned the, not just the unrealistic body image, but just everything right, women are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Speaker 2 53:04

Yeah, really focused on everything that's supposed to encapsulate what it means to be a female and you know all of the things that we have to try and live up to, but at the same time they're like these impossible, you know, kind of goals, and then if we don't hit them, then we're berated for not hitting them, and so it's like we have to try and be everything to everybody at all times including ourselves.

Speaker 1 53:31

Yeah, it's a dance, it's a right.

Speaker 2 53:33

It is a dance to be. I mean I'm sure about. You can totally speak to that it is totally a dance to be a female in this world, if, you can get your hands on it.

Speaker 1 53:44

I think it's streaming now so you might be able to watch it online if you can get, you know, getting your laptop. It's a great movie.

Speaker 3 53:53

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I want to, I want to get it, or is that's when it mattered? You know it holds up.

Speaker 1 54:00

I watched it on, I streamed it and it holds up on a small monitor. It does. Yeah, you'll get a lot out of it, okay, anyway, virginia, do you have any questions, or shall we bring this back to story before wrapping it up?

Speaker 2 54:16

I don't have any others that I can think of right now.

Speaker 1 54:19

I'm looking over my list, I feel like there's something I forgot. Well, thank you for sharing your experience. I was really wanting to hear about you know whether we're calling it gender dysmorphia or dysphoria, sorry or they called it gender identity crisis. I did want to hear what led up to your decision to transition. So thank you for sharing that I know it's very personal and thank you for sharing a little bit of the violence you've been subjected to, because I think that's where we need to really turn our attention politically. You know, let's stop talking about bathrooms, for God's sake. You know it's ridiculous. Or even when children should have access to gender affirming care. I think those are all very silly conversations when people are dying.

Speaker 3 55:08

Yeah, I don't think that should be a topic like right now.

Speaker 1 55:12

The bathroom thing or the both, both, exactly, exactly. There's people dying here.

Speaker 3 55:18

Yeah, it's, thank you.

Speaker 1 55:22

Well, real quick, sorry. There's a bathroom in my neighborhood at a little coffee shop and you know we're so liberal and progressive in LA, supposedly right but there's a bathroom and a little icon on the door. Instead of a male or a female, it has a male and a female and like a mermaid with four arms and a tail, it's like it kind of says it all. It's like anything goes, we don't care, just fucking use the restroom already. It doesn't even matter Right Right.

Speaker 2 55:49

Well, I'd like it's such an individual, you know thing. Like you know, all of us have our own individual things that we all have to, you know, go through. Yeah, positive and negative. So I think when everybody starts focusing on the way that they do, they lose sight of how it's affecting, you know, so many people in bad ways and I think that negativity just is horrible.

Speaker 1 56:14

Well, I would hear I'm going to get on a soapbox a little bit because you know Virginia. We've talked a little bit about people's comfort zones and why people are having the reactions to the whole bathroom issue and there's, you know, a very small percentage of the population that might be justified in their fear. But I would say we can't be protected from everything all the time and society right now tends to want to right, litigate safe spaces and triggers and comfort zones, and it's gone too far again when there are people dying. What I really want to hear, what I really want everyone to hear, is this A climate is created that permits violence, like Buffy was saying a moment ago, whether it's through political campaigns or just TV commercials, especially when our leaders create a climate of fear and people really don't even realize they're absorbing it like crabs in the boiling water. So the climate is created that permits right, you can't tell Polish jokes anymore, you can't tell fat jokes anymore but actually there's an unexamined level on which we still are allowed to discriminate against certain subsections of the population.

Speaker 1 57:26

So the best example of this I can give is, if anybody remembers Matthew Shepherd, he was the boy who was literally crucified. He was, you know, and this is when hate crime legislation was very much at the forefront he was strung up and crucified. There was a at the time again, nobody's probably old enough to remember, but there was Laura Schlesinger and she had a talk radio program and she was very conservative but actually sometimes a good needed slap in the face, like wake up people. But even she would say, oh, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Come on, he was a small kid, a wimpy kid, he, just short of he, deserved it, yeah. And so I just couldn't take a step back and see that this fag joke there, this little bit of rhetoric over there and this commercial you know this little bit, this little narrative that made its way into pop culture All those things together 100% create a climate that permits not just homophobia but violence. Okay, I'm stepping off my soapbox.

Speaker 2 58:33

No, that needed to be said, so thank you for saying that.

Speaker 3 58:35

Yeah, I agree Every word.

Speaker 1 58:38

Okay, I thank you. I'm glad you liked that. Did I mention I have laryngitis?

Speaker 2 58:44

Yeah, you did, but I will preach.

Speaker 1 58:46

I've been known to preach with laryngitis.

Speaker 2 58:48

You're good.

Speaker 1 58:49

Yeah, I actually don't do that often on here, but that yeah, I guess I feel strongly about that one.

Speaker 2 58:56

Yeah, we needed that said. So I'm just curious. But is there anything that you would like our audience to walk away with, any specific message on top of what Dominic just said?

Speaker 3 59:11

I would say they should be nicer. Everyone, everyone, yeah.

Speaker 1 59:18

Everyone should be a little bit right. Let's just love each other.

Speaker 3 59:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1 59:22

Kindness remember that.

Speaker 3 59:24

Take away the veil of God.

Speaker 2 59:27

Get to know the person for who they are inside.

Speaker 1 59:30

Yeah, oh, yeah, I do think it's exposure to. You know, even again Laura's messenger, she'd say, oh, I have gay friends. And I thought even at the time, well, you're not a very good friend to them. Then you know, oh, I've had a black person in my house Like, okay, okay, well, you're. But Laura's messenger again and again would fall back on but I have gay friends. I 100% said, well then, you're not a very good friend to them.

Speaker 1 59:55

Don't use that term so loosely. Yeah, I have people in my own family that you know. They can't be expected to realize how all of their actions impact my peeps, the gay community, but it's can be very disappointing. So, yeah, I agree with you, virginia See the person for who they are and maybe make a concerted effort to gain some exposure. Some people in a potato field in Idaho do. They have potato field, you know, it just may not have a lot of exposure. Yeah, I have a black neighbor who said you know it's not my job to hold your hand and enlighten you. I don't, and I've never held hands either, but everybody can take it upon themselves to. You know what I mean. Find opportunities to expose themselves to diversity.

Speaker 2 1:00:40

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 1:00:43

Thank you so much Thank you yeah.

Speaker 2 1:00:48

But can you share where our listeners can again, like you, know where they can go and find all your music so they can hear about you?

Speaker 3 1:00:55

You can find my previous albums on YouTube and Audio Mac and Wrap Chat and SoundCloud, basically all of them. I'm figuring out how to do iTunes because I want to be able to like spell it, but I don't really care about that, so I kind of just like want everybody to just have access to it.

Speaker 1 1:01:18

Right? Well, right now, we have three links. We have your SoundCloud link, we have a YouTube link and, if you don't mind, I was going to put the Angels of Change link, and how do you feel about that? Oh my God, you know? Did you say, yes, we can go?

Speaker 3 1:01:34

ahead and go ahead. Okay, it's cute.

Speaker 1 1:01:35

It's very cute. Oh, it's such a cute thing. You reminded me of Britney Spears. Are you okay with that?

Speaker 3 1:01:43

No, don't talk about her. I can't I love her, she's my everything.

Speaker 1 1:01:49

Oh well, back then, that's who you reminded me of.

Speaker 3 1:01:52

I literally model my entire personality, like I watch her as a child. So often I got her tattooed on my arm but I, I, I, I, like my, my life felt like it started to line up with what she was going through, like the conservatorship, like it was so like close when she cut her hair off. It was so close the timing, so I had always like I had Kendrick's spirits with her.

Speaker 1 1:02:17

Well, maybe think of her as your luminary, right? Because she's things are turning around for her. That's a great example for you. You know, yeah, she's getting her. I call it agency your empowerment back, your agency back. And personally, I do pick luminaries when I find someone that's actually living their best life, right, like you said, they don't care about getting filthy, rich or owning that yacht or that mansion. They are truly finding their purpose and giving back. I focus on those examples and they actually redeem humanity for me and they make it a little easier to get up in the morning and I'm not kidding, you know, if you can just go wow, she turned her shit around and she's on the up and up. That's inspiring.

Speaker 3 1:03:03

Isn't it? I love Brittany, I know, I know.

Speaker 1 1:03:07

She's my favorite. Well again, thank you. Your links will be in your bio and then Virginia is going to follow up. She does with all of our guests with a link to this episode and if you like what you see, please share it.

Speaker 3 1:03:22

I'll share it absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:03:23

Yep, so I will. I will email you and let you know once we have it all put together and uploaded into Buzzsprout, who sends it out to all the different platforms for the podcast. I will send you the date that it's going to come out and the link so that you can share it with others now so they can listen to the podcast.

Speaker 3 1:03:48

Yeah, I have a few like specific summer. Send it to Okay.

Speaker 1 1:03:52

Awesome, and just so you know, we're still growing our platform. How many episodes in? Are we Virginia Like 14 or?

Speaker 2 1:04:00

I know we're quite a few and we actually had a few people reach out to us because they were impressed with how many we did get out in such a short period of time.

Speaker 1 1:04:08

We are at Anyway, my point is we're still growing. We're rather new, but actually we've got a lot of momentum in each episode. They kind of predict how many listens your next episode is going to get based on past history. So it's growing all the time. So we can't guarantee anything, but maybe the right ears will find your music. You know a couple. A couple people might be introduced to it and we can cross our fingers.

Speaker 2 1:04:32

It's good stuff it needs to get out there. I agree, and Dominic and I share our social platforms too, so it reaches, of course, people who follow us as well.

Speaker 3 1:04:40

I'm also a dancer and I dance, just like Britney Spears to use to dance in our prime.

Speaker 1 1:04:45

Oh yeah, can you be hired for events? Oh yeah, okay, I'm all right.

Speaker 3 1:04:50

I'm all ready to hook up trust.

Speaker 1 1:04:52

All right, thank you so much. It was nice to finally meet you.

Speaker 3 1:04:57

Nice to meet you, dominic. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 1 1:04:59

And thank Eva for letting you turn her place into a studio. I know right, it works out good. The lighting's perfect. Now I don't know what changed. It's perfect.

Speaker 3 1:05:10

Thanks, I moved away from the window.

Speaker 1 1:05:13

Oh, okay, well, we'll have you on for a Part B, yes, and with the good lighting, cool, all right guys.

Speaker 2 1:05:21

Thanks for being so kind with you.

Speaker 1 1:05:22

Take care Take care. And to all of our listeners thank you for tuning in and remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay, individually and collectively. We can write our own story.

Speaker 3 1:06:02

See you next time.