LINKS

Watch Pamela's Oscar-nominated animated short film "My Year of Dicks." It's sweet, we swear. And it's streaming on Hulu until March 17, 2023.

And buy a copy of Pamela's book, Notes to Boys, which is also sweet.

Television Without Pity may not exist anymore, but Melissa wrote about it for The Guardian. Sorry if you missed out!

TRANSCRIPT

Melissa: Hello, I'm Melissa Locker. 

Courtney: And I'm Courtney E. Smith 

Melissa: and you are listening to Songs My Ex Ruined, the show where we talk about songs have been ruined by our exes. So, we are joined today by Pamela Ribbon.

Melissa: … She is the author of Notes to Boys: (And Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public) and creator and writer of the Oscar-nominated short film called “My Year of Dicks.” She has been in so many things, worked on so many incredible projects including a little movie called Moana. But I knew her way back when, when we both wrote for a website called Television Without Pity.

Pamela: I'm so thrilled to be on your podcast talking about songs ruined by an ex. 

Melissa: And we are so thrilled to have you here with us today. We would love for you to tell us about a song that has been ruined for you by an ex. 

Pamela: The song I have selected is Jewel’s “You Were Meant For Me.”

Courtney: What happened? 

Pamela: Well, to confess this idea is 10 minutes old and it's because I was like, well, I feel like I've taken the power back of any song that could have been ruined. So then I, I phoned a friend and I was like, quick, you will know, cause I just, I can't think of anything. And she just started hovering around songs from an era, but it made me remember that now I can't hear “You Were Meant for Me without the mocking voice my ex used to sing some of it in. He wasn't mocking the song-ish. The part specifically that he would do is the, “I break the yolks, I make a smiley face.”

And so he would just walk around going, “I breaks the yolks, I make a smiley face.” And then he would just sort of chomp around. It was like how he would feed the cats. I'm saying it's, it's actually, it was pretty great. He wasn't trying to ruin the song. But you now I don't hear it without him being like, “I breaks the yolks, I make a smiley face.” And it just became just a different kind of sad. And this song really came back to me during the pandemic lockdown, and we weren't allowed to go anywhere. And “dreams last for so long, even after you're gone.” And like we were, everything was over and shut down. And I would just hear this like “I called my mom, and she was out / Consoled a cup of coffee, but it didn't wanna talk.” I mean, really if there's a song that is about like, wallowing in your self sadness, it is Jewel’s “You Were Meant for Me.” And it's so specifically how my heartbreak works, that now that my ex is also in the song going, “I breaks the yolks, I make a smiley face.” It's a specific kind of ruin where it's like a montage of humans coming in, and he has quite the cameo. 

Courtney: Wow. That is a particular outline, framing of ruining that we have definitely not heard before. Very specific.

Melissa: So, it's kinda like doubly ruined, in that it was like he had already inserted himself into sort of the whole narrative around this song. And then the pandemic comes along and, I mean, there are definitely certain songs that I truly associate with like March, 2020 and everything that was starting to happen. And I don't know if, if, you know, five, 10 years from now I'll be able to listen to those songs without being reminded of being locked in, you know, a Brooklyn apartment with way too many people.

Courtney: The whole Fiona Apple album is just lock down to me. I love it, but it's so bleak. 

Pamela: I forgot that that was a soundtrack. 

Courtney: I never will, never will forget. 

Pamela: Because I just broke it into even more Fiona. I just threw them all in. Because “Shadowboxer,” when you're alone and no one, you're not going anywhere. That is what you sing.

You know, you can just full on “...boxer baby.” Who's gonna stop you? Nobody can knock on the door. You were trapped with a lot of people, is what you're saying. I was trapped with like, a school-aged child and my full-time working husband, so we were all kind of in our own rooms for a lot of it. It got lonely.

Melissa: Yeah, I do wonder about all those artists. I actually have not looked it up, but I wonder about all the artists that released albums, either like that first week of March or the last week of February and now their music, you know, that they've probably been working for years on, and it's now the soundtrack to like one of the worst years in human history.

Courtney: The only person it really worked out for, I think, is Dua Lipa. Like that dance album was not what anyone needed in the pandemic, but then it was what everyone needed in the pandemic.  

Pamela: Olivia Rodrigo as well, like speaking of “Driver's License,” being like, “You know what? Yes.”

Melissa: Yes, we're all 16 and depressed now. 

Courtney: I'm just gonna lean in to my teen angst.

Melissa: Just to go back to this ex for a minute, you don't have to be specific, of course, but like how did this song come up? Like how did it work its way through the relationship? 

Pamela: It was just on all the time, and it was earworm-y. And also, singing Jewel songs in the car was a great thing to do. I was doing comedy a lot at the time. It was one of the go-to characters I would drop into. It was such a laughter filled relationship with like a lot of bits and jokes and back and forth all the time. So, even having that — like, here's another one here: at Easter, the sweethearts make like a bunny egg and chick version. So, it would be like little chicks and little ducks. Do you know what I'm saying? It's candy instead of hearts? But he would like, go up to the box and go, “Chicks and ducks and geese better ‘scurry / when I grab this box in a hurry.” It's just little shit like that where you're just like, “And I love you anew.” Like so ridiculous, right to your heart of like, “You're great.” And “I breaks the yolks and makes the smiley face” is still, what I'm trying to say is, it's very hard to say it is ruined. But it is in the concept of ruined.It's not Jewel's song anymore. It's not just a song you can hear, and not have this infused with it of young, sweet college love of like “This guy!” And before anything like credit cards or rent or dreams get in the way. So, that is how it worked its way in. And it was a very, you know, pop culturally fun kind of atmosphere. You know, we had a, a futon, we smoked inside. It was a different era.

Courtney: It was a different  time, yeah. Well that's the thing. So like when you said Jewel, the first thing I started thinking about was like, there hasn't really been a like, reclaiming of Jewel as an artist from the ‘90s. Or any like significant discussion of how she was done wrong. Like that clip of Kurt Loader making fun of her poetry in an interview with her has gone viral a few times, as being super misogynistic and condescending. The amount that she was made fun of as a songwriter just for being popular in the early ‘90s was in retrospect, extremely offensive, extremely misogynistic. And there's been no sort of like reclaiming of Jewel or like any kind of repair to her reputation, which I think is interesting.

Pamela: Well, I will apologize here now for being part of the problem.

Courtney: You're not, you're not at all.

Pamela: No, I don't mean currently. I'm going all the way back to ‘90s on stage at the Velveeta room on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, when Jewel was a go-to character for my improvisational jokes. Because you know, she lived in a van.

Courtney: Her story is comical, like it really is. I mean, it's not, but it was ‘cause it was used as a marketing tool. And it's weird.

Pamela: We weren't good at earnest back then. It was not the style. And I'm really proud of the generations after us that were like, “Cut that shit out man.” Like, it's so easy to shit on things. It's much harder to live in a van and in your truth.

Melissa: Like these days, Jewel would be like a #vanlife influencer. You would be all over TikTok, like out in Alaska with her van taking vistas of the sunset and going viral.

Courtney: Jewel is in fact all on TikTok, and she's hilarious. She's unhinged. It's amazing.

Pamela: Yes, she is doing fine. But I would have, yeah, we'd have little Jewel-isms tattooed next to like the hearts and arrows on our arms. Like I'd have the little broken yolk, smiley face on my elbow. And people be like, “Oh, I love that.” 

Melissa: I wonder if those, I mean, sometimes when you take these lyrics out of context, like they're so ridiculous. Like I always think about how stupid that Katy Perry lyric is like, “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?”

Courtney: No, no, I don't actually. Thank you for asking. 

Melissa: I never ever feel like a plastic bag. This has never happened before. 

Courtney: Well,I think that's a Max Martin song though. I think we know where the weird lyrics come from there. And it's Sweden.

Pamela: I'm more of a paper bag, speaking of Fiona. 

Melissa: Yeah, but also just like it's bad for the environment, man. Come on. 

Courtney: But that's a beautiful metaphor. And a plastic bag is a piece of trash. Like she's basically saying, do you ever feel like a piece of trash? It's like, well, most days. Thanks Katy for bringing it up. 

Melissa: No, it's what I like to call them Brooklyn balloons. My apartment would be on the second floor and sometimes just like a plastic bag would just go drifting up through the sky and you're like, “That's beautiful.”

Courtney: This all just goes back to American Beauty and the romanticizing of bullshit. 

Pamela: And Fiona like sitting through all of it.

Melissa: Thinking back to this era, thinking back to the ‘90s and college, but it also goes back to a lot of what you wrote about in your memoir. Could you talk a little bit about your memoir, and your experience writing that? And then obviously it led into this- oh look, a book!

Pamela: I had to grab it cause I keep having to talk about it, and I keep reaching for it and it hasn't been here. So, for people who are listening to podcasts, I'm holding a copy of Notes to Boys: (And Other Things I Shouldn't Share in Public), which came out hardcover in 2014, in paperback, in 2017, I think. And now one of the chapters has been adapted as this short film, “My Year of Dicks” for FX productions. And you can find out more on myyearofdick.com on all the socials. It wasn't taken, I feel like a queen. I have been writing online since it was a thing you could do, and so I was an early online journaler. And then that, you know, pivoted into all this stuff, so I, I never really felt like I stopped doing this. It's all just sort of an extension of, we're just talking about ourselves to try to find someone else or to relate. I, you know, I don't always know how I feel about something until I've written it down and someone else has said, mm-hmm, or laughter. Even just acknowledgement, like even the read, like when it's on delivered, I feel much better after it says read. I'm just like, “There, it exists.” And so the chance to turn it into something on an animated space and a bigger platform, to work with a talented team, it was a real opportunity to take a full on feeling of what that is like. Of being in love and making a song or a moment or a music video or an accent your whole new reason for being. The whole new way that your heart beats. And in an animated space, you really can just dive right into that. And the more specific you get, the more someone is like, “Yes.” Like they weren't the same age. They weren't anywhere near the same place. Our, our director is Icelandic like, but she totally had her year of dicks and it felt a little something like this, you know? 

Courtney: Yeah, I think for people that haven't read it and don't know, what did the year of dick's feel like? What is the overall tone of this?

Pamela: I will, I will say “My Year of Dicks” is, is told in five chapters. Each one takes on a different genre as Pam falls in love with or throws her heart at some new boy. This is about the year I was determined to lose my virginity. And this is who was around in view, like, just in reach. And I, I wouldn't say beggars can't be choosers, but I think determined women don't always get- you know, it's the team that is in front of you. This is when women were taught like you're a slut or a prude. It's really all you have. Don't have sex, but do. Get it done before college or you’re a nerd. Don't get it done too soon or everyone's gonna think you've fucked everyone. And if they don't think you fucked everyone, there's some strange story about you with a tampon or a hotdog or something. Like you're not in control of your narrative in any way. And, in all of that. At no point does anyone want you to think about what you want or like, or feel. It's not about you. It's about this thing, your virginity is a thing. It's a gift. It's a cherry to pop. It's, it may be a horse will be like the reason you're not a virgin. Like, it really genuinely has nothing to do with you. I hope that now young people coming into this time and their age feel the agency and the control of their narrative that they know they have the right to have, even if the laws are changing, to make that go completely against, like I know the laws say you can be stuck with a lifelong decision now depending on where you live. And I know some laws say you are not supposed to talk about this or think about this or want any of this. But my hope is in watching “My Year of Dicks,” which brings up this sweet nostalgia that it's like, “Yeah, so why are we making laws to outlaw the freedom of youth, the innocence that you need to pursue your true, true tenderness?” It isn't even about, I mean, there's pleasure and there's sexuality and there's all that on top of that. But at the heart of it, it is respect and care and tenderness and someone loving actual you. Not a body for someone to, to take. That's my time. The microphone's going away.

