IT HAPPENED TO ME: My Famous #MenToo Date "Victimized" Another Woman - And I Laughed
Before the Tate brothers and their sicko manosphere was even called that, I took the wrong side against a woman in another horrific incident. PLUS: Free shirts! And which of you is our new Editor!!!!
Hi Reading People and thank you for doing it here,
I know Ken Stringfellow somewhat. Not super well, but well enough that when I went to search for my emails with Dana on this topic she had proposed writing about, a long list of friend-group emails he and I were both on starting in 2007 or so popped up (I never delete anything). I certainly spent time with him but nothing stands out from it and I haven’t talked to him in years.
I somehow missed the reports years back of all the accusations against Ken from a number of beyond credible (of course) women. (I was probably launching something new and when I’m in that state, I block out a lot of “news,” but Dana will explain the women’s horror stories in her piece below). And when Dana pitched writing about her own involvement with Ken, the subject seemed valuable to cover, regardless of whether I knew or liked him or not (always a rule). However, I wanted to look for something more in it beyond the disgustingness and the #MeToo and #MenToo aspects which were already covered. I wanted some further enlightenment about why this shit keeps happening and new insights into ways we can all help stop it.
And then as I read more of Dana’s powerful writing about her experience, another aspect that we saw together in her story raised something meaningful and moving for both of us. It has to do with how women are constantly put in the position of belittling other women or seeing them as pathetic over their feelings and hopes for a guy rather than supporting each other and placing the blame strictly where it lays (no pun intended).
Without saying anything more, I hope you “enjoy” her piece, and let’s all talk about our reactions to it and our own experiences in these situations with Dana in the comments. I think we can create some change in attitude here if you do, and I would love to try.
I also want to announce the new AJPT Editorial hire I have been talking to you all about for eons.
I’m calling it the initial hire because we plan to bring more of you on as soon as this first one helps me become more efficient. So before I even tell you that name, any of you who have written to me, know that I still have all of your information and I still have my notes at the top of all of your submissions, and I am still overwhelmed with respect and appreciation for all of you, so let’s get you hired next. (Like you Amanda, who just wrote me again this morning with that list of so many fucking impressive skills I could salivate and still am. And in another incredible example, if your initials are J.d.P., you have put so much into this hiring process and I know we will get to work together on AJPT soon because, come on, it’s only fair!)
There are hundreds of others of you I could write these notes to here also. If you want more specific feedback and can’t wait for me to notify you, you can definitely send our email threads back to me again with a new subject line that says “what the hell, Jane?” And I’ll work my way through them to give you the specific feedback notes I have for you. You are so wonderful and accomplished and creative and beyond deserving and I am so grateful for your openness to all growing this thing together.
Having said all that (and still not having said enough, but I will), our initial hire from this round of applications is Christine Morrison and she is officially our first ever Another Jane Pratt Thing Editor-at-Large! (Editor-at-Large has always been one of my favorite titles. I’ve never had it myself, but boy is it appealing because it connotes to me flying around the world on adventures while still being considered productive and also the “large” part makes me think of the phrase “large and in charge,” something I have always wanted to be called.) So congratulate Christine in the comments – also because she may be helping me go through and respond to you all on the next round of hires soon, so it might be a good move to be nice to her if you still care and still even want to be involved in this.
Again (and again), I deeply appreciate you all. Now let’s read and talk about Dana’s story! I thank her tremendously for it and thank all the other people in it, including those who wanted their names changed and those who didn’t but all of whom wanted to be part of it and tell their stories too. I will of course let you know about backlash I get from my friend group, etc. I expect it. I love you.
Jane
PS You can order an amazing SASSY shirt via the little green button below (while I maintain the original low pricing even though we don’t make money on a lot of them) - or you can get one FREE by taking out an annual or lifetime subscription here!
By Dana Dubois
“You sing pretty good, boy,” a grizzled regular drawled as Ken finished his song and stepped down from the corner stage with a flourish.
