And I mean, you know, Mandy wasn’t about to pretend like she was an expert on all this shit, but I think it’s kind of crazy that even her attempt to understand, you know, like, even her suggestion that maybe there was something a little deeper going on here than just “these dudes were crazy” was met with such backlash and resistance. Even Mandy’s own family, like, practically disowned her. Not her mom, obviously. Kelly would never do something like that. But Mandy’s grandpa, like, went on air and did an interview where he was like: This is not the granddaughter I loved and cared for. This is not my kin. And it was just like: Whoa, man, WTF?

But, you know, Mandy was just sort of like: Who gives a fuck? I mean, really, all of this shit sort of unleashed this amazing well of strength in her that I had never seen before, because she was just like: Who cares what people are saying about me? We live in a fake world. We’re part of a fake world. I’m trying to talk about something real.

The same Mandy who, just a few years ago, was afraid of being associated with Bob because of all the shit he had said about gay people was now, like, playing shows in refugee camps, and going to antiwar protests, and wearing a bandanna with the Palestinian flag at her concerts, and posting all these interviews she’d conducted online with like, all of these sort of radical intellectuals from around the world, and it’s like, yeah, she’s definitely lost a few fans, but it’s been kind of amazing to watch how all these new people have come out of the woodwork, like, all these new fans who never used to give a shit about Mandy who are now all of a sudden so excited to hear about what she’s doing. She’s been getting interviewed in all these magazines—like, the same ones that call Bob “the most dangerous man in America”—and it’s just like: Wow, you know? Who would’ve predicted this?

And, you know, nobody really knew that Mandy had tats—like, I don’t think people even really knew about the seagull that she had above her heart because she kept that shit really private: Her image was still so clean and so pure, and like, her people weren’t sure that tats were a good fit for that—but when she started getting all these tattoos in Arabic and people were freaking out about it, I was just watching it all unfold, and one day, I was like: Fuck it. What’s the big fucking deal?

And so I went out and called up Optimus, and I was like: Yo, do you know anyone who speaks Arabic? And Optimus was like: Nah, not really, but I could look something up. And I was like: Hold on a second. Let me call Mandy.

And so I called her, and I was like: Hey, come to Optimus’s place and let’s get matching tattoos.