Melissa: Do you have people coming up and telling you their stories all the time? ‘Cause I feel like the second that I saw it, I was like, “I need to talk about this.”

Pamela: Yeah. Or they, or they tell me that they had a conversation with someone that they had never had before. You know, someone they love. Or they, I've, you know, people have walked up, just been like, “I just texted my Sam,” or whatever. You know, it, it knocks some stories around and I'm not always the person that should receive those, those stories. But when I am, I just, you know, you take them with utmost seriousness and sincerity because that's, that's what we put out there.

Melissa: And then just to make this far less serious in conversation, I know you've been going to all these Oscar events and you've been meeting a lot of people, and one question I had seeing you, did you tell Malala about “My Year of Dicks”? 

Pamela: Okay, listen. No, I didn't bring up myself at all. I just told her I what an honor to meet someone so pivotal and important in history, in young history and female history and in just - in all kinds of ways of like what is of right to your existence. It really never felt like an appropriate time to be like, “So if you wanna watch…” Like no, it was just nothing. If she had asked, I probably would've told her. I have gotten a text from a friend who knows people on her team who said that I apparently was very careful not to say the name of my film to them either. I was just like, “It's short, you can look. It's fine.” I didn't have a name tag yet, so there was no way of knowing. I just was happy that she could walk through this space with safety, love, and joy and respect, and just be herself and have another moment of loving reception. You know? I mean, I just hope that's the space she walks through all the time. So, yeah, no, I didn't. I didn't wanna get in the way of that.

Courtney: Yeah, that's tricky. 

Melissa: Okay, so then did you tell Tom Cruise?

Pamela: He also didn't ask. It was very fast. You get seconds. But he made a little video with me for my mom. And I mean, that's, you know…

Melissa: Oh, that’s so sweet. 

Courtney: That's cute. 

Pamela: That's so great. Yeah, though I wasn't really, I'm not in there to campaign. I was, you know, we're all just, we did it like this was prom, this is homecoming court, you know. We're all, we're all in the same court, and a surprising number of people had heard of a film and seen it and watched it. Which I guess, you know, shouldn't be surprising cause there we were. But it was still, you know, you think of your short, animated short, I always joke you have to like scroll four times before you find us on a list. So it's sweet and wonderful and and rewarding and fun anytime someone wants to talk about the film.

Melissa: Yeah, and where can folks watch this movie?

Pamela: It's at myyearofdicks.com. That's where we put all our latest news and updates. You can find it going to our socials at “My Year of Dicks.” It's, you know, linked everywhere in the bios and such.

Melissa: And we're back. You're listening to Songs My Ex Ruined.

Courtney: I would like to tell you a story now from the ‘90s. And it's the same framing as your song, but the exact opposite feeling. Like it's all bad feelings, all bad, all terrible. So my friend Kaye and I were at the local McDonald's, as you do. And it must have been solidly 1994. Freshly minted driver's licenses were being used. And the guy who was the manager there, like starts hitting on us and he's in his 20s. Like, not too old, but too old, you know? And somehow we end up getting him to drive us somewhere nearby, like literally up the street. And he's convinced that one or both of us are in love with him. Neither of us are. 

Melissa: I mean, the manager at the local McDonald's is hot commodity, come on. 

Courtney: To the teen girls? Yeah. 

Pamela: That's a lot of fries. 

Courtney: That's a lot of fries. And he's like trying to push it and trying to push it. While he's parked and we're like, I think it was just like the record shore up the street. We’re trying to wrap it up to go into the store and Kaye is getting more and more amused by this and like egging him on and I'm just like, “Make it stop. This is terrible.” Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” comes on the radio. And I was just like, I couldn't stop thinking about the poetry of this moment because it's just like, I wanna be out of this situation. This guy sucks and he doesn't know that he sucks. And that's literally what the song is about. It’s so terrible. 