We all giggled. The old man had just seen a 30-something dude in a hoodie karaoke his best “Band on the Run.” We knew more: the singer was Ken Stringfellow, co-front man for beloved Seattle ‘90s power-pop band the Posies, a legit local rockstar and my crush of the moment. After a brief flirtation over email — it was 2002, after all — I’d asked him out to karaoke, and to my delight, he said yes. We agreed to meet at the Baranof, the diviest dive bar that ever dove, on a Monday night, and that we’d each bring a friend.
I brought three.
“It became clear that a hookup was all Ken could offer — and my limited research revealed many, many women had already taken him up on it.”
Liz and Corin [This is a fake name, as are some of the others in this story. These will be the only fake things in this post, or anything else that you see on AJPT, and we did it to protect people, of course. — Jane] were eager to witness the wonder of a favorite musician in civilian mode at karaoke. Just a few months later we’d go on to launch our local indie music website, Three Imaginary Girls, though none of us knew it yet that night. Melissa came too. She wasn’t a fan of the Posies but was a good friend of mine, and was always down to witness whatever dating misadventures I managed to find.
Ken rejoined our booth after his Wings performance and cozied in next to me, sitting a bit too close in the best of ways, our table strewn with the strongest, cheapest cocktails this town has ever seen. We cheered and drank some more.
He was pretty good, indeed.
Ken also didn’t come alone. He brought a friend and to my surprise, it was a woman, Amy, and they’d known each other for years. She clapped as we sang, and drank as we drank. She seemed cool enough.
She also seemed deeply, hopelessly besotted with Ken.
As the night fueled forward on double vodka sodas and ridiculous song choices, we all got giddy drunk. Amy, however, became sad and clingy. The more Ken and I flirted, the more attention-seeking her behaviors. He seemed unfazed by it all but my friends and I noticed, exchanging knowing glances and rolling our eyes at her histrionics. At one point we escaped to the restroom to compare notes.
“Is it just me, or is Amy acting really weird?” I asked them.
“Oh, it’s not just you,” said Melissa. “She’s being ridiculous.”
“Why is she even here? Doesn’t she know she’s crashing a date?” Corin added dismissively.
We all laughed, aligned that Amy’s behavior was out of line, pathetic even. Then we heard Liz’s name called out from the bar.
“It’s my song!” she yelled, darting out of the restroom and onto the stage, where she delivered her utterly non-ironic, hilarious rendition of Tone Loc’s “Funky Cold Medina,” and perhaps one needs to know Liz to know how out-of-character and singular this performance — this night, truly — was.
“I learned he wasn’t just a local Lothario when NPR ran a story called: ‘As Sexual Misconduct Allegations Dog Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, The Band Breaks Up.’”
At closing time, we tumbled out of the main bar and into another room, where to our left sat a piano. The instrument looked older than time itself, a forsaken relic moldering in the anteroom to the bar. Instead of heading out, as ordered by the bartenders, Amy plunked herself down on the bench, hunched over the keys, and proceeded to play what I have to assume were very out-of-tune minor chords. It was dissonant, almost haunting, and again–to my tipsy, crushed-out ears–pathetic.
“KEN!” she wailed, “Ken, can you hear how beautiful this piano is??”
Each word echoed like an inebriated lament over the plod of the discordant keys.
“Ken, we love this piano, don’t we?” Her lament turned to a plea, but to no avail; he’d turned his attentions to me as we tumbled outside. Then Ken and I gave any late-night passersby on Greenwood Ave one helluva show as he delivered a goodnight kiss worthy of capping off such a spectacular evening. I’m pretty sure Amy trudged outside to unwittingly witness it, though my memory here is woozy from the embrace, cocktails, and two-plus decades that have since passed.
I’m not proud of how much we drank that night. But I don’t regret it. The night was a glorious blur of abandon, music, silliness, and bonding. It was one of the first times I hung out with Liz, who ended up as one of my lifelong best friends and the top creative collaborator of my life. I’d like to think our younger, rowdier days served as building blocks to the foundation of fun that later built Three Imaginary Girls.
But one thing I do regret?
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