14 Ways to Be A Rad Dude

Douchebag Awareness Ribbon by Kate Morris

I wrote last week about the ways that dudes are unintentionally (or very intentionally) crappy to women. I’m told that I scared the daylights out of a lot of dudes with that list.

But I would like to add that I know men—even men who’ve behaved badly before—who’ve figured out how to get over their dicks and be awesome. Here are ways, off the top of my head, that you can be rad!

• Realize that the chick hitting on you is extremely intoxicated, so make sure she gets home safely and then go to your own house and watch Batman cartoons while eating Burger King
• Switch to water after a couple drinks so you can drive yourself and others home okay—and not the “Montana” definition of a couple drinks, which is more like five
• Quit doing annoying things when women ask you to
• Invite a woman you have a crush on to your house party, wear a Wu-Tang sweater, wait for her to decide if she wants to make the first move
• Learn how to actually dance, not just bump n grinding, and ask a woman to dance at a show (you can take lessons in this or just check out YouTube videos, FYI)
• Don’t be pushy if she’s ghosting you, even if it seems inexplicable (some mysteries are better not revealed, trust me)
• If you’re not interested in having sex with her again, tell her politely via text message that you’d like to stay just friends from here on out. Stick to it and don’t backtrack when you get wasted.
• Have the fixins for breakfast tacos in your fridge at all times. (this is just a good life goal in general)
• If you’re making out and the girl says she’d like to just keep it at that level, literally keep your pants on. She might change her mind in a little while, but that’s up to her.
• Carry condoms! (pro tip: you can order custom-fitted condoms on the internet, there’s several sites besides that one)
• Ask for consent during every part of the foolin’ around process, whether it’s “hey can I make out with you” to “hey I’d like to go down on you”, etc etc
• If you’re having trouble getting your dick to work, take the focus off of it and just pay attention to her.
• If y’all have been up late sexing, and you can’t get off, it is totally okay to say “Let’s cuddle and sleep and try again later.”
• Apologize profusely if the condom breaks! Offer solutions!
• Wait until you’ve been having sex for a while to disclose any fantasies/kinks
• Stay close by her side if she’s meeting all of your friends at a party or bar for the first time
• Have a clean (or clean-ish) bathroom
• Offer admiration if she wears a delicate undergarment you particularly like, but don’t neg her if her underwear isn’t your taste (unless you are also willing to wear a thong, mmkay)
• Mind your stubble if you’re sticking your chin in various sensitive areas
• Snapchat pictures of yourself doing laundry
• Remember her cat’s name, scratch its ears even if you claim to hate cats
• Ask her how she likes to get off
• This:

all right, everybody, that’s enough of highly personal lists for me. signing off once again.

Douchebag Awareness Day: Only You Can Prevent Yourself From Being a Jerk

It feels a little weird to take to this site to post this, but it’s still my damn blog and I can do what I want with it.

So. There’s been Facebook discussion and posts and accusations in the Missoula community over a person’s alleged predatory sexual tactics. I do not know any of the parties in that incident well enough to comment on that situation, so my intention here is not to specifically address that.

But the discussions did remind me of all the guys I’ve ever encountered (sexually or not) who thought they were socially progressive “good guys,” even feminists. For a long time, I gave a pass to “good guys” even when they behaved badly. I steered clear of frat boys and football players, but I felt inclined to trust guys if they played in a band I liked, espoused feminist beliefs and seemed smart. I gave a pass to cool punk guys who shared Bernie memes on Facebook, even if the way we hooked up later gave me pause.

So today I’m offering up a little bit of an awareness clinic that you, too, can be a douchebag to women even if you don’t live in a frat house. If “Douchebag Awareness” had a ribbon the way other diseases do, I think it’d be a pair of boxer shorts with skid marks. (Can someone draw this for me?)

