TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
THERAPIST: In fact, there is no record of them that includes any of your personal information.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Otherwise, it would not work.
CLIENT: Correct. Yes, so this guy is suing a bunch of my friends.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: For things they said on the Internet.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And, I find this whole thing appalling and have been commenting under an anonymous account about how stupid I find this.
THERAPIST: Sorry, one other thing about them is no one, except you and me and the person transcribing them or whatever, would know that they existed in the first place and neither one of us has to tell anybody. Right?
CLIENT: Right. Okay. Yeah, I'm just...
THERAPIST: I understand. [00:01:00]
CLIENT: Because close friends of mine are actually named in the lawsuit and I have made similar comments over the years.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: To what they've made. I'm a little bit paranoid.
THERAPIST: Paranoid.
CLIENT: Paranoid right now.
THERAPIST: Sure. I can also just shred it if that would make you feel more comfortable.
CLIENT: Oh, that's fine.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Mostly, I want someone to know that I wrote a song about this because I posted it anonymously, so I can't take credit for it. (laughter) It's actually quite funny. I figure it's safe to tell you.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Because you can't testify against me. I think.
THERAPIST: Hopefully among other things, yeah.
CLIENT: I mean that's my only concern about this particular piece of information.
THERAPIST: I understand.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: So, you wrote a song about this whole thing?
CLIENT: I wrote a filk to be more precise. Filk is a neologism coined by the geek community to mean writing geeky lyrics. Like, it originally started out as writing lyrics about geeky things to songs that already existed. Typically, folk music. Like, Peter Seeger and that sort of thing. [00:02:10]
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Folk music, but like, the new folk or folk revival in the 20th century. Whatever.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But, it has since spread to mean, you know, any kind of parody written within the community of, like, nerdy people. So, like, the first filk's were about Star Wars and Star Trek. Yes.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So, yeah. I wrote a filk about this whole thing. Mostly to impress Ashley. Someone, someone filk hang down your head, which is a mid-20th century folk revival song. And, then someone else filk the little list from the macchiato, which is all about serial killers killing people that wouldn't be missed. He's got a little list. So, the guy's little list of people he's suing.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:03:10]
CLIENT: And, he's, you know, sent copyright take down notices and it's all like specious law suits, but a lot of people have just like taken down the things they have said.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Rather than deal with it. So.
THERAPIST: Right. They're, like, kind of bending to the bluster.
CLIENT: Yes. And someone else filked the Charlie MTA, the MTA Charlie song. And, so, Ashley posted saying that, you know, when the original post happened a few years ago, the one that's named in the lawsuit, his only comment was that this would all be better than a musical, would be better as a musical and he'd like to think that someone listened to him, but, you know, he's holding out for a big opening number. So, of course, apparently it is the opening number. It's also the first public musical performance I ever did.
THERAPIST: Oh? What?
CLIENT: Yeah. Like, the Players put on a musical. Which, I know, weird, but, yeah. We pulled together the show in five weeks over winter break and it was...
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: The kind of decision making you only get from undergrads during winter session. [00:04:25]
THERAPIST: It sounded like a good idea at the time.
CLIENT: It did. But, anyway, so, so once I had the line "it's in the tale " in my head I couldn't stop until it was done. So, that's what I did instead of doing my job yesterday, which is a problem. But, I heard the song. (laughter). I wrote lyrics to a song.
THERAPIST: Do you do stuff like that often? I have not heard you mention it.
CLIENT: No, this is the first time, in fact.
THERAPIST: Oh, wow.
CLIENT: I've sung filks before, and, I don't know, I guess, like, there have been extemporaneous filks.
THERAPIST: Alright. I've got to ask. What does filk, what does it, what does it stand for? Like, I know what it means because you just described it.
CLIENT: I don't know the etymology.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Sorry.
THERAPIST: It's okay. [00:05:20]
CLIENT: But, yeah. Like, a bunch of people go to sci-fi cons to do filking. So, there have been a couple of, you know, a group of us are just hanging out in the lobby of some hotel or in a restaurant and someone sings a line and someone else is inspired and sings a line. I've contributed to that sort of thing, but this is the first entire piece.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I've written with premeditation and malice of forethought.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: I hate this guy. He's a horrible human being. I know one of his ex-wife's and she is terrified of him.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like, she's afraid for her physical safety. She takes, like, they divorced 12 years ago and she still takes pretty extreme precautions to make sure that no one ever knows where she will be or what her schedule is.
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: Yeah. And, as far as I know, no one she knows knows her home address.
