Rebellion in Harmony: Music, Activism, and Self-Acceptance with Guest - Eva Strangelace

G-Rex [00:00:00]:
Hey, Ripley. Hi. How are you?

Dirty Skittles [00:00:03]:
Hey.

G-Rex [00:00:03]:
We are fantastic.

Ripley [00:00:05]:
Awesome.

Dirty Skittles [00:00:06]:
You caught us. Oh, yes. Oh, are you drinking water or is that just all vodka?

Ripley [00:00:14]:
Got water in it.

Dirty Skittles [00:00:15]:
Okay. Because I was like, I'm joining you. I have rum and ginger.

Ripley [00:00:20]:
Yeah, I have a gin and tonic here.

G-Rex [00:00:23]:
I have a great fruit beer from Canada.

Ripley [00:00:28]:
Oh, nice. Good rattler.

G-Rex [00:00:30]:
A good rattler. So we were in Toronto last weekend for my birthday to see Pink. And so on the way home, we stopped at my favorite brewery and I got $108 worth of birthday beer. It was awesome. So you would think that they would check your car when you're driving back and they're like, yeah, how much do you have with you? And I'm like, I have a case. And like, okay, bye. And that's all I had. I was sitting in the back of the car doing fucking calculus, trying to figure out how much I could bring back. Next time I'm just going to bring back, like, four fucking cases of beer. All right. Like, whatever, do it.

Ripley [00:01:12]:
That's awesome.

G-Rex [00:01:15]:
Try to figure this all out. I'm like, I could have had four fucking cases and they wouldn't have given two cent.

Dirty Skittles [00:01:37]:
Take your chugs. Last minute drink.

G-Rex [00:01:40]:
I got my chugs.

Dirty Skittles [00:01:42]:
We're good? Is everybody good?

G-Rex [00:01:43]:
Do you have your depends on me.

Dirty Skittles [00:01:47]:
I just pottied.

G-Rex [00:01:48]:
Okay. I'm just making sure.

Dirty Skittles [00:01:50]:
Can you tell? I talked to a five year old all day. Did you just go potty? Okay. All right. Are we ready?

G-Rex [00:01:58]:
We're ready.

Dirty Skittles [00:01:59]:
Do you want to do intro G Rex or do you want me?

G-Rex [00:02:01]:
Can you still do it? If I laugh too much, I'm going to cough up along.

Dirty Skittles [00:02:07]:
I got it.

G-Rex [00:02:07]:
I have a really bad cold from Toronto.

Ripley [00:02:10]:
Oh, gosh. All right.

Dirty Skittles [00:02:12]:
Yeah.

G-Rex [00:02:13]:
Okay, you ready?

Dirty Skittles [00:02:14]:
Ready. We're going to do our countdown. Ripley 3211. Welcome back to another episode of shit that goes on in our heads. Today we are joined with the wonderful Ripley. Yeah. Yeah. We need, like, the crowd in the background.

Ripley [00:02:39]:
Yeah.

Dirty Skittles [00:02:39]:
So Ripley. Welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time just to chat with us about a little bit about who you are asking me. Yeah, of course. So what do you want to share with the world about Ripley? Who is Ripley?

Ripley [00:02:56]:
Oh, my God. I honestly don't usually share that much about myself, really, unless it's songwriting.

Dirty Skittles [00:03:05]:
Okay, we can jump in there. Have you written any good songs lately?

Ripley [00:03:10]:
You know, I'm in a hardcore band. I front a band called Mace, which is an abbreviation which probably will change from time to time. Men are controlling everything. Men are cunts everywhere. Whatever. You want to throw it in there. So we're sort of queer core, angry hardcore band. And one of the songs I just wrote is called Bodily Autonomy. And it sort of crosses over two lines of where bodily autonomy is under attack in the United States right now. With trans rights and with women's rights as well, reproductive rights, that's super angry song that I just wrote. And we're playing our first show this Saturday, and I can't wait to get in people's faces and yell at them.

Dirty Skittles [00:04:14]:
I love that. That hits real hard right now for multiple reasons. So is that therapeutic for you to be able to release those emotions through song?