UPDATE: The amazing Kate Morris drew this for me:

Look, having a cool record collection does not excuse you from perpetuating rape culture and sexism. Being a talented musician or writer or photographer, or being sensitive and sad, or any combination of all those things, does not excuse you from perpetuating rape culture and sexism. Just because you have never physically forced yourself on a woman or roofied anyone does not mean that you have not manipulated and harassed women in other ways. The kind of ways that aren’t easy to report to cops or even closest friends. The kind of ways that aren’t even easy to explain by the girl who maybe was wasted and trying to convince herself that the situation was fine. Women are really good at convincing themselves that a relationship or situation is okay, or even fun, because we’re coached to be nice above all things. I’ve been the girl who was inexperienced and desperately wanted to seem cool, very much at my own expense. In the pursuit of getting laid or having a funny story to tell, I’ve willingly overlooked all kinds of banal indignities.

But anyway, a ton of guys will read this and be nodding along and feeling righteous and not understand that I am actually very specifically talking about things they’ve done. There’s lots of ways to be shitty to women. Maybe a list would help make things more clear?

Off the top of my head, here are ways that “progressive” dudes can and have been assholes to me and friends of mine:

(I’m not saying these are all equally traumatic, some are wildly harmful and some are just obnoxious. Content warning for sexual assault, emotional manipulation.)

• Posting internet memes that mock women who’ve rejected you
• Belittling a specific woman’s comments on the internet, continually, to be “funny”
• You don’t carry condoms but still hope to get laid
• Thinking your behavior is beyond reproach just because you read Jon Krakauer’s book on rape
• Chasing after a woman who doesn’t know you have a girlfriend
• Telling a woman you have a girlfriend and then hitting on her anyway, so if she takes you up on it, it will be totally her fault that you cheated
• Trying to stick your dick in without a condom (I don’t care if you’re “clean” or not, let’s see your Planned Parenthood screening results first)
• Telling a woman you’ve been seeing that you’re not interested in a relationship but then say “I love you” because it’ll get you back into her pants
• When a woman offers to buy you a drink on her tab, you buy four drinks on her tab
• When the condom breaks or slips off, you don’t offer to help pay for Plan B or at least come with her to the pharmacy
• After hooking up, you stay at her house all day until she asks you to leave
• Whining when she doesn’t feel like having sex with you because she contracted a UTI
• Expecting women who feel victimized by you to instruct you in what you did wrong
• Having sexual encounters where one or both parties were wasted, and when the woman tries to tell you how she remembers events, you tell her that she remembers things wrong and she made all the moves

These are a handful that came immediately to mind. I’m missing a bunch, partly because this little trip through memory lane isn’t super fun.

I don’t know what to tell you if you recognize yourself in this, except to leave me alone.

Hiatus

Ah yes, it’s come to this. I can’t pretend like I’m keeping this site up anymore. I started it in 2012 when I was working a pretty low-key part-time job, and I had an abundance of energy and creativity left over at the end of the day. I was also 23 years old and I could party four nights in a row. Sigh. These days I’m working full-time and I don’t go out to shows as much as I used to. It happens.

But I’m still here, obviously. If you’re a touring band, please check the FAQ! If you’re having a lot of trouble booking a show in Missoula, feel free to hit me up over email and I’ll do my best. Love to all y’all. I’m sure I’ll still pop on here to post musings when inspiration strikes.

Anyway, hit me up at missoulapunknews [at] gmail [dot] com if you need to find me. I’m also on the Twitters @kettlemt. Party on.

—Kate

Missoula Active Band Database

Just popping my head up from my underground lair to let y’all know that there’s a nifty local project going on: the Missoula Active Band database! It’s a Google doc based on the Bellingham model.

Check it out to see what bands are active and find contacts if you need to fill out a bill.

