JenTalksLoud

This April Fools’ Day, I don’t have any tricks up my sleeve. Instead, in the spirit of the holiday, I want to raise awareness about men who are both loud and wrong.

As a way to wrap up Women’s History Month, I’m sharing amusing anecdotes and observations from the past year—both personal and public—that highlight these instances. They serve as a reminder that there’s no need for imposter syndrome in a world where such confident, and incorrect men exist.

The guys who couldn’t keep their clothes on 

The following stories happened in the same evening, less than 15 minutes apart. 

I was at Last Call, which has become my favorite final stop whenever I’m in Union Market and having beverages. Jello shots make an excellent nightcap. 

I was patiently waiting to ask the bartender. My ears perked up and noticed the two men standing to my right were in the midst of a verbal scuffle. Man number 1 who was closest to me, let’s call him “Beanie Guy,” was super angrily telling guy #2, we’ll call him “Drunk Guy” (on account of him being absolutely hammered), to give him back his beanie. 

In Drunk Guy’s hand, there was a yellow/orange beanie. It appeared that Beanie Guy was upset that the Drunk Guy stole it from him. Something seemed really off to me though, because Beanie Guy also had a yellow/orange beanie on his head. As I realize what’s happening, and as I turn to my friends and start to tell them what’s going on, Beanie Guy becomes more and more upset, and Drunk Guy is getting more and more rowdy too. 

Right as they start to get nearly physical, because beanies are worth fighting over, and right as I’m about to maybe let Beanie Guy know he and Drunk Guy just have a similar taste in headwear – Beanie Guy grabs his head and immediately realizes the error of his ways. 

At that moment I derived a healthy amount of pleasure in telling him “Yeah you fucked up” and watch as the regret flashed across his eyes, not before they threw Drunk Guy out for being drunk. 

In Beanie Guy’s defense, he did feel really bad and went out to apologize to the Drunk Guy, who, despite their best collaborative efforts, was not let back in. 

The story doesn’t end there—literally less than 10 minutes later, I was still perched on my stool, and a man came up to me, pointed to the jacket that my friend had left on the seat next to me, and said, “Hey, is that my jacket?”

I replied, “No, it’s my friend’s jacket.” 

He pauses, contemplates making the correct decision of walking away, and says “Are you sure?” 

“Yes, I am positive, this isn’t your jacket.” 

You’d think, at that point, someone would take my word for it – but this man, hellbent on embarrassing himself said, 

“Can you just let me check if that’s my jacket? It’s Calvin Klein.” 

I took a deep breath, did my best to keep my face intact, and said, 

“Look, bro, this jacket is from Target. It’s not your jacket. I watched my friend take it off. But sure, I’ll humor you,” and I proceeded to show him that it was, in fact, not his jacket. 

Do you know what this man said? Not “sorry,” or “thank you,” but: 

“Okay, well I lost my jacket.” 

In just a matter of minutes, I witnessed two grown men completely lose track of their own clothing, turning their ridiculous mix-ups into a spectacle that became someone else’s problem. Perhaps you can blame these on the drinking but a more likely culprit feels like toxic masculinity and weaponized incompetence.

The guy who thought Selena was Puerto Rican 

A while ago, I was in one of my favorite local drinking holes, Little Miss Whiskeys. I really love Thursday nights there. There is usually a familiar face, the downstairs playlist is often great for singalongs, and the DJ on Friday is usually good for dancing. 

This specific night I was wearing a T-shirt with Selena Quintanilla, who we lost 30 years ago today. This well-intentioned, but very wrong, young, white man interrupted me mid (yelling) Paramore’s “Misery Business” to say: 

 “I love your shirt! I love Selena.” 

Me, a girl’s girl, immediately said thank you and confirmed I – too – loved my shirt and Selena. Disappointingly, the next words out of his mouth were: 

“I have a friend, she’s also Puerto Rican and loves Selena.”

As someone who grew up with a Puerto Rican Grandmother who was married to my Mexican grandfather, this experience felt like the universe presenting me with a unique opportunity. When I was about 8, I made this mistake: I distinctly recall saying Judy was Mexican (background on Judy here), and I never made that mistake again. This situation was not that; instead, it was another guy with the audacity to interrupt my singalong and a white person who insisted on being part of a conversation about ethnicity that no one was actually trying to have. 