Ripley [00:04:26]:
It really is. It's therapeutic for me. And I know I didn't think this originally because I was just writing these words and putting them out there, but as I was approached in my last hardcore band by members of the queer punk community about how happy they were that I made them feel heard and gave them a space to be able to vent some of their frustration as well. So now that's another part of it that's very fulfilling to me to just be able to give people a voice if they don't have know.

Dirty Skittles [00:05:07]:
Yeah. And right now you are located where? In Florida.

Ripley [00:05:12]:
In Florida? In Orlando? Yeah. We're like a little blue oasis right in the middle of town.

Dirty Skittles [00:05:19]:
Yeah, I bring that up. Know we met earlier just to kind of hear your story, and I think that that's such an influential part, at least something that hits close for me because we just moved from Florida and part of at least our reason of leaving was where Florida currently sits and how it doesn't align with our beliefs. So hearing that you're out there and you're singing the songs and giving voices to people who maybe didn't know exactly what to say, I'm curious, what are your thoughts on staying in Florida versus leaving?

Ripley [00:05:57]:
So originally I was planning to leave when the laws started going in that direction, and I kept putting a line out there and being like, well, if they cross this line, I'm out. And then they kept crossing a line because I honestly didn't think they would get there. And I do have the ability to move because the company I work for is based out of Boston, so Massachusetts has very liberal laws regarding gender identity and LGBTQ rights. So it was something that I was planning on doing. And then after what I mentioned earlier about the queer punk community approaching me, about what I had helped them with, I decided this is where the fight is. If I leave, then I leave that void here for those people that need it. So I'm going to stay for now and as long as I can anyway.

G-Rex [00:07:00]:
Yeah, I think it's awesome that you're there and you're helping to fight the fight and giving the queer community and the trans community like a light, right? Because right now that light is dimming all around them. And not just in Florida, but there's other states, too. And I have to commend you because for like, my wife and I, we left South Florida at the height of the pandemic. The writing was on the wall and I was just I couldn't do was the best thing we did was move to upstate New York. And frankly, we live in a very small red town. But they don't bother us here. I mind my business, they mind there. But I really commend you for doing what you're doing because I can only imagine how hard it is.

Ripley [00:07:53]:
It is and it's sort of always looking over your shoulder and walking around with mace at my side all the know because you never know where it's going to come from. And luckily in Orlando it's not too bad. But when my last band, calling Dead, was on tour last year, we went up and then some states, I think it was South Carolina maybe that we played a gig there and there was some overt hate. Nobody really approached me directly, but there was definitely some there and it was palpable. So luckily nowhere else that we played was like that. But you see it sometimes even in the punk community, it's kind of disheartening because it's like that's not why we're here.

Dirty Skittles [00:08:52]:
Yeah, I'm curious if when I think of punk rock, right, I think of that always kind of being the purpose, right? Like speaking out for those that aren't heard. Right. So do you think that your current journey where you are in life now was just like a natural progression? I'm just trying to figure out did you pick punk or did punk pick you? Were you always meant to kind of find this as your journey?

Ripley [00:09:18]:
So when I was in middle school, I think it was around then I had gotten into SoCal punk and this is back in the sort of got really quickly into metal at that point because Slayer, like jumping from punk rock to Slayer wasn't a big jump. And then I found a big voice in metal because thrash metal and stuff tended to be a little more politically aware and less leaning. And so as growing up in a very small town like I did, there was nobody around. A few kids that were into stuff but not a lot around to go, oh, this is the cool view. Other than all of the other racist kind of stuff that was going on around you. And growing up with what was going on in my head, I felt very outside of everything. And my mom had traveled a lot when I was young, so I saw the rest of the world and I'm like, okay, the small town I'm in is not the world. There's other stuff out there that shaped my worldview. And the music grew with me. I've been in and out of several different scenes, like goth scene, the metal scene, the punk rock scene, back and forth because I have a root in all of those punk rock and now doing it, I feel more connected to it. So, I don't know, I like the people, people are mostly friendly. Everybody helps everybody out. It's a good community. So it and we're able to sort of partner up with organizations too, with Orlando Liberation Front and stuff to help out people that are having a hard time getting medications. Florida not only outlawed trans care for kids, they made it significantly harder for adults to even access care. So that's another aspect of it.