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: Yeah. Like, her bank. Her lawyer. That's it. Maybe her doctor's office. None of her friends know her home address. [00:06:40]
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: And, so, she's... I wouldn't say we're close. She's about 20 years older than me and was an advisor of the fraternity that I belonged to when I was an undergrad. So, we're not friends, but I've met her and respect her a great deal. We've had many conversations over the years. I've turned to her for advice, you know, for all sorts of things from like technical problems with the print shop to like social issues within the fraternity. So, yeah. Also, he took Phil's and was one of the group of people who were actively hostile to me and deliberately trying to drive me out of some of the student activity groups that I belonged to. So, yeah, I, I would like to contribute to his public shaming and make everyone know how horrible a human being he is. Anyway.
THERAPIST: I hope your filk helps.
CLIENT: I hope it does too. [00:07:40]
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:07:45)
CLIENT: I hope it does too. It's a little ridiculous that, like, I don't know, maybe half my motivation for writing it was wanting to impress Ashley. Only half though.
THERAPIST: Are you saying that it's ridiculous to have written a song to impress or move someone that you're romantically interested in? I, I feel like that's something that has been done once or twice.
CLIENT: I, I am embarrassed by the impulse to try to impress another person.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: And, it feels false to me. Like, I don't know. But, if you go out of your way to try to impress someone, eventually they're going to figure out that the real you isn't actually all that impressive and then everything is terrible. The problem is I'm too paranoid to tell him I wrote the song on line. So, I have to wait until I see him in person to tell him which is like four days away. I'm very impatient. (silence from 00:09:20 to 00:10:20)
THERAPIST: It's nice to hear you (inaudible).
CLIENT: It's fucking hilarious. I think I would feel otherwise if I were actually named in the suit.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: Since I'm not yet, he listed one hundred John Doe's to be named later in the suit. So, he has only filled up 37 of those slots.
THERAPIST: You mean with actual names?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: And, he has been adding people to the Complaints. I don't understand how it works with the Statue of Limitations, but, something, whatever. Again, yeah, I ran all my comments past my sister who is a lawyer and said, you know, is any of this actually illegal? And, she was like all of that is protected. If this were a bar review question, it would be the easiest question on the exam. On the other hand, you really don't want to pay a lawyer to deal with this in the court house, so stop talking about him on the Internet. (laughter) So, yeah, her professional opinion is that I was highly likely to win if he actually sues me.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: But, like, why would I want to put myself through that? [00:11:40]
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: Yes. Mere vulgar abuse is the defense against defamation.
THERAPIST: That is what?
CLIENT: Mere vulgar abuse is the defense against defamation.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I love that phrase. Mere vulgar abuse.
THERAPIST: I imagine in part because you feel like he deserves quite a lot of that. [00:12:30]
CLIENT: Yes, he does. Though I also scheduled a time to talk to Jodie, who is a longtime friend of mine. My little brother in the fraternity and also used to date Tom and broke up with him because he was just not respecting her boundaries. So, you know, I told her in a less detailed like more high level overview of what happened Tuesday night and asked if she'd be willing to talk, so we're going to meet next Tuesday night. Yeah. Like, I kind of envision it as a strategy session to figure out what I'm going to say to Tom and how because I don't want to leave this unresolved before I go on this trip. I just want to deal with it before my vacation, so that it's not waiting for me when I get home because this trip I expect to be stressful enough without anything else that's going on.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:13:50]
CLIENT: Yeah. (silence until 00:15:35)
THERAPIST: I suspect there are a few things coming together in your telling me about the song that you wrote.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: I mean the filk. I mean, for one, it makes me think of you feeling like your hands are not tied as you felt like they were the other day.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: And, that in a way it still feels like they are.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: But, that there's something about your confidence that I will, I don't know, decide to be respectful to some things or if it's about what happened or maybe something else? That leads to your being comfortable mentioning it here or like before mentioning it in here, the song has this sort of very enjoyably retaliatory effort that is, you know, in a way, aimed at both of them.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:17:20]
THERAPIST: That is a real relief to have made.
CLIENT: It was really fun to write. Also, Jamie (inaudible at 00:17:50) really likes literation. I don't think I quite realized how much.
THERAPIST: Oh, really?
CLIENT: Until I started trying to find words to match. Like, I was trying to match his meter extension, his rhyming and his literation scheme. That was really hard.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I don't think I quite succeeded on all of those measures on every line, but I gave it my best effort. It's singable, so. Sort of. There are a couple places where the voice, the vocals are challenging. I actually bought the sheet music so I could play it for myself and sing through it just to make sure it was singable before I posted it.
THERAPIST: Right. Do you want to sing it? [00:19:25]
CLIENT: Yes, but not right now.