Also: some rad shows coming up, including Big Business at the Badlander on June 27. woooooooooooooo

mother may I

hello! quick note to say that I am alive, and that it would be really feeble of me if I only ever posted on this blog to tell you about when “my” band is playing shows. so I am definitely not posting here, now, to do that. how silly.

anyhoo the show calendar is updated, which I do try to do with regularity although I am less clued-in to the scene these days since I’m not a calendar editor, nor am I going out to shows as often. Full-time, 9-5 work will make you a poser. I’m just telling you right now.

shoutout to the touring bands who have been contacting me, yes, I am delighted that summer touring season is starting! reminder that the FAQ on the site is still a handy resource and I am still not booking shows. I leave that to the Martys and Kyleses of this world.

also, worthy events are coming up include Eel Fest on May 27, Glass Spiders in Butte on June 11, Helms Alee at the Palace on June 19 and Amayafest on June 27.

party on.

four 20, brah

‘sup kids. The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.

Just popping in to say NEW MEAN JEANS is streaming! And The Falcon announced West Coast tour dates, and a contingent of Missoula nerds will probably hit up the SLC one. The show calendar is a bit sparse right now but I’ll update it in a bit.

Planned Parenthood fundraisers, metal bands and trashy talk

get slutty

I haven’t blogged in a while, so here’s a fun dump of crap for you. this post involves an embarrassing amount of things related to myself.

first things first*

(*I can never say that without responding, in my head, ‘I’m the realest,’ because I am a piece of millennial garbage who’s heard that Iggy Azalea song Fancy too many times)

anyway, there’s a benefit for Planned Parenthood on Saturday! at the ZACC! with comedy, bands, raffles and more! I can’t find the flyer online but here’s the Facebook event. $6, all ages, 7 pm, at the ZACC, with comedy from Sarah Aswell, Zack Troxel, Kyle Kulseth, Zack Jarvis, and bands including Drift, Deadbeats, Mido Skip, Eat Strike, Bozeman’s Zenitram and Blaine Janes, featuring yours truly as a second guitarist and assistant yelling person. whaaaaat yes I know crazy.

enjoy this blurry cellphone image

let’s see, also, Tacocat played the VFW Sunday night and it was the bees’ knees. I haven’t seen Tacocat in years, I don’t think, and since they last played Missoula they’ve really upped their slumber-party-on-molly aesthetic and also have some super solid jams. Surfing the crimson wave today!

also, in Kate Learns To Sew, I took this plaid Wrangler shirt, cut off the sleeves, sewed it smaller, and added a Mean Jeans patch made from a shirt that didn’t fit me. now it’s long enough to cover my ass when I’m wearing janky old see-through leggings! w00t.

pro tip: stand with your legs far apart so your thighs look amazing

ALSO, Marles Sparkley, host of the Trailers and Trash talk show hosted on YouTube, had me over for a live interview. I unveil the mysteries of being a working journalist who runs a poorly maintained punk blog on the side. A dog was under the table below us, licking his balls, so we kept getting distracted by that. just fyi. Thanks to Mr. Sparkley for inviting me on!

mmkay. lessee. last thing: Texas metal band Absu plays the Place on April 12, and DIVERS!!!! plays the VFW on April 14. See y’all there.

 

what’s tacocat spelled backwards

Whoops, hey there blog. I got sick and went to Texas, got some antibiotics, and saw Mind Spiders and ate tonkatsu ramen and that was pretty darn cool.
Locally, Events Are Happening. Chuck Ragan plays the Top Hat on Thursday. Art’s gonna get weird on First Friday. Party with comedians for the All Bodies, All Genders comedy night, also on April 1. Saturday something is probably happening. Sunday is TACOCAT at the VFW!!!

party on,

k dubs

missoulapunknews [at] gmail dot com

what up Texas

oh haaaayyyyyyyy there blog. your faithful editor gal is about to head out of town for a vacation! I will trust that all y’all will hold down the party fort in my absence. Peruse the show calendar for a smattering of information.

Rock Lotto IV: nope, I still don’t care about Led Zeppelin

photos as blurry as my recollections

I tried, I really did, but I can’t with the Led Zeppelin. I even recognize that some of those songs technically sound pretty cool! “We come from the land of the ice and snow/From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.” What a nifty lyric! “Ramble On” has references to Lord of the Rings in it, yes, I know! And yet I feel nothing for it.

BUT, I do care deeply about partying with a slew of rad people and watching weird creative performance, which Rock Lotto IV: Zoso delivered in spades. Here are my assorted notes from Rock Lotto, as I haphazardly typed them into my notepad app. I gently edited these for clarity in some places, redacted some enormously inappropriate comments, but mostly left any whiskey-soaked autocorrect errors as they were.

Also when I don’t know a band’s name, it is designated as according to my friends who are in that band. We here at Missoula Punk News practice flagrant favoritism.

Amy’s photos rule

I took a bunch of real lousy iPod photos, but you should go check out Amy Donovan’s incredible photos from the night.

9:05 p.m.

Flint Water! First up. Just realized what that name references. Hippie vibes.

9:27 p.m.

Jamie’s Band When the Dental Dam Breaks kicks off with Janis’ “Mercedez Benz.” (They went on to kill it with a Kinks cover that I really dug.)

9:34 p.m.

dang I should worn beads and fringe

9:35 p.m.

Jamie’s band: “I’d like to dedicate this song to my grandma, who’s in the front row right now.”

9:38 p.m.

Men in spangly short shorts! Sarah Meismer in pants like a couch! Fucking gold lamé!

9:41 p.m.

“Is this a Led Zeppelin song?”

“Yes, the last three of these have been Zeppelin songs. But they do all sound the same”

(ETA: okay yes, fine, that was me who asked that)

9:59 p.m.

Jean Pain band with Hermina on drums, fucking weird, it’s about time

(ETA: Jean Pain all dressed up in homemade masks and headdresses made out of denim, and the singer sang into a vocoder and they finished with a cover of ABBA’s “Fernando.”)

10:03 p.m.

Oh God, I got on Twitter:

@kettlemt erotic jean dances and vocoder rn pic.twitter.com/ZqOVeLRKkU

— Whittler On The Roof (@kettlemt) February 28, 2016

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

10:28 p.m.

Jessica’s band Fiyah! is bringing the hair and the reggae. (That curly haired Robert Plant wig made several appearances that night.)

10:36 p.m.

Jess’s band crushed the only Led Zeppelin song I know (ETA: not sure which song that was, lol)

10:41 p.m.

And now we just sang happy birthday to a singer’s mom?

10:42 p.m.

Rock Lotto Committee says “Marty will give you a screaming deal on t-shirts if you’re in a band and [blankity blank] you to death if you’re not”

11:10 p.m.

And then I missed the band [Sex Police] that did Kashmir, I am a jerk. Someone was singing Weeknd songs in the stairwell of the parking garage tho. On Point.

(ETA: I went out to get food from Masala and had missed it. I’m told they slayed. My FOMO is very real.)

11:24 p.m.

Yea Amanda’s band Mud Shark is doing a weird alt-electronic version of “Whole Lotta Love.”

(There’s a significant gap here where I went upstairs to the Rose to chill out. and by chill out I mean I belted out an extremely incorrect rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” along with the jukebox. the ending chorus really does sound like “A BANANAAAA, A BANANAAA,” you know. I think that’s mostly when Backdoor Man & The Secret Shakes with Kia and Dave Jones played. There was a gong even!)

Feb 28, 12:10 a.m.

Ok some other bands played including Kia’s amazing band and the Rock Lotto Committee conceded that that was not entirely randomly chosen. Also whoever is about to play said “Give it up for old people!”

Oh it’s Lit Zipline

Feb. 28, 12:12 a.m.

Oh, fucking Coach Shane is i. A band

Feb. 28, 12:38 a.m.

Coach Shane and Tricia Opstad’s band sits down for acoustic “Stairway” and hand-clapping group jams, v cool, so weird these people would be randomly assigned to a band right

Marty is now supposed to be selling shirts for five dollars

Feb. 28, 1 a.m.

Sarah and Davenport band [Hot Air Buffoon] yay! I am gonna pass out soon tho

…

and thus concludes the Missoula Punk News staff report on Rock Lotto IV.