G-Rex [00:11:47]:
Is there a way for our listeners to contribute to some sort of funding in Florida or around the know?

Ripley [00:12:00]:
I would check out if you wanted something local to Orlando. It's more like it's Orlando Liberation Front as far as statewide know, the typical ones like ACLU and they do a lot of work for helping out our so offhand. I can't think I can send you some links to yeah, that would be great.

G-Rex [00:12:25]:
I want to include that in the show notes and stuff.

Ripley [00:12:28]:
Cool.

Dirty Skittles [00:12:31]:
Taking kind of like a quick step back because as I'm hearing your story, I feel like to some degree you're providing support to people who don't have that readily available. So I'm curious, when you were growing up, did you have support?

Ripley [00:12:49]:
No, I didn't. Honestly. It was the late 70s when I figured out or when I had this stuff started happening in my head and I couldn't put a word to it because there just wasn't a word to it. And especially where I grew up, I didn't even have access to information like how to learn about it. And it wasn't until I was in nursing school in my early twenty s that I was able to put a word to it because in a psych rotation I started learning about it and I was like, oh my God, there's other people out here like this too. So I think that's when I decided, all right, well, this is who I've always been. I have a way to express it now. All right. Here I am. So the goth community was super accepting of me at that time. This is the late 90s. So weird. People are always accepted. There punk rock scene and metal scene. Not so much back then. Now it's a lot more accepting than it used to be, but Gossine always definitely very accepting.

Dirty Skittles [00:14:12]:
Yeah. Well, does that play a part in your beliefs of staying and fighting the fight and providing support or at least understanding to those that don't have it?

Ripley [00:14:24]:
Yeah, I think it does. I don't think I've thought that hard about my reasonings, what shape that? But I would say, yeah, that the community I've been involved with is something that I want to give back to in the best way I can do it.

Dirty Skittles [00:14:44]:
Yeah.

G-Rex [00:14:46]:
Do you think that your self love and self care comes from the music you play and how you my words are all messed up. It's the music just going to go with that. Oh yeah.

Dirty Skittles [00:15:05]:
She's completely drugged up right now.

G-Rex [00:15:07]:
I'm completely drugged up. Okay, so when you're playing your music or you're writing it, is that your version of self love and self care?

Ripley [00:15:17]:
It is, yeah. I've been in several bands over the years, and I think that the last two I was in as a front person have been the ones I've really connected in that kind of manner. Because before, I never really connected that much. I didn't put a lot of myself into it. It was kind of surface level stuff. And maybe I'd think about something I was mad about or something, but I never really put myself into it. And I think with these, especially with maze, I'm putting everything into. Yeah, and that's a big deal because I didn't start going to see a therapist until 2018. And that opened my eyes to all kinds of ways that I was being horrible to myself and other people around me and being able to look at music through a different lens, respecting myself, like you said, loving myself and just being okay, being me has definitely influenced how I use music as therapy.

Dirty Skittles [00:16:37]:
Yeah. And I think there's such a level of beauty to that, where someone is naturally figuring out who they are and evolving naturally, I think, to some degree, for myself, there's always almost like a mechanic way where I'm like, okay, I want to be this, or I want to accomplish this. And finding a way to do it can be a little difficult because it's not natural. So I think there's a definite beauty in evolving the way you're meant to be, and it coming naturally.

Ripley [00:17:13]:
It's hard to be vulnerable. And being vulnerable is something I've always had a problem with because I grew up my parents were divorced when I was 13 and I grew up with my dad and he was not really present all the time, if at all, and definitely not emotionally present. So I didn't really have anybody to sort of show me how to deal with the anger and the frustration and the things that I felt inside. And of course, didn't like myself very much. My dad was that kind of person who didn't really like himself very much. And that sort of stuff spawns it propagates to your kids. So I kind of grew up with that feeling and I didn't even know that I needed to deal with that until everything came to a point where I couldn't ignore it anymore. And I was like, I have to do something about this. And seeing a therapist and having gone through therapy for a few years now, it's a breath of fresh air to be able to be authentic and be able to be vulnerable and be okay being vulnerable.