THERAPIST: What's the gist?
CLIENT: Well, I can recite it. It goes attend the tale of the jerk whose hair was light his and his skin was long. He's chilled the discourse of young women who never got off to work heard from again. That line was sometimes I left it untouched because, because it fit.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: He's drawn the ire that few have drawn and the jolly man, the demon stalker of Davidson Street. He had a wheel in the Square. Allure of little artistic flare. His feelings were hurt, but does were lewd. They went to the court house and hazardly sued. Doe's being a reference to the John Doe's in the case.
THERAPIST: Ah.
CLIENT: I don't have it memorized
THERAPIST: And the wheel is?
CLIENT: Oh, he was the one who put together the wheel questions art project in the Square. It was, he had an apartment on the Davidson Street and he put together this thing that looked kind of like a prayer wheel, except not. And, the idea was people would write anonymous notes or questions or whatever and stick it to the wheel and then he would write responses back. [00:20:50]
Yes, we went to the courthouse got haphazardly sued by the man, the demon stalker of Davidson Street. Cast your lawsuits wide, my man. You will win no prize. All the doe's you will depose ignore your cries. His needs were few. He had no room. To sleep on the sofa was his doom. The house of kink and a startup game. A vampire and a match up all is to his shame. In malice he went after Dawn. The man. The demon stalker of Davidson Street.
THERAPIST: He went after Dawn?
CLIENT: Dawn was the only person whose full name was named in the Complaint.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: She moderates this blogging community called The Square. It's like an on line forum for talking about dating squares.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: I know her in person. I don't particularly like her, but, she's, she's harmless and certainly doesn't deserve to be sued.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. Adversarial jerk was moldering, vicious and vile he was. Backed with a smile under his word he had music that nobody heard. This is a couplet involved it sometimes, but I did not change it because it also fit. Half-baked letters are his band. He served the papers, but he was wrong. What happened then had copyright. He would not want us to bring it to light. [00:22:15]
THERAPIST: That's pretty good.
CLIENT: I only hear the flaws. A turnkey where sometimes I am or, you know, a spot where you practice singing the 16th notes instead of 18th notes because I couldn't quite get the right number of syllables. There's a rhyme that's not quite a near rhyme. I'm highly critical of myself. Who knew? (laughter)
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And, I suppose if I had taken another day or two to polish it, it might have been better, but I was really very concerned that someone else would reply to Ashley's request for an opening number before I could post it.
THERAPIST: Get scooped. [00:23:15]
CLIENT: Yes. I did not want to get scooped. The couplet "backed a smile under his words when he heard music that nobody heard" is my favorite line in the entire musical. It's beautiful.
THERAPIST: Backed with my....
CLIENT: Backed with a smile.
THERAPIST: Backed with a smile.
CLIENT: Under his words. Yeah.
THERAPIST: He heard music that nobody heard.
CLIENT: Yeah. So, the previous two lines were inconspicuous when he was. Quick and quiet and clean he was. Backed a smile under his words when he heard music that nobody heard. Yeah. I couldn't quite come up with something that would do the, that metaphor justice. I wonder if filk counts as poetry. If it does, I can no longer say I haven't written a poem since high school. [00:25:00]
THERAPIST: You might be right. I wonder if you're going to come back in with the song.
CLIENT: Yeah. And, in spite of all its flaws, I'm quite proud of it.
THERAPIST: You should be.
CLIENT: Ire is a horrible word to try to sing though. It has a diphthong and a trailing r.
THERAPIST: Right. What's a diphthong?
CLIENT: It's a sound composed of two vowels smushed together.
THERAPIST: Okay. [00:26:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. I is a diphthong. More in terms of, in terms of rope shape you should use for an a, e, ie, yeah. [00:27:10]
THERAPIST: I guess I can imagine it's been a while as well since you've really called someone out in this way on these, I mean kind of reprehensible.
CLIENT: Actually, no.
THERAPIST: Oh. Okay.
CLIENT: There was a situation just last spring that was fine where someone was being abusive to one of my friends and the, the whole community came down on that person like a ton of bricks and I was part of that. No. It would certainly, it felt really cathartic to do so right now in the wake of, you know, stuff with Tom.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: And, like, stirring up memories of Phil. I'm far more likely to call people out for horrible behavior if they're going after friends of mine or if they're going after me.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: That's probably gives you an idea.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:28:30] I just wonder if, you know, Jodie has had problems with Tom and boundaries. I've had problems with Tom and boundaries. And, he's slept with like nine or ten different women. Like, how many people have had problems with him and haven't felt comfortable going public with it?
