tit-free newspapers, masturbating in hotels, meeting richard o’brien + gifting paul kelly

hola dear comrades!!!!!

here’s the best news of the day…..i’m on page three of the main tasmanian newspaper (photo via @newrosehotel):

(here’s the uncensored original photo…and here’s a mirror in case twitpic pulls it down, since in the past they’ve seemed anti-tits)

…dianna graf took the picture in front of city hall.
here’s the article, online.

i wish the people at this newspaper this understood the hilarity and irony of their censorship, given what song they’re referencing…

THEY DON’T SHOW THE TITS IN THE NEWSPAPER!!!!

THEY DON’T KNOW THAT WE ARE THE MEDIA!!!!!

as many people on twitter said:
THAT’S WHY PRINT MEDIA IS GONG DOWN THE TUBES.

……………………………..

o new zealand, new zealand, wonderful country of magic-green-rain-rolling-hills….today i woke up and walked randomly through the city of auckland…we play the powerstation tonight.

after browsing in a fantastic bookstore called Unity (i always take a secret perverse pleasure in photographing the neil gaiman section



and emailing it to neil. i’m like a international publishing spy) i passed a little juice bar, thought twice, backtracked, and walked in. i’d already eaten a banana and was like: i just had a banana. maybe a juice is just over the top. you think these things and think nothing of them. the man in front of me ordered and sat at a little table and right after i ordered, he asked me if i was going to see the dresden dolls tonight.

why yes, i am.
i always do this to people. it’s kind of mean. but i get the feeling that i might learn secret information from them if i pretend to be a dresden dolls fan. like there’s some secret brotherhood or handshake code that the fans just haven’t told me about, and i might finally learn it. or someone will lean in and whisper “confidentially…we all secretly cannot stand when she plays the ukulele, but we all PLAY ALONG UNIVERSALLY, HOPING that someday she’ll come to her senses.” or something like that. so far it’s never happened. so far i just let people talk to me about bullshit for 30 seconds and then i say “guess what” and they’re like “what” and i’m like “i’m the singer.”

so this man, he says “well, it was your eyebrows. i figured with eyebrows like that you’d be going to the dresden dolls.”

and i was like “yeah.”

long story short: this man was richard o’brien, creator of “the rocky horror show” (aka “the rocky horror picture show”).

i die.

i’m not going to say anything else, other than YOU SHOULD COME TO THE FUCKING SHOW TONIGHT IN AUCKLAND. magic is a-fucking-foot.

what is it about coming to australasia and meeting my fucking soul heroes?
stop, already. if i bump into robert smith at a water fountain while jogging in wellington, i’m going to just kill myself.

does robert smith do his hair like that when he jogs?

DOES ROBERT SMITH JOG??

i wonder these things.

……………………………………………………..

speaking of heroes, i want to plug a BOOK and a TOUR….
if you’ve been following my twitter feed you’ve been seeing me constantly referencing and quoting paul kelly’s book, “how to make gravy.”
who is this paul kelly, you ask? i’ve mentioned him in the blog before….he’s a sort of australian folk/rock/mongrel (he’d enjoy that) legend….
a writer of songs that are part cohen, part dylan, part his own fucking thing. he’s a huge deal in australia but when he tours the states/europe he’s lesser known.
his book was spawned from a string of shows he decided to do some years back called the “A-Z” shows. he played 100 of his songs over the course of four nights at the spiegeltent (BELOVED) in melbourne…all in alphabetical order, and with accompanying behind-the-music tales of life and love.

the shows were a hit and he decided it might be fun to create a book around the concept, and “how to make gravy” was born. it wound up taking him several years to write and it’s an EPIC collection of brutally honest, funny, bizarre ingredients into what makes a songwriter’s life. the format of the book itself follows the A-Z concept….he starts with A songs and tells out-of-chronological-order stories of his life, his family’s immigrant heritage, the romantic and unromantic perils of heroin abuse….you name it, he goes there. it’s a brave, bold book, and it’s chock full of creative inspiration and insight….i found myself thinking YES YES YES a lot while reading his deep-soul-baring thoughts and embarrassing notes on the writing process itself…on stealing, lifting, the strange experience of giving birth to songs.
i’d recommend it to any songwriter, it’s a gem…or any artists…or any person, really. grand fucking book:



meanwhile….his songs are bloody good, too. brian and i used to cover “winter coat,” one of my favorites…HERE’s a great clip of paul doing it live in ‘07….

and HERE’s one of his most well-known more politico-folk songs, “from little things big things grow” known to almost everyone in australia; it can make you cry if you’re in the right mood.

he’s going on tour in the states and europe and since i know he’s playing teeny places, i asked his management if we could give away some tickets to his shows to help promote them to my fanbase. stay tuned to the twitter and my site for updates if we’re able to get a few…
i’m always shocked that NOBODY knows him….here’s your chance…..tickets are on sale NOW for ALL of the shows (except a few have already sold out)…grab yours/see the full list of where he’ll be around the world at his site: paulkelly.com.au

here’s where he’s hitting in the states:

February 28 
AUSTIN, TX
Cactus Cafe

February 29 
AUSTIN, TX
Cactus Cafe

March 3 
PITTSBURGH, PA
Club Cafe

March 4 
CHARLSETON, WV
Mountain Stage / Cultural Center Theatre

March 6 
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

March 7 
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

March 8 
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

March 9 
NEW YORK, NY
Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 2)

Sunday, March 11 
VIENNA, VA
Jammin’ Java

March 12 
VIENNA, VA
Jammin’ Java

March 14 
PHILADELPHIA, PA
World Cafe Live (upstairs)

March 15 
PHILADELPHIA, PA
World Cafe Live (upstairs)

March 16 
CAMBRIDGE, MA
Club Passim

March 17 
CAMBRIDGE, MA
Club Passim

March 20 
LOS ANGELES, CA
Largo at the Coronet

March 22 
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Swedish American Hall

March 23 
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Swedish American Hall

March 25 
SEATTLE, WA
The Triple Door

March 26 
SEATTLE, WA
The Triple Door

again, tickets can be found HERE. GO!!!
……………………………………………………………

i’ve been obsessed lately (in that sort of jonbenét ramsey fascinated kind of way) with lana del rey.
her face stares out at me from posters in the street and ever since her saturday night live debacle, i’ve been following the story and the news with an uncharacteristic-for-me fervor.
that “video games” song has been stuck in my brain like a tumor and there’s something so disturbing and spooky about her whole deal.

here’s an interesting piece i read last night that touches on some of the issues:
“can lana del rey survive in the age of adele?” - read it here, via spinner.com

i have fantasies of covering “video games” in a full 60s sparkly-gown nancy sinatra bouffant get-up….at an old-school microphone, standing stock still while some credible-looking black dude plays the piano.

then the camera pans down and my wrists and ankles are bound in heavy-duty bondage rope. IMAGINE THE CLIP. i need more off-days.

there’s something about it that seems to mean something bigger, about culture right now, about talent and artifice, about….i dunno. i’m still putting my thoughts together, but i feel like a big blog about performance/lady gaga/lana del rey is percolating in my domepiece. if you have any pre-blog thoughts - hit me in the comments, below.
the whole thing’s very strange but very of the moment.

i think the main key is that the artifice-without-acknowledgment-of-artifice might be OVER in these post-modern days of ours….or maybe that’s just wishful brechtian thinking.

comments, go. 

………………………………………………………….




i like masturbating in hotels, and i also get a special-weird extra boost of pleasure when i know people in the next room can hear me.
i added that part to the subject of the blog to get you to read it.

which reminds me….so many journalists have been asking me “what won’t you blog about?” lately that i think i’m going to blog a list of “what i won’t blog about.”
blogging about liking to masturbate in hotels will not be on that list.


…………………………………………………………..


speaking of masturbating but not that he has anything to do with masturbating but i like tying the sections of my blog together so just deal with it:
neil is home and working and clearing out his headspace to start his own New Big Things. he and i are almost on the same creative menstrual cycle….probably not by accident.
i think if you marry an artist who makes Big Things and you’re an artist who makes Big Things, chances are you’ll start grooving in the same cycle…hunkering down at the same points and mining your souls simultaneously in different corners of the same room. i love his so very much and can’t believe how fucking lucky i am to have found a man who actually wanted a rock star for a wife: not the image; the person. rock stars are so easy to love from a distance. up close it’s like hugging a time bomb made of vapor. but he does it.

and in a few weeks, or maybe sooner….i will reveal my hereto secret brand-new-music plans to you.
Big Things are afoot.