G-Rex [00:18:42]:
It's funny, we were just kind of talking about that dirty skittles and I because being on the podcast, she's used to not being very vulnerable, and just being on the podcast has allowed her to be vulnerable and ask those questions. This is season three and I've just seen you grow so much and my heart kind of beams with pride because I kind of like to bring that out of you.

Dirty Skittles [00:19:14]:
I don't know what to say to that. I'm like because I'm a jerk. Yeah, I think that that's like as I was listening to Talk Ripley, I think with every guest we kind of self reflect a little bit as we're hearing your story. And I remember me in high school, not really. I mean, I guess to a degree, I still don't really know who I am, but I remember seeing kids in the punk or goth scene and thinking like, wow, that's so cool that they can be themselves, right, and they can walk this hallway and not care what I'm thinking, right? Like, I'm seeing them and I'm like, Damn, I wish. But not even really knowing who I was, I just knew that I wasn't that free or vulnerable. And I think having gone through therapy now while I still don't totally know 100% who I am, I'm comfortable in saying who I am is not knowing yet. Right. Like, I'm in this space, in this moment and I'm getting there and being able to be vulnerable in that ways is kind of I don't know why I'm talking about this. I guess to go back to G. Rex. Yeah.

Ripley [00:20:26]:
When I got into metal in high school, for me, a lot of the way I dressed was kind of like becoming a cactus because I build this wall up around so nobody really realizes how vulnerable I am inside. Look tough and all this stuff and it's just like it's ridiculous. When I go back and think about that, it's just kind of funny, like, how much of it was what I really liked and what really reflected my style and my attitude towards life and stuff and how much of it was just because I didn't want people to know what was going on inside.

Dirty Skittles [00:21:09]:
Yeah. And I think we all kind of wear different masks for that, right? Yeah. I mean, for me it's like more I'll just pretend to be what won't draw, right?

Ripley [00:21:24]:
Yeah.

Dirty Skittles [00:21:24]:
Yeah. So it's just all different. I gosh like where you are. Like, when I think of you and hearing your story and how you're willing to stay in Florida, it's just like mind blowing to me because Bizzle and I, we have a young kid, five years old. And not that anything has come to light or anything like that, but I remember this one. My pivotal moment of leaving was being in a car with him and he was saying, mommy, you're so beautiful. And I'm like, well, you're beautiful, too. No, I said, you're handsome to my son. And he goes, Well, I don't want to be handsome, I want to be gorgeous. And I was like, well, you're gorgeous. Right. Like, just a very simple conversation. And meath in that moment, knowing it didn't matter where I was. I just wanted him to be free and being whoever he will be one day. And for us, that wasn't Florida. But hearing your story, I can't imagine anybody not having that support system and being in that state. And I think it's just admirable that you're one of the few that are out there willing to give a voice and fight and stay and not.

Ripley [00:22:44]:
Know. Like I said, because I live in Orlando, I feel sort of a little bit insulated from it. It doesn't feel like a lot. If I had a kid, I wouldn't be here. There's no way I wouldn't want to raise them in an environment like this. But for me, it's like, I guess I've always sort of been different and had that sort of looking out for the people around me that might not be looking out for me. It doesn't feel like much, which maybe that's good because I have the ability to stay and sort of insulate from it. But I don't know, I feel like to your point there about your kid, there's so many of these expectations that especially for men, for the gender binaries, if you're signed female at birth, you have to be this way, and if you're signed male at birth, you have to be this way. And it's all predicated on some kind of antiquated need to reproduce. I feel like the people that are transphobic or whatever, on one hand, they've got this mindset that people assign female at birth are only there to serve their reproductive needs or something, and there's no other use for it. And if you decide to step outside of that box they put you in, then they're going to legislate you out of existence. With trans women, it's like, well, they can't procreate, so they shouldn't exist because if I can't fuck them, then they're not worth my time.