Courtney: So, I've thought about him every single time that I've heard that. Here's the two kickers to this story. Number one, he insisted on getting my phone number and I was like not used to that so I didn't know to give him a fake number. And he called me within a few days to ask me out. And when I said no, he asked me if I was gay and that's why I didn't wanna go out. I was just like, I literally don't even know what to say to this. I am 16, sir, like…

Melissa: Yeah, but it also, I mean the allure free french fries probably has not failed. This man in the past. 

Pamela: This is true. He's got a lot of Happy Meal jokes. 

Courtney: I ended up talking about it with a lot of girls at school and it turns out that he was like doing this to everybody. He was like, just trying to hit on every high school girl that he saw. And I immediately was like, “Something's wrong with this. I didn't know there was a predator at the McDonald's. Who's the manager? Who do we tell?” And the answer was no one. Like who do you, who do you tell? Like there was nobody to tell this to. But yeah, it's interesting now as an adult to look back and be like, “Oh, there was a legit like predator hitting on high school girls.”

Melissa: Yeah, that is where the wall in the girls' bathroom would come in very handy, because that is where you write that information. You say, “Watch out for the manager ladies. No amount of free fries is worth it.”

Courtney: Don't talk to that weirdo at McDonald's. So good times. Yeah, it totally- not that Pearl Jam was special to me, cause they sure weren't. But that song, it was a moment. 

Pamela: Well, you reminded me that there is a Pearl Jam song that was ruined. It's in Notes to Boys. Notes to Boys opens with a quote from “Black,” which is the most beautiful Pammy line ever of, “I know someday you'll have a beautiful life / I know you'll be the sun in somebody else's sky / But why? Why, why, why can't it be / Can’t it be mine.”

I had not lost my virginity when I got to college, spoiler. And I had a moment that I thought it was all coming together in a very specific way with a person, like what the story should be of how it all comes to be. And everybody in my dorm got kind of wrapped up in this and involved cause he was taking a train, and I was picking him up. And my roommate got another place he was gonna sleep that night, and we smuggled him in with curfew. You know, the whole thing was planned, but he didn't know any of that. And so he was like, “You wanna go hang out with this dude, you know, I'm gonna go, let's go get high. I'm gonna go get high.” And I was like, “No, I, well, I, we were gonna, I thought we were, you were gonna stay here?” And he was like, “I really don't wanna pee in your sink.” Now I can see it from the other side. I could not see it from the other side. He was gonna be trapped in there all night with this level of expectation and excitement. And I think he was just like, “I need to cut this mood. Let's go see some friends from high school. I haven't seen any of these people in a long time.” And I was like, you're just going to, “You're just gonna go?” And he was like, “Yes.” And I was like, “Well, I'm not gonna go do that.” Like I didn't do that guy, I just wasn't- So I was like, he left and the makeout tape, or that I was playing, or the CD or whatever was still playing. And as he left smuggled out, I guess. I didn't help him out. I was just like, “You can just make your own way out, sir.” And there's all these, like all the heads of all the girls that are on my hallway are peeking in the door as you hear “Hearts and thoughts they fade / Fade away.” I will never forget that framing of them just being like, “Did he, did he go?” And it was just like aahhhhh. So, yeah, “I swear I'll recognize your breath.” Is just, is the sound of your heart being torn apart, completely, completely. Until- that is what Pearl Jam means to me. It's the goo inside your heart after someone leaves is your Pearl Jam. I'm sure it's actually a gross boy thing, but I don't wanna know that. My Pearl Jam is a broken heart goo. 

Courtney: Aw, that was very beautiful. That was a beautiful story. That was much more terrible than the first story, but that was great. 

Pamela: That's the song ruined. If they were never an ex, can it be a song ruined by an ex?

Courtney: Yes. 

Pamela: Cause it's just a song ruined. 

Melissa: Wait, so did you ever talk to this guy again or was tha - he just walked out to Pearl Jam and that was the end of it? 