LOVE,
AFP

p.s. thank you for all the comments on the blog in general. i do read them all, even when i’m on tour and not responding as much. just…thank you. you guys are collectively amazing. even the dickish person who keeps calling me a dirty scientologist hooker….keep it coming….i love you all!!!!

playing the violent femmes & meeting PJ

first up, a bit of ninja-gig-newses: AUCKLAND!!! it’s official….DRESDEN DOLLS’ LIBRARY NINJA GIG! 2pm this friday!! ALL AGES…FREE…follow @Auckland_Libs or visit aucklandlibraries.govt.nz for more info…

_______________________________________

hola my dear comrades….

writing to you from the depths of still-earthquake-devasted christchurch, new zealand, where i was supposed to play last february 22nd…the day the big quake hit. 
it feels very good to finally be here, after having narrowly missed the quake itself (i was on the way to the airport in northern new zealand when it happened) and having seen all the fall-out and devastation from a relatively close perch…as well as being in touch with tons of fans over twitter who had been impatiently & happily waiting for the show (some even traveled from far away), only to get their lives turned upside-down and no fucking rock show, to boot. 

the city is down. people are moving away. the economy is in the shitter (in far worse shape than australia). there are lots of piles of rubble on the ground…lots of empty frames and half-collapsed iconic churches. it looks like a warzone. went for a walk today and took some photos….

this is my favorite…everything’s in it:


i twittered this one to neil, as i knew he’d love it. it’s a book-exchange refrigerator someone built in a ground zero pile.
take a book, leave a book.
love:



journalists from the area have been telling me that rock bands and touring artists have been canceling and/or skipping christchurch due to fear and the economy. 

that’s so sad and so backwards. 

yesterday, brian and i did a free gig in the park along side Occupy Christchurch, a humble but brave occupation that only contains a few dozen tents, mostly housing the homeless. (note: occupy auckland was shut down a few days ago.) we had hera come and sing with us…she’s an old friend by now. 

by show of hands we asked how many people would come to our show if they could afford it….and a sea of hands went up. we put a shit-ton of people on the guestlist, but i have the sinking feeling i should have tried harder to make this concert free…or donation-only. people here are broke. i’d rather eat it and lose a little bit of money and bring music to everyone who wanted it. ticket prices here are prohibitively expensive, it’s always a struggle with the promotors. i try to keep my tickets in the states about $25. here they can reach $60. i have limited control. it’s something i’m working on trying to change. 

photos from the ninja gig:

(via asstdgoodies.blogspot.com



the world buskers festival is on and i went to see three shows last night (a burlesque variety with my old pals in the daredevil chicken club, the ladies stand-up hour, and a fantASTIC show by The Boy With Tape On His Face) with hera and her partner hjotur. they’re an icelandic art power couple. 

the combination of what we newly dubbed “Park Cabaret” and wonderful vintage tits (including a great act with SHEEP PASTIES!!! i love creative burlesque costumes) made me feel hopeful.

there’s a kind of ghostly restlessness and sadness in the christchurch audience, or is it my imagination? or were they always like this?
but they seem to come alive fast. and good lord, they need laughter, energy and escape more than anyone around here.

the tour has been slamming. tasmania KILLED me with joy….four days of non-stop art and inspiration at Mona Foma and the museum. the violent femmes supergroup was beyond perfect and is streaming HERE. our team (and the mona foma guys, and our pal guy jukes) went above and beyond the call of duty to make this webcast happen. we thank them DEEPLY.

it was an absolute dream, i felt like i was living out my teenage fantasy for a full 45 minutes. i kept likening it to a hairbrush-microphone-on-the-bed dream come true: like i was playing a true-life-scale karaoke fantasy game. feeling those words i know so well, listening to brian ritchie playing THAT BASS and THOSE BASS LINES right behind me…with brian playing along with clockwork precision, channeling every subtle roll and fill from the original record….those lyrics that have been pumping through my memory and blood for 20 years come spilling out of my mouth to a crowd of thousands….it was unreal. perfect. the band was tight as shit after just a single hour of rehearsal. 

the rehearsal was held above a tea house run my brian ritchie and his wife. all acoustic. we played through every song once. that was it.
we drank green tea and ate fresh fish and rice cooked japanese in our rehearsal break. sometimes i want to move to tasmania.


(photo by dianna graf…who along with her other half mark was the hostess  with the mostest for our whole hobart trip…)

i was talking to the band after the show and tried to put into words how much baggage i have to get over to be an instrument-less front-person, wielding nothing but a mic.
i always feel like such a fraud. to me, holding or playing an instrument has always been the EXCUSE for the embarrassment of wanting to run around and be a singer who can’t really technically sing very well. take away the instrument and you’re exposed for what you are: a child on a bed wielding a hairbrush, singing into the mirror at top out-of-tune volume.

maybe, though, there’s nothing wrong with that. maybe that’s where the problem originated (GET OFF THE BED AND GET REAL, LITTLE GIRL.)

me:

(dianna graf) 

our “SIDE A, SIDE B” sign swimsuit model:


we got the idea last-minute. brian ritchie called the museum and MADE IT HAPPEN. bless him. 

brian:



john parish and mick harvey:


the man of the hour, brian ritchie & his magical acoustic bass. 
this is actually from the dolls set, that’s brian on electric guitar….

(all these photos by Duncan Giblin, stormboyphotos.com)

i also have to tell you about meeting PJ harvey, it’s the most embarrassing and beautiful story ever…. 

she was watching our violent femmes show from side of stage.
i’d asked her band (my band, for the violent time being) beforehand if she’d maybe want to guest. they gave me that OH BOY look …and told me she never does that sort of thing unless she’s dragged out on the spot. they said supposedly nick cave used to do that….just spit “AND NOW LADIES AND GENTLEMEN PJ HARVEY” into the mic and she’d be like….um. ok. sheesh.
i’ve done that to neil a couple of times. i think. actually, maybe i haven’t. maybe he just says i have. he usually enjoys me “dragging onstage”, but more to the point, i can usually tell the difference between “dragging” and “encouraging”…it’s usually the latter. when it’s the former, i can sense it, and i back off. i don’t like dragging. it’s a drag.

so at the encore of “blister in the sun” - we played it twice, once at start and once at encore - i caught her eye and ran over to her while brian ritchie explained to the crowd what an ACTUAL encore is (in old school days: a repetition of a favorite song…not a whole new batch, PREACH). 

i asked her if she’d come on stage and sing with me. she was so sweet and said “no, no, no, you’re doing wonderfully….go ahead without me, i couldn’t possibly, etc etc”. and in the fever of the moment,  i literally threw myself on my knees, looked up and said I’LL GIVE YOU MY FIRSTBORN CHILD! PLEASE?? and brian vilgione, who was watching this whole thing from the stage and laughing his ass off, says she looked wonderfully terrified. ultimately, she (so politely, so humbly, so kindly) refused. i don’t think she wanted my firstborn child. i don’t blame her, i don’t think i would either.

but once the show was over, i felt like a grade-A asshole. why’d i pressure her? eesh. when I ran into her the next day at the mona museum, I begged her a second time: this time for her forgiveness. she granted it. golly, she was so nice. Queen Peeg. THE PEEG. how i love her. how very, very, very different we are. 

me in my sloppy unrehearsed bra-and-underwear, get-everybody-on-stage-and-see-what-happens attitude and her in her tightly choreographed, ultra-controlled, laser-like intensity. 

it takes a village.

her show was great - she and the band performed much tighter and bolder than in perth and the festival wrapped with a bang. 
i took this shot of her from side of stage…in a particularly animated moment.  

She Is Class.




onwards to auckland and wellington.


LOVE
afp

an open letter to washington about SOPA (from amanda palmer, trent reznor, the lonely island & others)

We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.
 
We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
 
As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.
 
We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
 
We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.
 
We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.
 
We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.
 
Respectfully,
 
Aziz Ansari
Kevin Devine, Musician
Barry Eisler, Author
Neil Gaiman, Author
Lloyd Kaufman, Filmmaker
Zoë Keating, Musician
The Lonely Island
Daniel Lorca, Musician (Nada Surf)
Erin McKeown, Musician
Benjamin Goldwasser (MGMT)
Andrew VanWyngarden (MGMT)
Samantha Murphy, Musician
OK Go
Amanda Palmer, Musician (The Dresden Dolls)
Quiet Company
Trent Reznor
Adam Savage, Special Effects Artist (MythBusters)
Hank Shocklee, Music Producer (Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad)
Johnny Stimson, Musician

To help protect Internet innovation please visit: stopthewall.us

via stopthewall.us/artists/

THE DRESDEN DOLLS, MICK HARVEY, JOHN PARISH & BRIAN RITCHIE play THE VIOLENT FEMMES first album LIVE…this friday @ MoFo

warning: if the following record album
 

 
didn’t change your life, ignore this blog. my enthusiasm will make no sense to you.
 
everybody else, read on.
 
we announced this about an hour ago…..hot off the presses. so you know, this is news that has our inner teenagers feeling kind of like THIS:
 

 
 
here’s the way low down.
 
brian ritchie (the original bassist for the violent femmes)…
 

 
….is now the curator for a festival called MONA FOMA that the dolls are about to play….this thursday, in hobart, tasmania. mofo.net.au / http://on.fb.me/MOFOrsvp
 
the femmes haven’t played together as a group since 2009, and if you look at the wiki, looks like that might be the end of the story. (especially if you read the “LAWSUIT & BREAKUP” section.)
 
brian and i are no strangers to brian ritchie: we both WORSHIPPED the violent femmes as kids and were more or less beside ourselves when they let us hop on stage and guest with them at a festival in wisconsin in 2005 (ish). brian played washboard and i played tambourine. or something like that. it was SYMBOLIC for christsakes. let me google image that….
 
ok. i was on melodica. BRIAN was on washboard. there we are. that’s mr gordon gano singing.
 

 
 
back to the story.
 
i played the tasmania MoFo festival this same time last year, and brian and i hit it off. he was a model curator and impeccable host; he threw the dinner party where neil and i got to break bread with nick cave and grinderman. the whole town was lit up by the festival, it was heaven. i’d really wanted to return and was delighted when the dolls got re-invited. it’s rare for a festival to let an act come two years in a row. but this is MoFo and the curators do what they fucking want, which is what makes the festival amazing.
 
so, it’s three days ago, saturday. brian ritchie called up and told me that one of the acts for this friday (the day after our slot) had canceled…would the dolls feel up to playing a second set? we’d scheduled ourselves to stay in town an extra few days so that we could catch PJ Harvey and tUnEyArDs and the other incredible acts that MoFo usually serves up. (plus do some secret ninja gigs about town and go to the legendary MONA museum - one of the most fascinating places IN THE WORLD).
 
sure, i said, but isn’t it kind of weird to have the band come back the NEXT DAY to the same festival and play again, even if it’s a different set of music?
we should do something more interesting.
 
we thought about it. errr.
 
i started imagining a bodypainting party and parade. but still - ho hum. naked tasmanians. who HASN’T SEEN THAT?
 
we thought some more.
 
i asked brian what the line up for the rest of the day was. were there any musicians we could poach and do something bizarre with?
 
well, he said, there is a bagpipe band. 
 
BAGPIPES?
totally sold. call the bagpipers, i said. at least a couple of them. 
 
i imagined putting a shout-out to all tasmanians over twitter for a commando-parade, with kilts if possible, but with underwear verboten. i had to think fast. 
ok, i said, we’ll have a dresden dolls-bagpipe showdown. and naked parade. that’ll be SOMETHING, at least. hm.
 
i got off the phone feeling like there MUST be something more interesting we could do.
 
then it hit me.
 
brian ritchie. bass player. idol.
 
i texted brian: do you want to play bass with us?
 
he said sure.
 
eeeeeeeeeeeee.
 
and i thought some more.
 
i texted brian again, holding my breath this time: don’t take it the wrong way, but how would you feel about playing bass on THE ENTIRE VIOLENT FEMMES FIRST RECORD?
brian and i know it COLD.
 
i sat there staring at the phone, expecting a brian-ritchie-shaped hand with a gun to reach out of the black screen and shoot me for even asking.
 
the longer the clock ticked, the more embarrassed and tasteless i felt about asking.
 
brian texted back. 
 
he said yes.
 
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
 
i ran to find mr. brian viglione. he exploded with glee. 
 
i will play the drums, he said. 
 
now all we needed was a guitarist.
the femmes were always a trio: drums, guitar, and bass. since i was going to sing and can’t play any of those fucking instruments, we were going to have to dig up a fourth player.
i texted brian ritchie back: this will only work if you score a guitar player from tasmania. 
 
he said he’d see what he could do.
 
nail biting.
brian and i went to the beach and ran around like crazy idiots, squeeing with all our might.
 
then we went to see PJ harvey, who’s touring at the same time as us down here. 
 
as i mentioned on last blog: her back-up band for this tour includes the incredible mick harvey (also known for his solo and nick cave & the bad seeds work) and john parish (who produces a lot of PJs stuff).
they both play everything: bass, guitar, keys. they did a lot of musical-chairing in the PJ set. after the show we went backstage to say hi to mick, who i know from a few years back in melbourne. 
 
i was like….
it’s worth a shot.
 
they both play guitar.
 
eek.
 
so, i asked.
 
they said yes. john parish and mick harvey will both play guitar with our violent femmes cover supergroup.
 
if you could only hear the screams that were emitted in the backstage area of the perth concert hall.
 
so, my comrades,
WE HAVE A BAND:
 
Brian Ritchie - Bass (and possibly xylophone)
Brian Viglione - Drums
AFP - Vocals/Piano
Mick Harvey - guitar (and possibly bass)
John Parish - guitar (and possibly bass)
 
and we have a setlist:
 
THIS WHOLE FUCKING RECORD, FROM START TO FINISH.
 

 
“Blister in the Sun” 
“Kiss Off” 
“Please Do Not Go” 
“Add It Up” 
“Confessions”
“Prove My Love” 
“Promise” 
“To the Kill” 
“Gone Daddy Gone” 
“Good Feeling” 
 
 
YOU HAVE EXACTLY THREE DAYS TO BOOK A PLANE TICKET FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE GET TO THE MONA FOMA FESTIVAL IN TASMANIA.
the historic event will take place at 10 pm on friday on the MONA FOMA mainstage. tickets (festival passes and day passes) are still available at http://bit.ly/MOFOtix and you can RSVP on facebook here: http://on.fb.me/ViolentMOFOrsvp
 
 
THIS IS WHAT FESTIVALS SHOULD BE ABOUT.
 
RANDOMNESS!!!! HERO WORSHIP!!!! CLASSIC SONGS!!! DANCING WILDLY!!!!
TOTAL SPONTANEOUS EXPERIMENTS THAT MAY FAIL MISERABLY!!!!!
 
and…..
 
holy fuck.
 
i can’t believe this is happening.
on stage, with three of our musical heroes, playing OUR FAVORITE RECORD EVAR.
 
somebody pinch me please.
 
 
 
 
 
 
xxxxx
 
AFP
 
 
p.s. ALWAYS. ASK. YOU. NEVER. KNOW.

anatomy of a hickey

the continental australian tour has come to a close….brisbane, melbourne, sydney, adelaide, and perth have ALL BEEN KILLED DEAD BY THE DRESDEN DOLLS.
the band is in the best shape we’ve ever been in. every city has been reduced to rubble by the drum power of brian viglione.
 

photo by holijade, via instagram
 
right now we’re holed up in perth, enjoying the 90-degree heat and dipping our toes in the beautiful shark-infested waters. 
 
last night we went to see PJ harvey at the perth concert hall and the grand dame was in fine, if not slightly subdued, form. we’re about to head out to a PERTH NINJA GIG, taking place on the fremantle esplanade. by the time this blog posts…we’ll be done with it. so if you missed it, it’s because you’re not following the twitter goddammit. we’re planning on playing ukulele, guitar, and soccer.
 
there’s some AMAZING HISTORIC shit gonna go down when we get to tasmania. i can’t tell you exactly what, but i can tell you this:
if you were on the fence about flying from melbourne/coming to/getting a ticket (they’re only $25) for the MONA festival in hobart, tasmania: DO NOT HESITATE.
the dolls play thursday and there’s some hijinks planned for friday night that are off. the. fucking. charts.
then stay saturday to see PJ Harvey and TuneYards. and your life shall be complete. go HERE and click “download the program” to see the whole MONA schedule…
ALSO: they are doing a giveaway for tickets/to meet us, on facebook. RSVP and get info HERE (it’s REALLY easy to enter)…
 
tasmania and new zealand: we’re coming for you next. we have SHIT TONS OF PLANS to be EVERYWHERE in tasmania so follow the twitter for a blow by blow (also follow @AFPwire & @DresdenDolls, while you’re at it).
 
and in the planned-out NINJA GIG department….i know, i know, i’m getting too organized:
 
we’re getting set for auckland and christchurch….
AUCKLAND: 2 pm, day of show (jan 27th), we’re hoping to hit up the AUCKLAND LIBRARY. details in the twitter feed to come.
CHRISTCHURCH: the afternoon before the show (the 24th….show’s the 25th) we’re scouting a few joints. stay tuned and keep the afternoon free! 
WELLINGTON: stay tuned. not sure if we’re going to ninja your asses but we MIGHT.
tickets for the actual gigs are NOT sold out, we’re playing GIANT-ASS venues. help spread the link and get tickets if you’ve been putting it off: HERE.
 
……
 
 
and now, i’ll give you a blow-by-blow of my recent hickey.
 
i’ve been venturing out into the audience/balcony lately during the encore, usually trying to take some unsuspecting folk by storm.
i often sit on people’s laps, grab people’s faces, kiss random strangers, and more or less molest the audience at my discretion.
here’s a photo of me in the audience in sydney, by nick b. photography:


 
that night, lo, the tables were turned. a very drunk chick tailed me, attached to my neck like a succubus, and literally would not let go.
you know that feeling you get when you know you’re going to have a very dark hickey the next day? i had that feeling.
happily (?) the entire night was WEBCAST in fucking fantstic quality. so if you feel like watching the succubus, or the whole show for that matter, YOU CAN, HERE.
it totally reminded me of one of my favorite shel silverstein poems, “the yipiyuk”:
 
The Yipiyuk
In the swamplands long ago,
Where the weeds and mudglumps grow,
A Yipiyuk bit on my toe…
Exactly why I do not know.
I kicked and cried
And hollered “Oh”—
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
I whispered to him soft and low—
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
I shouted “Stop,” “Desist” and “Whoa”—
The Yipiyuk would not let go.
Yes, it was sixteen years ago,
The Yipiyuk still won’t let go.
The snow may fall,
The winds may blow—
The Yipiyuk will not let go.
The snow may melt,
The grass may grow—
The Yipiyuk will not let go.
I drag him ‘round each place I go.
This Yipiyuk that won’t let go.
And now my child at last you know
Exactly why I walk so slow.
 

 
 
eventually, she did let go.
jaron, my immaculate sound guy and sometimes security-savior (@jaronsound on twitter) managed to pry her off my neck, and claims he had to use pressure points to her sides to get her to detach.
 
here is the hickey, post-show, in its fresh red state:
 

(photo by mandy hall)
 
i have to admit, i was kind of proud of it. like the way i’m happy to be sore after a yoga class, or hungover after an unparalleled night of partying, or faced with a callous on my finger after a long day of ukulele-playing.
 
i considered this hickey a very bizarre badge of honor.
 
after people saw the footage of the succubus vs. amanda, a lot of people tweeted at me, expressing shock that i was so non-chalant.
if you look at the footage, you’ll notice that my actual tactic is not to MAKE HER STOP, but to MOVE HER FURTHER DOWN MY BODY to give me a more stomach-centric hickey which would have served three purposes: 1) stomach hickeys feel better 2) they are also less visible come morning and 3) she was BLOCKING me, goddammit. i thought it would be wonderful to give the audience a wonderful hickey-show but for fuck’s sake not if you can’t see my face ME ME ME ME ME ME and so forth. i found myself, for the second time in a week, unconsciously channeling meow meow and saying “you’re blocking, darling, you’re BLOCKING.” 
 
as jaron said, the smell of alcohol was fierce. girlfriend was PLASTERED. 
 
that’s always disappointing. when someone attacks you like that and doesn’t really want to collaborate because they’re so far gone, it just stops being fun.
 
i’m always very lax about security. it’s something i’ve learned to really love and appreciate about the dresden dolls/AFP crowd in general: i trust everybody to an almost masochistic degree.
but i love doing that. i love crowdsurfing, literally and figuratively, into the arms of people i don’t know. i love the the feeling of being held aloft and looked after by a collective of people who are connected in that moment only through you and your choice to take the fucking plunge. sometimes, late at night, i crowdsurf on twitter. it gives me the same feeling.
 
here is the hickey the next morning, fading to a nice purple:
 

 
 
it’s been over a week now, and the hickey is now gone:
 

 
 
 
…and i sort of miss it. 
 
this is not an invitation to randomly attack my neck like a blood-thirsty yipiyuk without asking.
if you do, i might zen-karate-chop you.
but ask first, and i’ll probably say yes just to reward your bravery.
 
 
and here’s a couple of amazing tour shots….this tour has been fucking epic.

from our ninja gig for occupy melbourne (via pulloutmyinsides on instagram…YOU CAN SEE THE HICKEY, EVEN FROM 15 FEET AWAY):


photo by forever violet, via flickr:



beautiful beautiful shot of the band taking stage at the enmore:

(shot by pete dovgan, via tonedeaf.com.au)
 
….and thank you to everyone who’s come so far. 
 
we love you so much.
 
 
LOVE
AFP

i hate amanda infinity net

some exciting news for you before the blog…

our friends at moshcam are webcasting the show TONIGHT in high-quality-multi-camera-glory…find out what time it starts for YOU (wherever in the world you are) HERE, RSVP on facebook HERE, tell your friends to watch with you, tune in at partyontheinternet.com and we shall see you all on the internetz…or, well, you’ll see us.

(be warned, the player might not work on mobile devices/tablets/etc so try and get to a computer ASAP)

onwards…
_________

thursday night in brisbane was the first night of the australian dresden dolls tour.
 
the night before
 
i went into one of those AHHH I’M FINALLY ALONE youtube/internet holes i often find myself rapidly jetting down when i have my nights back to myself, cuddle-free, post-neil. useful, isn’t it? 
 
all that wiki-ing MUST BE GOOD FOR ME SOMEHOW. maybe it is.
 
the internet can poison you. but then provide the cure. watch.
 
i stumbled upon something totally unexpected that wound up jerking me around - the way it tends to. there was a thread i hadn’t noticed before on the band forum with a full 29 pages of discussion, so i clicked on it. i don’t post on (or read) the forum as much as i used to…i used to post daily. i still go there from time to time to share news or see how everybody’s getting on but twitter has become a much more immediate place to connect with folks, and the forum seems to have become its own self-sustaining community.
 
the thread was called “I hate Amanda”. as i read it i found myself being forced to examine, with fascination, along with a few dozen fans, the last 3 years of my life and career. all my choices and how they have and haven’t sat well with people. everything from my ukulele playing to going independent and constantly trying to raise capital via merchandising….all of it.
i forget that people have opinions sometimes. i think it’s a very good thing, that forgetting. the opinions are good, no doubt, even the negative ones…without them the fanbase would be an intolerable mass of sycophants, instead of a bunch of smart, funny people that i genuinely love most of the time. 
 
the girl who posted it was complaining about how she misses the old incarnation of amanda, how she hates the ukulele, how she’s lost her connection, how she doesn’t like my choices.
i watched myself, my projects, my business choices, my social skills….my life being academically discussed and batted around, defended by many, examined like a phenomenon. i’m always impressed, i have to admit, by the extreme intelligence and sheer civility of these fights on the board. there are multiple voices of reason who keep the debate relatively grown-up and on track, and people who simply whine end up looking like whiners, while everybody else engages in spirited batty-aroundy-dialogue. i’m always very proud of the people who write there. they’re smart. 
 
it was important to me that this girl wasn’t a troll from out of nowhere, posting that i was an evil scientologist gorgon (those people do exists, and they’re very, very easy to ignore), she was a long-time fan who just isn’t into me anymore. there’s been a lot of these people. i’ve changed. my music used to be angst and piano-driven, and i’ve spent the better part of a few years traipsing around writing three-chord songs on the ukulele.
 
but that’s what i’ve wanted to do. 
 
if you’re famous: i advise you to never read these fucking discussions. in the words of my best friend and mentor: don’t be like me. i’d (ironically) JUST been having the dont-read-the-critics-discussion with neil. for certain kinds of information, it can be wonderful and connecting, but it’s far too easy to fall down the bottomless pit of your own mirrored ego. anyway….i didn’t read all 29 pages, just skimmed. but it was enough to irk me.
 
it’s funny: sometimes i forget that people are judging me. most of the time i’m so fucking high on my own ideas and impulses that i forget someone might disagree with a single one of them.
 
this is, i think, the only way to ever move forward.
 
this is, i think, the only way to make art. 
 
not good art. not bad art….
 
ANY art.
 
i always feel lost as an artist. 
i actually have come, in a twisted way, to enjoy the lostness. sometimes, even, to enjoy the criticism. more and more i get that the criticism is a very real and important part of the story.
for every and any choice i make, there are a million i don’t make. 
 
do i make the choices to … make people happy? to make money? to stroke my own ego, or have it stroked by others? 
 
to fill some deep inner need to make art for no reason?
 
well….all of these, actually. in some impossible-to-measure combination. 
 
you have to work without critics in your head. otherwise you turn into a pleaser. 
which is boring to be. and boring to watch.
i know that, deeply. to the core.
 
it didn’t matter. 
i was irritated with myself for letting the hungry ghosts of other peoples egos penetrate my night.
i went to bed feeling soul-poisoned and grumpy and wishing i hadn’t read the argument.
tomorrow was the first night of our tour, and i was feeling knocked off center. 
 
i was in a terrible mood as i drifted off the sleep, and woke feeling icky and distorted.
 
…………….
 
the day before, zea barker send me a link the day before the brisbane show, about an installation in the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art.
 
the japanese artist yayoi kusama, known for her obsessive polka-dotted works, had set up a blank white room….
 

(these photos are by mark sherwood from the blog zea sent me)
 
 
…and let children loose in it, with stickers. 
 

 
….and it was opened to the public, who HAD AT IT. soon it was this:

 
 
 
…..the obliteration room.
 
i was entranced. i shared the link on twitter and immediately someone at the museum named dan tweeted me back, telling me they’d be happy if i stopped by.
i sent him a direct message: can i invite people and play ukulele? he replied: absolutely. 
 
and a ninja gig was born for 1 pm the next day. BAM.
 
sean (my secret blog-poster and internet-helper) wisely suggested that we ask everybody to wear solid colors if possible (hi-five sean) and i tried to rustle up something white. someone on twitter offered to bring some white thigh-highs.
 
it was the night before, and i’d just gone down the stupid i hate amanda late-night ego-hole, i lay in bed, reading up on yayoi. this is where the hole can take you beyond the ego-trench and into a land of beauty.
 
yayoi has been making art since the 60s and is considered a pioneer of performance art (lots of naked) and conceptual art.
she’s struggled with mental health issues from a young age, and her polka-dotted theme is pulled from the dots she would see when she had obsessive visions.
 
she calls the dots “infinity nets,” and says they are taken directly from her own hallucinations. she says:
“…a polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement… Polka dots are a way to infinity”. (from her wiki)
 
i read more and more. she loves naked. she’s influenced yoko.
 
and she lives, by choice, in a mental institution, and walks down the street to her studio.
 
she’s often quoted as saying:
 
“if it were not for art, i would have killed myself a long time ago”.
 
oh, yayoi.
 
art, and artists choices, are all subject to criticism. 
 
it’ll never go away…it’ll never end. we’re in an infinite hole of criticism.
 
but we must, as artists, we must never, ever listen.
 
you listen to the critics: you die.
 
dot on. dot on. dot on.
 
outside the museum….brian leading the ninja crowd in a game of RHUMBA SIMON SAYS:
 

(photo by erin smith)
 
me singing “amazing grace” with my friend gypsy on slide guitar…..


(this and the next few photos by dragonkatprincess)
 
brian and gypsy…


 
and a few more…
 

 
 
 
 
….then we piled into the gallery, and i let everybody HAVE AT ME with the fucking stickers….
 

(photo by charlyn cameron)

and played ukulele in the kitchen….


(photo by natasha harth)

and played the piano….


(photo by charlyn cameron)


(photo by @betsybookwork)
 

(photo by charly cauchi)
 
 

and jumped into the arms of my beloved….


(photo by megan andrews) 
 
 
 
and right around that moment….my bad mood was lifted.
 
and it was like
 
take THAT past self in bondage of critical academic discussion
 
I OBLITERATE YOU WITH PEOPLE WEARING TOGAS AND PROM DRESSES
 
yayoi
yayoi
 
if only an option like this was available on a daily basis…….
that room healed me.
 
i went to the show that night with a reminded heart, and the show was fucking fantastic.
 
 
(this, and the next few photos by erin smith)


and there was THIS….a secret surprise performance from captain kid of the boy-circus troupe BRIEFS!!!

this also improved my mood. sparkly cock ALWAYS does.
 

but: the final breaking of my bad mood came with a moment brought to me by our incredible opener, justin AKA the bedroom philosopher:



he’s known in australia for a song he wrote called “northcote”, a very fucking funny ditty that makes fun of hipster stereotypes in melbourne.
at the brisbane show, instead of the usual verses, he informed the crowd that he’d recently gone into a terrible 3 am youtube hole reading the comments on the “northcote” video.
he decided the only way to combat the evil was to incorporate the comments into the song.
so he sang “northcote” and replaced the standard verses with a recitation of long, stupid, un-intentially hilarious youtube comments read in a mlebourne hipster accent.
i don’t think i’ve ever loved anybody more. us and our internet holes. infinity death.
 
thank you grumpy fangirl.
thank you discussion board. 
thank you zea.
thank you dan.
thank you museum.
thank you people who came to the museum.
thank you brian.
thank you justin the bedroom philosopher.
thank you gypsy.
thank you dogs and children and people lying down.
thank you everyone who loves and does not love me.
 
thank you yayoi…..through staying alive you have made me more alive.
 
this is art. 
 
this is what we do for each other.
 
this is how it works.
 
do you see?
 
go into the bathroom
secretly crouch in the white bathtub or shower
get out the rainbow magic markers
you can DIY it in a pinch.
 
 
OBLITERATE
 
 
XXX 
afp
 
 
p.s. 
here’s a youtube clip of brian’s rhumba simon says line….if you want to see a bunch of people wildly running around in a park with confused onlookers….
http://youtu.be/UqDD9t2PD-s
 
also….if your’e in brisbane & want to see the room for yourself, get your ass to GOMA. it’s FREE: qag.qld.gov.au

brisbane ninja gig tomorrow afternoon!!!

yes! 
brisvegas ninja action is back.
 
tomorrow, thursday. 
1 pm. 
all ages. 
at a very very very bad-ass location very centrally located.

a request: ALL ATTENDEES PLEASE DRESS IN SOLID COLORS; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, white, black (and if necessary, gray or brown)
that means, please try and find the same colored pants & shirt…the same colored shirt + shoes + pants + headwear = A++++++++
 
here’s a hint where it’s going to be:
 

 
follow the twitter for exact spot….
then see you all at the tivoli for the dresden dolls’ show…
7 pm doors. please, get to the venue on time…the Jane Austen argument is on around 7:30, the bedroom philosopher hits quickly thereafter, and THIS JUST IN: we’re going to have a very special performance by BRIEFS (all male, all vaudeville, all trash)…don’t miss anything!!!
 
xxx
afp

the Wedding Blog

neil and i were married one year ago, to the day.

this is the story of our wedding, the “official one,” and what led up to it.

i know, i know…it’s a bit late.

i started compiling this blog in the weeks after our marriage and found - like many of my blogs - that the longer i left it unposted, the more cumbersome it became.
because my life is structured the way it was, blogging about my wedding seemed to “legitimate” it more than a piece of paper from the city hall in san francisco.
i found myself confronted, as people pestered me with constant “WHERE’S THE WEDDING BLOG” emails and twitters, with my puzzlement about why it was so hard to post.

i think it’s because:

a) i didn’t want to become my own one-woman self-published tabloid. posting wedding pictures right after we got married in someone’s living room felt like, i don’t know, cashing in on a moment that should remain unmined. this brings up huge issues that i find myself confronted with more and more as i settle deeper and deeper into my life as “amanda palmer: queen of the internet.” i don’t want to live to document my moments. i don’t want to see a sunset and reach for my iPhone. i don’t want to live my life and love my loves inside out. i fear, sometimes, that i do. i fear for all of us. and in these moments, i find non-action is the only antidote. or something like that.

b) i feel conflicted about marriage in general, and i don’t find it easy to write about. you’ll read about that below. but it’s taken me the past year to even begin the beginning of excavating my feelings about what marriage is, why we do it, and what it means. since i wrote the bulk of this blog, neil and i also threw a more family-oriented private wedding-y party up in scotland. going through that experience shed a lot of light on why we got married the way we did (under cover of night, barely telling anybody) and what the institution of marriage and the traditional traditions were built for. the world has changed, family structures have changed, the family farm and the crown jewels aren’t really the issue around here.

c) what felt magic can becomes either undone or overdone when you try to make a story out of it. especially when you’re a story-maker.

neil is. i am. we both are.

i watch the story unfold.

sometimes i dictate the story to myself, then sometimes to the world.
sometimes i take dictation. sometimes i get it wrong.

……………………..


here’s the story:

neil and i got engaged two years ago, on new year’s day…the first day of 2010.
i had played at symphony hall with the boston pops the night before, and then there was a raucous and historic new year’s celebration in the attic my house, the cloud club. i don’t think we’ve ever had that many dancing drunk people on the top floor at the same time, with music quite as bombastic, and quite that many people making out…. the floor groaning under the weight of the joy. the next morning, i was hung. OVER.

way hungover.

neil loves telling this story, and i always get embarrassed when he tells it. usually it’s hard to embarrass me. so i’ll tell it and maybe it’ll be less embarrassing forever.
 
according to neil - and i do remember this  - i told him i’d marry him in bed the night before.
but he said: you’re drunk. we’ll discuss it in the morning.

he had a good point.

in the morning, i told him i still meant it.
but we agreed that it was quite possible i was still drunk.

also a good point.

so we went out to eat.

but a little background: he’d been asking me to marry him for months; it was a running joke at that point.
he had the habit of turning to me a few times a day and saying, very non-nonchalantly: will you marry me?
and i’d come up with different creative versions of

No.

at one point, i think i started saying

Maybe.

….maybe.

but we both think i’d probably really decided on

Yes.

well before i was drunk on new year’s eve, while i was putting on my costume backstage at symphony hall in boston.
i was a bundle of pre-rachmaninoff nerves and twittering (the old school way. with my voice) to my friend becca, aka becca darling, aka the beecharmer blog-keeper, aka melissa mahony in the “oasis” video.

neil walked into the dressing room to grab something and i turned to becca and said:

“what do you think? do you think i should marry neil gaiman?”

becca, in classic deadpan becca style, nodded.

i said

“you’re probably right.”

and i think that’s when neil and i knew we were going to get married.

the new year’s concert itself was a hit, and a quick youtube search will show you the boston pops backing me on both rachmaninoff AND lady gaga tunes (a first, i believe, at symphony hall in one evening).
our wonderful friend jeremy geidt took this photo of me & neil kissing at midnight, as balloons descended all around us.



and the afterparty, as i said, was epic.

and there i was….hungover.

it was a cold, clear snow-on-the-ground new england winter day, and after peeling ourselves out of bed, we walked down the slushy street to have brunch with my father jack, his wife donna, and my half-brother alex. settling down at the lovely trident cafe on newbury street, i ordered a burrito and a giant smoothie which i promptly threw up in the bathroom.

on the walk home, i was that wonderfully unsteady, buzzy brand of post-hangover-puking, and i remember having to hang onto neil to keep from yakking again in the street.
and as romantic as it sounds….well, it actually was a bit romantic. i felt his caretaking love for me like a warm blanket around my shoulders. i have issues with feeling cared for. i’m always suspicious that there will be a creeping judgment slithering under the surface, a price to be exacted. but all i felt was this english guy walking next to me, with his arm around my shoulder, grinning a wild grin and turning to me occasionally saying “i love you so much.” i felt really, deeply loved in a way i never had. and that feeling had been growing there, having taken root a long while before that. i didn’t know whether to trust it or not.

and

i don’t believe in marriage, i thought to myself.

what am i doing?

i also remember thinking: i may never find a person, a lover, who loves me this much without casting judgement on who i am, what i do.

(on a side note: neil says that one of the moments he realized that *I* really loved *him* was the time he was sick with the flu in a texas hotel room. he puked in the bathroom, and when he came back to bed i still made out with him. that’s love, he said.)

we turned the corner into a little alley that leads from massachusetts avenue to my house. in a little clearing he got down on one knee, in the snow.

i said yes.

and he had no ring, so he drew a ring on my finger with a sharpie. and he kept refreshing it for the next few days. (why does this remind me of “And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn”?)

then we went back to my house, where, lo, a great family brunch party was being held, and it was told to the great mass of people assembled in that place that we were engaged, including my parents, who didn’t believe us. they thought we were joking. the party carried on, and i spent five minutes being amazed that people weren’t making more of a fuss about our announcement. it took us those five minutes to digest that the whole room had indeed thought we were joking. we made a second, awkward, announcement that we actually meant it. after the initial shock more off, people gave us their sincere and baffled congratulations. there were tears.

and then, the first thing i remember after that was people asking: so when’s the big day?

uh.

i hadn’t thought about that. and neil hadn’t either.
so we just told people

someday later.

then time started to pass. my brain started to chew on it.

right around that same time, my benevolent landlord/friend/neighbor/art-partner lee found a batch of old family photos in a plastic bag that i’d given him to scan.
one was of my mother (kathy, she must have been in her early to mid 20s)….and he emailed it to me.

he had given the email the subject line: “HMMM WHERE WILL I BE IN TWENTY YEARS”….

very lee.



this was taken in the 60s, when my mother kathy married my father jack.

what WAS she thinking? i don’t know.

several years later they got divorced, when i was about a year old. my sister was 4.

then dad remarried (he eloped that time, to elaine, my first stepmother), and mom remarried a man who’d just been divorced (my stepfather, john), and then dad got divorced again, and remarried donna, and my sister alyson got married and divorced, and i made a couple of records (one dresden dolls, one solo) with producers who were getting divorced, and my aunt and uncle got divorced, and come to think of it pretty much everybody i knew had parents that were divorced….and when i look back at this series of events i think it’s not so crazy that i made a vow when i was 23 or so:

i’d only get married to someone after living with them for at least ten years, at which point marriage would be, well, irrelevant.

but then i thought: fuck it.

i mean, i must have.

look at me. same bat time, same bat channel.
this one taken in the chabon’s bathroom, a year ago…photo by holly:



holy matrimony, batman.

one of the funny things about my relationship with neil was that we WEREN’T living together, and we weren’t going to for some time, by any count.
and i knew that this was actually what was making our relationship WORK…at least for the moment.

not surprisingly, most of my long-term and significant relationships pre-dated the dresden dolls (i.e. my touring career).

it’s almost impossible to put down enough roots for a real relationship while living in a tour bus or in a different city every night of your life. the few times i tried it i failed rather miserably. ani difranco and tori amos both married members of their touring crew (i think). it doesn’t surprise me. those are the people that you have available; the eligible bachelors of your village.

on the surface, neil understood me in a way i’d been longing for. he knew what it meant to be a workaholic, he knew what it meant to make artistic choices that nobody agreed with, he knew what life on the road was like, he’d done it himself. and under the surface he and i became like magnets to one another: we picked up each other’s weak spots and strong spots and somehow managed to function together like one solid force.

shortly before meeting neil, i’d gone through a heavy soul-searching period where i came to a place in which i could feel powerfully, certainly, guiltlessly single. i hadn’t been able to get there before, it took a lot of thought, and a lot of work. i examined culture and standards and wondered why it was that everyone was INSISTING on this coupling thing.

what the fuck?

i looked hard at the constant (and often media-driven) prescription that happiness is coupling-dependent, marriage-dependent, and child-bearing-dependent. some of the happiest people i’ve met are old and single. and i know they’re not shitting me.

get married? after my vow to myself?

sometimes i think i still don’t know. it definitely felt like a leap of faith into an abyss.

and i certainly remember thinking about the dozens of times that i’d cast judgment upon hearing that people were getting married after only being together for a year, or even two, or three.
i’d scoff and think: “HA, how long do you think THIS one’s going to last?” i actually famously had my biggest foot-in-mouth moment at a wedding reception table in 1998 when i attended the wedding of a college friend of mind (she was marrying a new zealander she’d met a year before, or something) and addressed that very question, word for word, to my friends, loudly and drunkenly at a round table at a wedding reception. i was looked at in complete horror, accompanying with knife-to-throat and finger-to-lips movements from each and every one of them.
(*poetically, they stayed together, and they’re one of the happier couple i’ve ever seen, with two beautiful daughters. your final answer, you rude betch? thirteen years.)
 
maybe it’s true: maybe you just don’t know.

all i can say is: getting married to neil felt like such an obvious thing to do, because i’d found the perfect man for an amanda palmer, and wouldn’t be looking for another partner anytime soon.

and maybe (less romantically), i also felt like i’d been around the block enough times to know that this man was what i wanted, and marriage tells the world.

i’ve watched a lot of relationships (and plenty of my own) fail due to poor chemistry and poor communication.
and most affairs burn hard and fast and then leave you with the smoldering debris of reality.

i’d been in fast-passionate relationships, and in real, i-know-this-is-love love a handful of times, but i’d never been fully comfortable for very long, in fact, almost every relationship couldn’t stay standing more than a year. and the general downfall was often the inkling that i’d be causing a lot of damage to the other party with my signature freedom-obsession. as in business, so in relationships: i despise being told what to do. i just hate it. i like making things up as i go along, i like kissing who i want to when i want to, and i have no desire to be possessed, owned, kept or put in my place as a girlfriend or a wife. as the marquis de merteuil says in “dangerous liaisons,” one of my favorite films of all time (i just re-watched it with casey the other night…i’d forgotten how amazing it is):

“One of the reasons that I never remarried, despite a quite bewildering range of offer, was the determination never again to be ordered around. I must therefore ask you to adopt a less marital tone of voice.”

it was a constant cause of marvel to me that neil looked at these determined and fiercely independent qualities and he not only withstood them, he not only tolerated them, he actually encouraged them. i’d fantasized for years that i’d someday find this person, who would hold me but let me go flying into the void, and simultaneously let me go flying but hold me, keep me tethered to the earth. and when i found him, true to my long-held assumption about what would come to pass should i find a human this miraculous, i actually clung.

therein lies the paradox and the proof that the “if you love somebody set them free” theory holds a hell of a lot of water. i cherish his tolerance of my freedom-obsession so dearly that i’m fearful of doing anything that would hurt him or disrespect him and the freedom he allows me. but it takes a fuckload of faith.

this was a new level of love, a new level of connection, a new level of commitment, and a new kind of understanding.
neil and i often compare our relationship to two planes flying in tandem.


pros and cons?

he was funny. pro.

and famous. pro…and con, sometimes.

he had money. funny, but this was actually a liability in my case, since i’m perfectly capable of supporting myself comfortably, and had never been with someone who had more money than i did, which made me really UNcomfortable, and sometimes still does.

but honestly, and i mean honestly: the selling point was that he actually understood me, deeply, and that he loved me as i was and had no desire to harness me. and he wanted to come on the adventure with me, not pin me down to his own plan, and not simply stand by the sidelines and cheer. i’d found an actual partner.

also he was really cute and great in bed.

i think i’ve gotten way off topic. where were we?……

ah yes, when’s the date?

this was a tricky business.

we discussed every possibility from eloping quietly to having a huge princess di & charles art-wedding, and considered all the pros and cons.
it was like a giant logic puzzle, and we couldn’t untangle it.

when i was a little girl visiting my british grandparent’s house, i used to love poring over the royal wedding album.
it was a huge coffee table book, and i remember looking at princess diana’s 50-foot long train and thinking: that is awesome.
i mean, look how long it is. so pretttttty.



every time i imagined us having a big wedding, i imagined it being as big as possible. i mean, why not? if you’re going to throw a party, throw it.
but the funny thing is, i had absolutely no desire to do any of the work.

i spend my life putting together giant events.

the minute i actually put my brain to it, and the fact that it would take an immense amount of creative energy….it stopped seeming like fun, and started seeming like WORK.
i also started considering the giant dramas that would unfold as people were not invited, not included, over-included, and the whole mess. the fantasy on the outside started to look like a potential inside disaster. we started talking about why we were really having a wedding, for whom, and what, and why, and we had this discussion probably 20 times. and every time we’d think we’d gotten to an answer, we’d realize there was some fatal flaw in the plan.

i also started talking to other people, to see how they’d done it, especially newly-married people around my age.
i can’t tell how how many times i heard:

“don’t do the big wedding. it won’t be for you, and it’ll be a royal pain in the ass.” (no pun intended)
 
nobody who’d run off to elope or get married in a teeny-tiny way had any regrets, but a lot of the people who’d had giant affairs had nightmare tales of epic proportions.

also, i think part of the attraction of having a giant wedding is that, as a bride, you get to be a total rock star for a day.
the attention. the cameras. the swarm and heat of attention and doting.
the focus is pretty much on you for a collection of hours, and you can spend months and months planning how you want to shine in that spotlight.
as amanda palmer, for better or worse, i already do this every day.

i knew that being in the spotlight for a day wasn’t particularly high on my list of priorities.
i get to do that almost anytime i want. and so does neil.

and don’t forget: i’d also made my living as a forlorn living-statue bride for 6 years, wearing a vintage wedding gown i bought for $19.99 at the garment district in cambridge, with hundreds of thousands of eyes on me as i shared looks, love and poetic moments with the general population.



at one point i decided my autobiography was going to be titled “never a bridesmaid always a bride.”
at some level, i feel like i’d been getting married to the world for ages.

i’d spent a lot of time, up there on my milk crate, thinking about how people look at brides and believe in them the way they believe in fairies.
putting on my bridal gown and veil every day from 1997-2002 and heading to work definitely wore the charm down.

but it also made me realize something, those hours on a crate: nowadays, at some level, everybody loves a bride.
and everybody loves a bride, i think, because a bride symbolizes hope.

in a world filled with NO NO NO NO NO and fear and terror and doubt, a bride fills up the space in the minds eye as a giant white tulle YES, and you don’t need to know the romantic backstory. somehow, through some miraculous chain of events, this woman has decided to throw herself into a life commitment. and it means something different now than it did 100, even 50, years ago. because nowadays she has a choice.

so, as a street performer, i got to stand up signifying YES for years on end. and it was especially moving when people in passing cars would throw shit at me, yelling “GET A FUCKING JOB.”

to which i would reply, in my mind of course, i never spoke a word: this IS MY FUCKING JOB YOU MOTHERFUCKER. YES YES YES YES YES YES.

anyway…the point was, i’d clocked a lot of bride hours.

and also, we got faux-married in new orleans, as my birthday present to neil.


(that’s jason webley on the right, pronouncing us man and statue. the photo is by kyle cassidy. for more of kyle’s photos from the new orleans faux-marriage, check out this album olga nunes put together for neil and i.)

we felt a little more married after that, and a big-ass wedding started to seem less necessary.

and we noticed that the idea of a gradual marriage is actually quite healthy.

for starters, after new orleans, i felt entitled to practice calling neil my husband.
we took an overnight amtrak train and told the midwestern retired couple with whom we were randomly seated for dinner that we were newlyweds on our honeymoon.
it wasn’t a COMPLETE lie.
 
we talked about getting married in scotland. we talked about getting married in london. we talked about getting married in vegas. we talked about getting married in new york. bali. africa. the moon.

finally, the day before thanksgiving, we had The Wedding talk again and we finally decided what to do.
we were going to have a giant family-only wedding CELEBRATION in the summer, for just our folks, and elope before that. somewhere.
on thanksgiving, i told my whole family our plan.

then we had to figure out where to elope. we talked about doing it in australia, and even went so far as to convince peter and clare (in whose house i’m currently sitting, editing this blog, and in whose house i composed most of it, one year ago) to donate their backyard, and for a while, that was the plan.

then something happened. at this point, almost a year had passed since our engagement. new year’s was upon us.

while on a retreat, neil had made friends with the writer armistead maupin.
since we were going to be together in san francisco for the dresden dolls’ new year’s show at the warfield, neil invited armistead to watch us, and also he wanted to introduce us over dinner. so we made plans to have dinner with armistead and his husband christopher, and when i told my dear friend lance horne this fact, he said he’d FLY himself and HIS boyfriend to san francisco if he could come to dinner with us because holy shit we’d all be having dinner with armistead maupin. i said: i think that can be arranged.

as neil and i were discussing this dinner arrangement, we both had the same thought at the same time: that we should ditch the australia idea and just get hitched in san francisco surrounded by a bunch of friends, because that would, obviously, be…fabulous.

the second inspiration was to ask jason webley to come and marry us, for real this time. he and neil started searching for online ordaining options.

the third inspiration was to call upon neil’s other writer friends, michael chabon and ayelet waldman, whose home we’d already been welcomed into the year before.
michael and ayelet have a kind of a dream-home, filled with four astoundingly awesome children, random instruments, rugs, books and all manner of homey-goodness. we asked if they would have us and armistead and lance and company over to dinner and by the way get married right before we eat and by the way would rosie possibly mind being our flower girl. they said yes, and rosie, age six, began aggressively plotting her outfit. things were officially underway.

having a wedding with little kids around, i found, is perfect. it’s like christmas: they bring the certain magic to it that makes it magic and without them the magic almost doesn’t exist. shedding your bitterness and believing in the magic of a wedding is almost like believing in santa claus. yes, virginia.

the meal grew to include a few more people, who mostly didn’t get told that they were going to be attending a wedding, but at the last minute we broke down and spilled the beans, just in case anyone was thinking of canceling. january second is still a hangover day, we figured we might want to clarify the importance of not skipping out in case anyone was feeling like a tired-ass pussy.

so when i packed for this trip a few days after christmas, i had to pack for two dresden dolls’ concerts, a wedding, an australian tour, and a still-unclear honeymoon-ish post-australian-tour vacation that neil and i were going to take at the end of this whole ride with miss maddy gaiman and one of her friends.

i thought: what do i wear? i decided, as i often do with photoshoots when i have no idea what mood i’ll be in, to bring Options. Symbolic Options.
i brought a sparkly grey dress made by the wonderful kambriel that i’d worn exactly a year before at the pre-party for the boston pops and the beautiful gold chinese robe that neil had made for me in shanghai for twelve dollars before we were dating and claims to this day was not a Courting Gesture. and i was on the phone with neil while he was packing for san francisco and he said:

you know, i have your wedding dress.

i’d forgotten: after our faux-wedding in new orleans i’d had to continue on the tour bus with the dolls, so i gave him the disheveled and slightly sour-smelling bag of bridal street-performance laundry and he and his assistant the fabulous lorraine had toted it back to minneapolis where they’d had the good sense to dry clean it.

i said: bring it, you never know. so he did.

the new year’s dolls’ concert was transcendent. it was so fucking good, it almost seems a shame that this blog is going to overshadow it with wedding-y-ness, but it was one of those grand, historic, everyone-in-love dresden dolls’ shows. my favorite part of the show was actually BEFORE the show started, when jason was playing “auld lang syne” in catering and a whole collection of dresden dolls’ family and good ol’ san francisco friends and lovers were laughing around tables, eating cake and singing.

and i thought: we’re all together. things just got better from there….zoe, jason, and pomplamoose opened up and rocked the house, and joined us on stage for cover songs and madness, and jason counted us down from 11 to herald in the new beginning. once again, there was much making out. neil came on stage and kissed me, people made out behind the stage curtains, and brian and i played on and on until we hit a state of absolute exhaustion and collapsed. and that was that.



and this is us, that night on stage, hugging jason webley….who, unbeknownst to all, would marry me & neil two nights later:


(side note: i was lucky enough on the day of the show itself to have renee hahn come and do acupuncture on my aching, travel-weary bod. one advantage of doing ANYTHING in san francisco is the number of friends i have who will physically take care of me. renee has been my acupuncturist for years, and i’ve promised her a blog at some point extolling the virtues and awesomeness of acupuncture, which i swear i’ll do. but this blog is getting ridiculously long already. so consider this a commercial break: if you’re in dire need of relief from what’s ailing you and you’re in the bay area, i have two things to say to you: renee hahn for acupuncture - reneehahn.com - and whitney moses for massage - whitneymoses.com - they’re the BEST.)

i don’t remember much of the rest of the night, though i wasn’t drunk enough to have a legitimate hangover the next day. i must have been maturing.
but i was completely exhausted.

neil and i took the 1st off to recuperate, i said goodbye to brian, and we vegetated through the afternoon. we decided it might make sense to have some sort of bachelor/bachelorette shenanigans, but with only 12 hours to plan, it didn’t seem like much would come of that. i decided to take the collected gals in my immediate surroundings out to dinner, and we went to a live jazz restaurant called Bix. we drank cocktails and talked…about sex, vaginal problems, relationships, and as many other things we think up that could not be comfortably done in the presence of men. it was a civilized and respectable hen-party. meanwhile, across the bay bridge, something much less civilized was going down in the world of the bachelor party….but i’ll let neil tell that story.

then, the next day - wedding day - we tangoed.
neil’s friend rain graves had offered us through email, ages ago, to give us a san franciscan tango lesson.
so we showed up for an hour or two, and we didn’t tell her we were about to head to our own wedding.

and during the lesson, when she talked about how the art of tango was to relinquish control to your dance-partner and trust that he would bravely carry you across the floor, i cried.


(photo by rain)

neil thinks he danced like a water yak.
i think he danced beautifully.

then we headed over to the chabon’s house to make up a wedding.

when i arrived, i lugged my suitcases up the stairs - along with the dry-cleaned street-bride dress - and used ayelet’s bedroom as a bridal suite.
rosie looked resplendent in fuchsia. abe (age 8) wore a white tuxedo.



the older chabon kids, zeke and sophie, stood by as rosie and abe wreaked let’s-make-a-wedding havoc…sophie coming in with various shoe options (i didn’t have any shoes, i ended up just wearing my stage boots) and a curling iron. i’d left my makeup bag at the hotel, so i borrowed some from ayelet and whitney. classic.

i showed rosie and abe the various dress options. the sparkly dress? the chinese robe? the stinky street-performer dress i’d worn for years of busking?

after very brief consideration, they pointed at the legitimate (albeit soiled and torn) street-performer wedding gown. so it was. i put it on. casey zipped me up.

i had a pair of borrowed blue underwear, leant by a close friend who told me about the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” superstition.
not being a reader of bridal mags, and having had almost nothing to do with bridal culture ever, i’d never heard it. but it sounded like a challenging game.
we figured her blue underwear counted as three categories: old, borrowed, and blue. i needed something new.

so i arranged surprise brand-new wedding gloves, a whole lot of them, made in secret by the designer who created my australian tour costume, david reynoso, and he fed-exed them to the hotel the day before. i gave a pair to each lady in the house. i was one pair short, so two ladies had to go michael jackson style. still, hot.

around the time i was starting to get dressed, we realized we hadn’t made an actual plan, like, about how to actually run a ceremony and all that.

where in the house, and how to do it?

so i went downstairs to talk to neil and kate and jason, our recently ordained online pastor, but abe threw a small fit informing me that i couldn’t be seen by the groom, so neil had to attend he wedding planning meeting - in michael chabon’s office  - with his eyes closed.

we decided to make abe the ringbearer, and neil gave him my great-grandmother’s ring which i’ve been wearing on and off for the past year as an engagement ring (which still needs its own blog, because it has such a good story of it’s own). abe put the ring in his little tuxedo pocket. we gave rosie a basket of flowers.

we told jason we would each write and read some sort of vow, and we planned the wedding for twenty minutes later. then, football-style, we BROKE, and ran off to our various corners to get ready….jason went off to try to find a printer. neil and i went off to write some vows.

with twenty minutes to improvise a wedding look, the girls went to work on my hair and we decided to use the street-bride veil and grabbed some flowers from downstairs to tuck into it. it looked lovely, actually. holly took pictures and occasionally i would turn to her, or casey, or kate, and say:

holy shit, i’m getting married.

and they would smile and nod.

me & holly gaiman, right before we undertook:



….casey zips me up:



….sophie digs the gloves:



whitney. casey. rosie:



whitney made me a bridal bouquet.

armistead made me a drink downstairs and sent it up with michael chabon.
michael handed it to me and when i asked what it was he said: armistead calls it the “Nervous Bride.”

i wasn’t really nervous until he said that.



once i was all dressed, everybody left and i sat down on the chabon toilet seat to write my vows.
i had about ten minutes to do it. then i started fretting and re-drafting and the vows started getting really long-winded. what, me?

i told kate to tell everyone to hang on and drink, but then people down there started getting antsy, so i wrapped it up, thinking it was about the best i could do and dammit why did i have to cram last-minute on my wedding vows. i think this might be my favorite picture:



it seems to sum up my life in a way i cannot explain, especially the boots.


nothing about this wedding was actually planned. it’s funny when i look back on it.

i wouldn’t have chosen it any other way.

rosie. looking wise beyond her years:


….rosie and abe came up to fetch me, i put my veil over my face, and we all walked down the stairs together.
rosie went first with her basket of rose petals, and abe carried the ring….



…and we piled into the living room where everybody stood waiting. daniel handler (aka lemony snicket, who came with his beautiful wife) borrowed jason’s accordion, and played the wedding march.

jason himself was the best marrying reverend the world has ever seen. he talked to us about saying Yes.

there was crying. he read a poem by e.e. cummings, and we made our vows, and neil put the ring back on my finger, and there was lots more crying. that whole part is a little bit of a blur.



and we ate. neil’s son mike and his girlfriend courtney brought us the best wedding pie decorations ever seen:



there was a bounty of mexican food. this time, after eating it, i didn’t puke. magical!

and we shared stories with each there, and neil and i looked at each other a lot, drunk with affection, and we ate like pigs.
and when it was over, there was music (daniel handler, who’s the accordion player from the magnetic fields, was magically on hand to play us “the book of love”) and we tried to play “puff the magic dragon” and failed. daniel managed to pull out “like a virgin” (perfect!) and we got the whole room dancing at a certain point. between me, jason, and daniel we also managed a not half-bad version of “white wedding.”

we were tired.

then ayelet took abe and rosie up to bed, and we stayed up and played pianos and accordions and guitars, and we all sang along to “hallelujah” and sophie saved us by remembering the lyrics better than we could. me and jason played “flying robert” by request, but i had to write the lyrics down on a piece of paper:


oh, yes.

the bouquet toss:


winner? holly gaiman.


hugging  jason webley, part II:



me, neil, and jason:


and here’s an amazing picture of the whole mess of us. i wish i could do one of those who’s-who puzzles and namecheck everybody, but you can probably figure it out:

(this photo by ayelet…most of the other wedding photos, by the way, are a mishmash of superkate, holly, mike, ayelet and me. i took terrible notes.
it would be a good time, at this moment, to thank them all for doing that. and to thank the chabon/waldmans for hosting us. and to thank whitney
and casey and superkate and holly for being my wonderful girlfriends and holding my hand all day. superkate was especially wonderful, and i owe her huge thanks for being a beautiful human being and incredible assistant in all sorts of surreal moments throughout my life.)

….and after we finished our foods and musics, and we were too tired to keep the magic alive, we said goodnight.

the handsome mr. mike gaiman, tired little rosie, and tired big casey long:



me & abe:


….we were on our way out the door when ayelet grabbed me by the wedding gown. (i’d left it on but taken the makeup off, because i figured if we were going all out then neil should probably carry me across the threshold of the hotel room in the dress. it’d be fun, right? it kind of was).

she told me rosie had wanted me to come up and say goodnight to her, to wake her up and say goodbye, even if she’d already passed out. which she had.

so i went up to her room and tiptoed my way through the dark to her little bed. she was fast asleep, looking like a tuckered-out angel. my life fairly flashed before my eyes in that moment. like the opposite of dying; i saw everything i knew fall away and vanish as i found myself in that bed, with my own six-year old head resting on that pillow, knowing nothing, worrying the worries and wondering the wonders and having the dreams that 6-year olds have, before things stopped making sense, before i’d ever had my heart broken and sewn back together with shaky hands, before i’d ever broken any hearts myself with careless and stupid flicks of the wrist, before i had a head full of ideas and theories about love and relationships.

before i’d ever even considered believing or not believing in anything.

and she opened her eyes and looked up at me and grinned her little 6-year old sleepy grin, and i leaned over to kiss her goodnight.


yes, virginia.



there is a santa claus.





i love him, and the story keeps telling itself.




LOVE,
afp.

The Most Important Thing I Learned In 2011, by Amanda Fucking Palmer

i thought i’d write you a little essay on the most important thing i learned this year.
(more photos of recent melbourne goings-on under the essay.)
i was thinking of putting up a end-of-the-year best-of list of things i’ve seen and read. and maybe i will….after new years. i always think i’m going to do that and never do. this fact may become relevant in my essay.
 
ahem.
 
The Most Important Thing I Learned In 2011, by Amanda Fucking Palmer
 
the most important thing i’ve learned in 2011 came in the form of an experience i had at an airport. i think.
unless i’m forgetting and it occurred somewhere else, but the fact is that if it didn’t occur in a starbucks in amsterdam, it may have occurred in a peet’s coffee and tea in harvard square, or at a coffee bean & tea leaf in los angeles, or at a caribou coffee in the midwest. but i think it was at an airport. 
but anyway….my eureka moment happened somewhere that was hot enough to purchase an iced coffee.
 
the iced coffee came with a straw.
 
the straw, as it often is, was wrapped in white paper. like so:

 
 
and as i have done for my last 30 some-odd straw-using years, i banged the straw in it’s wrapper against whatever coffee-shop surface was available.
 
and like so many times before, the straw developed a fatal crack. 
 
a slit through which my iced coffee would escape. 
 
a slender crack; a vile, bleeding little crevasse which would make the experience of drinking my iced coffee, well…compromised.
not immediately, of course. but at the moment where i’d drunk enough, and the vile crevasse of the straw took in air when went to suck down my caffeinated potion….mayhem.
irritation. and of course….do we destroy the environment, and therefore our peace of mind, by chucking the fucking straw and taking a new one? do we just suffer….?
 
this wasn’t the point.
 
the point was….i realized, in a eureka-like moment, that i’d never considered, for a fleeting moment, the idea of changing my straw-wrapper-opening habit.
 
it just never occurred to me as an option. i’d never really considered becoming the Sort Of Person who would carefully unwrap the straw with two hands instead of banging it violently against a hard surface, forcing it open like the PETALS OF A UNRIPE FLOWER. 
but it wasn’t my fault…was it?
i’d never made the conscious choice to be a Straw Destroyer. 
i just…..was one. like being white. or female. or raised in the suburbs of boston by middle-upper class parents. 
 
STRAW DESTROYER. 
 
i felt a huge combination of emotions at this point.
 
shame.
 
worry.
 
shame.
 
worry.
 
a lifetime of lost moments. 
 
all of those frustrated brain synapses colliding every time i would feel broken-straw-frustration throughout childhood, teen-hood, and most of my adulthood.
 
(commercial break; HERE is a site to read some other first world problems sourced from twitter, including my personal favorites:
“My cousin made fun of me because I thought the Arab Spring was a band.”
“I can’t fit all of the gift cards I received at Christmas into my wallet.”
and
“Nobody believes me when I describe my cocaine habit as ‘retro’.”)

 
those little moments were fleeting, weren’t they?
my discomfort, my frustration…small. eensy-weensy.
but all those moments never added up to anything. 
it never occurred to me that there was an escape from my picayune problem.
 
we’re all crazy. 
 
we do, as humans, pretty much all fit that definition of insanity where we do things over and over and over again expecting different results.

i suppose we’re always on a learning curve. 
from the first moment we decide never to touch the hot stove again (it hurt) to deciding never to slam on the brakes on our bike thus causing a gaugeable/causal physics phenomenon of flipping over the handlebars (it hurt) to deciding never to fall in love again (it hurt). 
 
sometimes it just doesn’t seem like any fun to learn. or change something.
but i don’t think the success is in the change. it’s in the noticing.
 
the shame came from realizing i’d never considered an alternative.
 
the worry came from knowing that i didn’t want to consider an alternative, because i like being sloppy. and i don’t want to be a careful adult.
 
the revelation came when i realized that the moment at hand was significant because my brain, you see, is working the right way. i’m noticing. i’m detached enough, in the good way, to see my own ridiculousness. the yoga and the meditating have a lot to do with this.
 
so whether i choose to remain a Straw Destroyer or not, i’ll be making a conscious decision one way or another.
 
or at least more conscious than….the year before.
 
and that was the most important thing i learned in 2011….
 

DESTROYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

 
……………………….
 
would love to read in comments about any of your own surreal little A-HA moments like this. 
they’re interesting and sometimes, you don’t even know they happened until you stop and think back. i’ve had several.
 
……………………….
 
the newses…..
 
the dresden dolls australian/new zealand tour is ALMOST sold out in melbourne and sydney, and there are still ample tickets in adelaide, perth, and brisbane…and new zealand has a way to go. HELP US promote those shows if you’re not already. you can go check out the street team, but honestly the best, simple thing you can do right now is email people, facebook it (RSVP to shows and “share” on your walls), tweet it, and generally let people know it’s happening. the promotion is better in some cities than in others. if you’re not following me on twitter and you live down here, for fuck’s sake, FOLLOW ME.

you’ll potentially miss out on secret ninja gigs if you don’t. or at least make a friend who follows me on twitter and DEMAND they text you if something local goes down.
 
on thursday, neil and i did a ninja gig at city library melbourne…..
photos via foreverviolet (on flickr)…

we didn’t announce it on our blogs, we sent the word by twitter (and a bit on facebook) only….about 4 hours before the gig. several hundred people showed up….everybody fit in, i think, and it was perfect. it came about because one of the pink-haired librarians, aimee, dropped us a line saying they’d love to SHOW us the library. i of course, one-upped her, and asked if we could PLAY in the library. she one-upped me, and said they HAD A PIANO IN THE LIBRARY, and it was GAME. ON.

i’ve never met such a cool-ass group of librarians….they fed us wine and cupcakes and gave us books and music from local melbournians. neil read stories, and i took requests for uke and piano.
and we hugged many people. and each other.

 

note the amazing dresden dolls/heartplane tattoo on this dude’s chest:

 

in preparation for the dolls tour and the new years show, i’ve been trying to brush up on some material, and i’ve been back and forth between peter & clare’s piano in surrey hills and meow meow’s piano in fitzroy. i love her dearly…we’ve been friending out in the late night hours.

meow’s piano:
 

 
 
and here’s a picture of me, mikelangelo and meow at the gem bar the other night:


(photo taken by the lovely mandy hall, who helps mikel with all variety of business matters…)
love.
 
 
and now, today…..new year’s eve in melbourne with all our homies….steven mitchell wright, lyndon chester, tom and jen from the jane austen argument, the bedroom philosopher, marieke, meow, mikelangelo, neil who’s about to leave for the states (i won’t see him for three months), and even miss holly gaiman showed up for the festivities….all together for the turn of the year, champagne’ing in melbourne.
 
some local amazing fans are making me masks and outfits for the night’s mayhem….holly made a hat….i couldn’t be happier. pictures will be posted.
 
XXX
AFP