More gently than necessary, but with a smirk that communicated enough of my annoyance on its own,  I told him “Selena wasn’t Puerto Rican. She was Mexican…. You’re thinking of J.Lo., aren’t you?” 

He looked at me, guilty as fuck, like:

The grandpa who needs to take a chill pill 

I’ve been measuring how messed up things are based on LinkedIn’s transformation into a platform for social and political discourse. I’ve always been a bit of a professional free spirit. I’m a “what you see is what you get” kind of girl, so it’s been refreshing to see people commenting on current events and decisions in Washington and statehouses.

I commented on a post about organizations scouring websites for words that don’t comply with Trump’s executive orders. Words like “woman,”  “socioeconomic,” and “victims” are being flagged as indicators of initiatives the Trump administration wants to pull federal funding. You know, programs and research that millions of tax-paying Americans rely on, and benefit from. 

Someone’s grandpa (his words, not mine) replied to me, not realizing that disliking something doesn’t equate to a personal attack. 

A play in three acts: 

Add me on LinkedIn! 

The political bros who are out of their depths 

Many rich men who are loud and wrong have a special talent for being both confidently incorrect and dangerously influential. RFK Jr., claims to be working to tackle America’s health crisis while simultaneously gutting HHS by 10,000 jobs. If he has a plan to fix Flint’s water crisis, address food insecurity, and fight environmental racism, I’m all ears—but cutting public health workers, and spreading dangerous misinformation about the use of SSRIs and other lifesaving medication says otherwise.

I’ve been under the care of mental health professionals for over 20 years. Medication, despite my own past reservations, has saved my life. And as someone currently on an “I forgot my ADHD meds for a few days” spiral, I’d love to have a word with the people who think I don’t need them. 

The same men who want to control women’s bodies while demanding bodily autonomy for vaccines are masters of delusion. It’s not just about values—they are factually, and scientifically wrong. And their wrongness has consequences: women will die, women will be jailed for miscarriages, and we’ll all suffer for their arrogance. 

Or there was that little story about the guy who casually leaked war plans to a journalist in a group chat last week. Whoops! 

Everyone is loud and wrong sometimes

I am loud (obvioulsy), and I am very often wrong.

I grew up deeply embedded in my church community, a heavily Mexican parish where Sunday morning meant one thing: the Our Lady of the Rosary Pancake-Menudo Breakfast. A Knights of Columbus member would start making the menudo from scratch every Saturday, and by Sunday morning, it was a staple on the menu alongside pancakes, eggs, and ham. This was my normal for the first 15 years of my life.

So when my family took me to a pancake breakfast at a firehouse in Sonoma County, I showed up expecting the same spread. When all they had were pancakes, sausage, and scrambled eggs, I was confused—and disappointed. My mom had to gently break it to me that menudo at a pancake breakfast wasn’t a universal experience.

That’s just one early memory that sticks with me. I’ve been loud and wrong about far more important things. 

As a young, unhealed, reactive, self-righteous young adult, I know I wronged people. Years of therapy and tough conversations have taught me to own my mistakes and to lead with humility and empathy rather than the need to be right. Plenty of people, especially those living in red states, believe they’re “doing the right thing”, but with a lot of ignorance for the harm they’re causing to both themselves and fellow Americans. Some of them are starting to get it, but often only because it impacts them personally, and overall a little too late. 

The saddest part is that the Trump Administration, every Republican who is falling in line with it, and all their megadonors actively want to disenfranchise people. The people who will fight hardest for them will be hurt the most in the long run. A New York Times analysis found that red states are disproportionately impacted by retaliatory tariffs. Combine that with FEMA and NOAA budget cuts, potential cuts to programs like SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, and more – and many of these same states will see millions less in funding for support they depend on or will depend on. 

The consequences of being loud and wrong aren’t just theoretical. They’re tangible, devastating, and coming for the very people who helped make them happen.

As a pallet cleanser, here are a few of my favorite moments from Peak Bloom: