her name is ali: can you deal?

About a month ago my friend Christian and Jennifer Clavin (of the bands Bleached and Mika Miko) reached out to see if I'd want to submit to the zine they were putting together. It focused on women's experience in music and it was called "Can You Deal?"

I thought about it. In light of the new America, complaining about playing music as a straight, cis, white woman felt trivial.

I went back and forth about how I felt about contributing to the zine, and decided ultimately it was for a good cause (all proceeds went to Planned Parenthood), and it was a pretty big platform. Jennifer and Christian got some high profile musicians to contribute (Hayley Williams, Tegan Quin, Liz Phair, JD Samson, etc.) If even one person read what I had to say and it helped them in anyway, that's worth it. That idea of just one person getting something out of what I put into the universe is motivation enough.

So I wrote. And you can read it here: Can You Deal?

photo by Samuel Ware

Jennifer and Christian organized a show at the Echoplex for the zine's release. Side Eyes opened the show, followed by my band Upset, the Regrettes, and Bleached.

I changed my outfit like, 10 times before landing on this one...