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And, I mean part of why I didn't say anything a couple weeks ago after the, the thing at the contra dance was because he's sleeping with Ashley's girlfriend. I did not want to give Ashley or Kiley reason to think that, you know, I'm a drama bunny, basically. But, I don't know if he's behaving badly with her or not and if he is, how she views it. So, it's kind of pointless to think about. I have no information really. [00:30:00]
THERAPIST: You're concerned about is this salted with I guess sort of a pattern for him.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And, that for various reasons, nobody's speaking up about it.
CLIENT: Nope.
THERAPIST: But a lot of people are being affected by it.
CLIENT: Yes. I mean that's my supposition.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Without evidence.
THERAPIST: Right. Well, like, I don't know.
CLIENT: Yeah. I guess maybe I shouldn't say without proof. Not without evidence. But, anyway.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: (Silence until 00:32:00) The reason I declined to sing is it largely because my voice isn't warmed up and there are some high notes that are actually painful for me to try and hit if I'm not warmed up.
THERAPIST: Are you talking about feeling a bit defensive about having fun yet.
CLIENT: A little bit.
THERAPIST: You thought I'd mark you down. Something. You mean, like, I wonder if I need to sing it? I want you to do what you wanted to do.
CLIENT: Yes. [00:34:20]
THERAPIST: Do you know what I mean?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Alright.
CLIENT: The other big news over the last week is that I'm now on staff with my fraternity. I think I might have mentioned that briefly yesterday.
THERAPIST: No.
CLIENT: No?
THERAPIST: I don't think so.
CLIENT: Yeah. So, I belong to it.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: As an undergrad and I've been getting more involved with the chapter, specifically with the print shop chapter.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: I've been trying to get qualified as a journeyman.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And that's, there's politics and whatever and I just stopped caring about getting named as a journeyman, but I have been around the office more often.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Which means I've run in to the undergrads more often. I also run in to the chapter advisors more often and one of our advisors, a woman named Margaret, who is also a journeyman at the print shop and I know I've mentioned her before.
THERAPIST: Yes. [00:35:15]
CLIENT: She's on staff with the region. So, it's a national fraternity. There are ten regions and each region is split in to anywhere between six to ten sections.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: So, Margaret has been recognized by the national fraternity for her service. She has served for like 30 years now as staff at various levels of the organization.
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: Staff is a volunteer position. There are no paid staff positions. So, staff is something of a misnomer. You know. It's to distinguish people who have ongoing commitments to the fraternity versus alumni volunteers who help out with the community service projects that benefit, you know, other organizations in the community.
THERAPIST: I see. So, those are sort of more ad hoc responsibilities.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: Versus staff and more on going.
CLIENT: Yeah. And responsibility to the fraternity versus, you know, it's a community service fraternity. So, the fraternity exists to do community service to the community that we're in.
THERAPIST: Right. [00:36:20]
CLIENT: So, there is, there are kind of four hierarchies when you go through the pledge process. You learn the four hierarchies. Places you can do service. To your college campus. To your, to the chapter of your fraternity is the lowest level. Your college campus is the next level. The community your college is in and then to your country slash citizenship. So, some things, the, you know, it would do is, you know, run a food registration drive or, you know, go serve at a food bank.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: That sort of thing. The chapter does a lot of work with the general conservancy, doing like clean up.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And ecological stuff on the river. So, there's service to the community and then there is service to the fraternity.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Which are, within the fraternity it's very important to keep those two things distinct.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But, anyway. So, Margaret has been on the staff there for many years at various levels of the organization. She has been a national director. She has been a sectional director. Anyway, she's on staff at the region right now and she recruited me to serve as an advisor to a chapter that is trying to form at a nearby school. So, I agreed over Dave's objections. He thinks that this is a huge time commitment and he would rather I would not take it on. But, he doesn't actually get veto power about my schedule. So, anyway, I agreed to do that and, you know, all of this was contingent on the regional director meeting me.
THERAPIST: I see.
CLIENT: Margaret works, Margaret reports to and is responsible to the region director. Margaret used to be the region director, but she didn't like that job and now she's not. But anyway, so, Monday I to call up the region director on a three way phone call with the region director and Margaret.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And, you know, she liked me, so Tuesday I got an official letter of appointment and I sent my official, you know, I accept this appointment as one of the student's sponsor. So, that's exciting. And schedule time to meet the students.
THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:38:30]
CLIENT: I'm terrified of falling down on the job.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: But, also excited to be part of the fraternity again. I mean I guess once a brother, always a brother.
THERAPIST: Yeah. We should stop, but congratulations on that and on your song.
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