Dirty Skittles [00:24:36]:
Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy just to think about like I'm starting to get angry about it because to me it's just like nobody has the right to tell me who I am, right. And that should just fucking drives me nuts. I'm like cracking my knuckles. That's a sign of my knuckles. Yeah. It pisses me off when people think they have the right to tell you who you are or what you're worth.

Ripley [00:25:07]:
It always comes from people that aren't comfortable with who they are. And I feel like it's just projection and it's like, well, if I can't be who I am, then you can't be who you are. It's like, you know what a band that I used to like a lot until the thing with Paramore No Effects had a lyric in one of their songs. Did you know, like, the Blueprints for a Better World were written on a postage stamp? Like, I don't fuck with you, don't fuck with me. That's all we have to do is just like, don't each other. Just let people live their lives.

Dirty Skittles [00:25:40]:
Yeah, like respect human rights, you know what I mean?

Ripley [00:25:45]:
As long as you're not taking away the rights of other people, then why do you care, right?

Dirty Skittles [00:25:52]:
It's none of your business.

G-Rex [00:25:53]:
Literally, now that I hit the age of 60, I just don't give a shit. Like, if you don't like me, I just don't care. Yeah, I don't have the time for it. I'm going to live my life. I'm going to be who I am. I've been out of the closet for a really long time. I have no desire to go back in the closet. It's not going to happen, right? And I want to help out those that are trying to figure that shit out, right? Just fucking be nice to people because you have no idea what the fuck is going on in our life. You have zero idea. Just be fucking nice. Can we just all work on that? Be fucking nice.

Ripley [00:26:34]:
Yeah, for sure. I think the Internet, unfortunately, has exacerbated the problem because people exist on the other side of screens where there's a physical barrier between them that can't be surmounted. So all the vitriol and hate that comes out of people's mouths is so easy when there's no repercussions to it. It's true. I don't know. In person, it used to be, I think people felt like if they say things like they say online, it's like, oh, you might get beat up or whatever. Might be some repercussion to it, but now it's so anonymous. But unfortunately, the feelings that you feel when people say those things to you are not anonymous. They're very real.

G-Rex [00:27:31]:
The internet, the media, we all say shit behind the microphone that we would never say to somebody in person, right? Ever.

Dirty Skittles [00:27:41]:
If I could ask, and I don't know how easy this would be to answer, but thinking back to your younger self, I guess what helped you get to the point you are now? Because you seem very strong and secure and not I don't know, I don't want to say weak, but you seem very just self secure now. How did you get here?

Ripley [00:28:05]:
Therapy is a big part of that. I came out in 96 as trans, and there just there wasn't a support network. There was, you know, laser hair removal wasn't really a thing, or it was, but it was super expensive. The job that I worked at didn't have insurance that would help out any kind of thing like that. There wasn't like a health network even. You couldn't just go to your primary care and say, this is my thing. You had to go through a year of therapy and you had to go through a year of living as your identity, gender for a year before you could even consider any kind of medical transition stuff. And so I just did what I could. I tried to live like that and it worked out for me for a while. Just sort of not being fully female, but being more like androgynous somewhere in the middle. And some things happened in the early two thousand s that sort of put me back in the closet. It was a little bit my own choice and a little bit tired of putting up with society. That created a lot of other problems for me mentally. And I had a lot of unhealthy ways of dealing with the frustrations that I had in my head. And I don't think that I ever put my finger on the fact that the reason I was doing these unhealthy things was because I wasn't being myself or I wasn't able to do that. I didn't feel like I had a supportive environment for it. And you can only do that for so long, and you just get to the point where it all comes to a point and you're like, oh my God, I have to deal with this. And that's what I was saying before. That's when I started going to therapy, and I learned so much about myself in just a couple of months that weren't even obvious to me. My therapist had pointed out a lot of my first therapy appointment. I don't even think she got a moment to speak. I was just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just like listen to me. Yeah, a little ways down the line, she pointed out a lot of things to me that I had been doing to myself and to other people that sort of helped me go, oh, yeah, that's wow, it hurt, you know, to be faced with that. But at this point, I've gotten beyond it, and I've gotten to the point where now I love who I am. I'm not ever going back to that going in the closet thing. That pretending to be somebody else. This is who I am. I think earlier in life, I was able to say, this is who I am. But I wasn't able to say, if you don't like it, then see, now I'm able to just go, okay, I am worth more than your acceptance. I don't need your acceptance. I accept myself. That's a big thing to come up on.

Dirty Skittles [00:32:06]:
That's such a deep, huge statement that I can't imagine first of all, how do I even word this? I can't imagine having the courage to come out and say, for once, I'm acknowledging who I think I am in this moment. This is me. And then just kidding. Kind of go back into yourself because somebody didn't like it, right? I can't imagine living that. So to hear you finally say something like that, that I'm just like, oh, shit, that's huge. That moves mountains, right? To be like, this is me. I'm okay with it, and if you don't like it, go kick rocks, bro. This is who I'm going to be. And part of me gets worried that we're so close to that being a thing where it's somebody saying, sorry, that's not who we think you are, and that shit scares me. It's crazy.

Ripley [00:33:07]:
Yeah, it is. And the fact that there's no basis behind what they're doing other than their own fears is what makes it even more frustrating. Every major medical association has come out to say, hey, just speaking of the gender related stuff, that this is fine. There's nothing experimental about it. This stuff's been going on since the 70s. We know a lot more about it. We're always learning because in medicine, in science, in general, we're always learning stuff. But it's pretty well researched and accepted medical process. Now, I don't know where all this came from.

Dirty Skittles [00:34:00]:
I know I agree. Like, what the fuck?

G-Rex [00:34:05]:
It's such a sad state of affairs. And I think about people and kids in my community, right? I'm in a very small rural from a community in upstate New York, these kids that are telling their parents they're trans, how do we help these kids? Right? How do we give them a safe space?

Ripley [00:34:30]:
How do you make their parents not feel like because a lot of it comes down to sorry, I mean, interrupt you, but a lot of parents, I feel like, are under such pressure to raise the perfect kid that they're afraid of what society thinks about how they're raising their kids. So they're just going to be like, no, get back in the box. Get back in there. Don't come out. Because if you do, I'm going to look like a terrible parent. It's like the whole beauty pageant culture. Like the parents that send their kids to all these beauty pageants, or your kid has to get straight A's all the time, or you're going to be a bad parent. And I think that feeds into it as well.

Dirty Skittles [00:35:14]:
That's so scary.

G-Rex [00:35:17]:
It is scary. And just always thinking of ways to help the kids out. I'm thankful. Our little library is pretty progressive, so they have a lot of resources for the kids. And Tompkins county Ithaca. They have a lot of resources. But I think about kids, even smaller communities. How do we help them? How do we give them a voice? Because everybody deserves a voice.

Ripley [00:35:48]:
Yeah, they definitely do.

Dirty Skittles [00:35:51]:
Yeah. The small area that we live in now, I mean, it's not small, it's huge. But the neighborhood we live in now, literally right across the street from us, is somebody who has a flag for a political party. I'm not even going to say what it is, but I don't agree with it. And I mean, it's huge. It's like you can't miss it. It's right in front of your face. And I remember telling Bizzle, like, okay, so now we need to get a flag so that other people know that we are a safe place. We don't agree with this guy over here and what the fuck he's feeling. This is us. This is our family. This is our beliefs. And. If you're going to fucking wave this flag around. I can't imagine the kids that are running around, and God forbid any of them are afraid to be who they are. That sucks, dude. That sucks that you have to see that shit every day.

Ripley [00:36:39]:
It's just crazy down here. It's like this sort of when you see a Confederate flag or whatever, because those are pretty common down here. It makes you feel weird. You're like, okay. But then across the street there's like an inclusive it's like, yeah, cool.