Pamela: Oh no, he's, he's seen “My Year of Dicks.” He's still very much in my life. I love him. He keeps coming back around because he really is supposed to be my lifelong friend. And that is what he said when we were first being torn asunder by parents who were making us move. Cause that's what- you're not in control of your life. He said we were supposed to always know each other and we always will. And here we are, goodness, 30 years later, almost. 

Melissa: That's so sweet. 

Pamela: And I, um, I can text him right now and he'd come right over if I needed things.

Melissa: Aw, yeah. And would you stand outside your window and play Pearl Jam on a boombox? 

Pamela: He would. But he would be like, “I'm sure I was supposed to do this at some point, so I'm doing it now.” He does a lot of, a lot of like, “Sorry.” But it's, it's worked out. It's worked out well. We still very much love each other. And that's the, that's the thing you can't know at the time. We just can't. 

Melissa: So your film has obviously a rather evocative, provocative title. And I know you have a school-aged kid, so does your kid talk about your film at school? 

Pamela: Yeah, yeah, well, I think she's good at not saying the title at school. Like she understands words have power and there's appropriate times for some of the words. And inappropriate times for some of the words. So, I think she sussed that out. And she has one line in it. And so this kid's been in two movies in her entire life, and they've both been now nominated for Academy Awards. So, you know, she could, she could really rest on all these laurels, but I, I also assume she's a bit of a lucky charm.

Melissa: She also is gonna have one heck of a college entrance essay.

Pamela: I wrote the memoir right after she was born. It was with her and mind that I, I kind of did all this to think, “What was it like?” Before I sugarcoat it in some sort of parental way where- I assume as you get older, you're just like, “I would've never!” I mean, I'm, I know what my mom was afraid of me doing that she had done, kind of. Like, we don't get into it, but it was clear from her tone that she wanted me to not do some of her choices, for better or worse. And she, but she wasn't interested in telling me what those were, so I didn't know how to0 I don't mean, wasn't interested. Too, too scared, too scared to tell me any of it. Not, not equipped with the words. So I thought, “Well, if I make this record, no matter what kind of relationship we, we grow to have my, my child and I, at one point.I let her know my truth for her to get to experience her own.” 

Courtney: That's awesome.

Melissa: Yeah, do you feel like if you'd had a son, you would've had the same sort of push?

Pamela: Yeah, I do. I was really scared to have a boy. I felt incredibly unequipped to raise someone that I hadn't met before. And also let- I mean, I have a child who very much rejects gender constructs, and all the time points out like colors aren't gender and why are roles. And if my kid wants to be someone's brother because she admires the way someone is a brother, she will say, “I am your brother and I wanna be like this guy to you. Cause that's a relationship I admire and I think I can be that for you.” And so in that way, I'm, it isn't about boys or girls in any way. It is about raising people, raising sweet humans.That isn't as scary because it's somehow a little bit easier to raise a person without shame and fear being the tools. 

Melissa: Yeah, it's great because you've really just broken down all the doors and your kid can be who they are without worrying about living up to some expectation. 

Courtney: The things that we learned about in the ‘90s, the expectations for performing femininity, performing masculinity, and the ways that they've like left us with all these invisible scars.

Pamela: Yeah, and my hope, I mean, you know her, her generation seems to be very heart, heart forward and asking the feeling behind the action. And I love that because you do still- I mean you're small, you take things very personally and then, but then they will be like, “What’s happening at home? Are you okay? So aggressive at me.”You're just like, “Wow. That’s thousands of dollars of therapy you just said to this child.” You know, so impressed that they have this language.

Melissa: Yeah, that's like, worse than a playground burn. Like you're just sort of like, oh, like shoves the kid into like existential despair. 

Courtney: Yeah, the problem is me. 

Melissa:  Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. And for, yeah, just making this movie, which I think is, it's important to have in the world. And it's a great conversation starter. 

Courtney: And congratulations on all the accolades. It's awesome, and so well deserved.

Pamela: This is a joy. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.