Dirty Skittles [00:37:05]:
It just a reminder of how fucked up we are as a world. Goddamn.

Ripley [00:37:11]:
But I think I respect everybody's point of view, but there are some points of view that just are not helpful for anyone. And even the people that have those points of view, it's like, that's not helpful to you either. Come on, get some therapy. Access to therapy.

G-Rex [00:37:32]:
Right?

Dirty Skittles [00:37:33]:
Right. Yeah. Damn, bro, it's scary. I'm just like to get back to the parents thing. I think it kind of comes back to putting the right people in charge and educating yourself and not listening to the crazy bullshit that's happening out there. And I think to have a great kid, it doesn't mean that they're of a certain gender or that they like a certain kind of person. It's like, are they a good person?

Ripley [00:38:02]:
Right.

Dirty Skittles [00:38:03]:
Gives a fuck about everything else.

Ripley [00:38:04]:
Well, I think beyond even being a certain gender or whatever, it's like even if you're of a binary gender and you're a CIS or whatever and you don't identify as another one, I think that society's standards of what boys should look like and what girls should look like is so stifling. I think that plays into it too. It's like these same parents that we're talking about are like, well, what if my daughter's not pretty like every other 90% of us? Or whatever this ideal pretty is? Or what if my boy is scrying and not muscly and all this stuff? It's like just these interpretations of what we're supposed to look like.

G-Rex [00:39:03]:
Who said that?

Ripley [00:39:04]:
Marketing companies. Right? It's all marketing bullshit. Come on, stop buying into that.

Dirty Skittles [00:39:11]:
Yeah, I know. I was just thinking of, like I could hear an accent like, my son's not the star quarterback dating the cheerleader. Like, Get the fuck out of here, bro. It's so crazy, dude.

Ripley [00:39:22]:
Yeah. Everybody was growing up was like, people put that in front of you and go, this is what you should aim for. This is what you should be. The prom queen and the prom king and all that stuff. And it just leaves 90% of the people out of the process.

G-Rex [00:39:43]:
In the meantime, I'm a catcher eyeing the pitcher. And I'm like, that's my type. No, I'm not conforming.

Ripley [00:39:52]:
Right? That's cool.

Dirty Skittles [00:39:56]:
Yeah.

G-Rex [00:39:57]:
Ripley, I really appreciate you sharing your story and just your resources and dirty skittles just for you getting involved. That is 90% of the battle right there. Just put yourself out there.

Ripley [00:40:16]:
Yeah. You meet people at protest. There's a lot of resources there.

G-Rex [00:40:23]:
I'm going to send you a flag.

Dirty Skittles [00:40:25]:
Me.

G-Rex [00:40:26]:
Big one.

Dirty Skittles [00:40:28]:
I got it.

G-Rex [00:40:29]:
I'm going to send you a really big flag.

Dirty Skittles [00:40:31]:
Okay. I'll send you a picture of how big this one is. Let's make it twice as let's make.

G-Rex [00:40:36]:
It twice as big. Yes.

Dirty Skittles [00:40:38]:
Yeah. No, I mean, just to piggyback off of what ripley I like, I thank you not only for just joining us and sharing your story, but the silent hero work you're doing. You know what I mean? And it's coming naturally to you. So I feel like that might sound weird to be like, oh, thanks for being a hero for but truly, right. There are definite people that you're impacting every day. And just like, G Rex and I, I'm sure, have been both impacted by your story that there are other people that maybe you don't know about that are listening to your music, that are hearing this particular episode that you're going to have an impact on. So I just want to thank you for what you do and thank you for choosing yourself in that moment to be your authentic self. I appreciate you.

Ripley [00:41:23]:
Thank you for having me and listening to me.

Dirty Skittles [00:41:25]:
Ramble I'm sure we'll have to reach back out to you, just depending on how shit goes in the world, but I would love to hear an update at some point in the future.

Ripley [00:41:38]:
Cool.

Dirty Skittles [00:41:39]:
Thank you. Ripley it's okay to be not okay. Just make sure you're talking to someone.