If It Bleeds, It Leads (& then runs weeping to the bathroom to change its tampon)

hola comrades…….

it’s 3:19AM, DECEMBER (aHEM) 6th. 

i’m staying up late tonight and packing to go spend a week with my moxy, mr. neil, and do some serious practicing for the pops and catching up.
(my inbox is approaching a record 1,000 unanswered emails. i’m trying to be zen about it. if you haven’t heard from me, you’re not alone).

in the face of that, i just spent the last few hours catching up on the comments from the (actual) news blog.

i feel responsible, when i ask a question, to really read and consider what you guys write.
then i realize that actually reading what you write will take me hours and hours…and hours and hours. 
i do it anyway….though i do wind up reading some and skimming some.
over 500 people commented/emailed (over the various blog sites and on theshadowbox.net - which i also check).
….all i can hope to do is put together a new collage of thoughts with what you’ve given me, and there’s too much.

(a link to the blog and its comments is HERE.)

someone suggested i hire a minister of information.
sounds good, but i want a clone.
an amanda-clone.
she will live in the recesses of nowhere, impossible to find but omnipresent; she will occasionally fly under an assumed name, harriet-the-spy style, to places of political unrest to expand her views and opinions, she will hate music, she never talk on the phone, never have sex, never exercise, and never eat.
eating would be a waste of her fucking time.
she will simply lounge in a placeless, pale, warm room with a couch & coffee table from IKEA, wrapped in a colorful throw-blanket made in a third-world country. 
she will linger there, sipping fair-trade coffee with soy, wearing handmade knitted sweaters and clogs, she will don thick dykey glasses and maybe have an angry pet cat named “cuyahoga” or “basquiat” that she will stroke thoughtfully as she considers her take on the conflict in the middle east.
once a week or so, she will appear in my life and give me a download complete with my own clever opinion.
she will also write confrontational letters on my behalf to the editors of the new york times, the economist, and salon.com. 
she will also phone my representatives in congress. daily. she will also phone my mother for me when i don’t have time.
i’ll secretly want to fuck her brains out but i’ll never tell her that lest it ruin our working relationship.

…………………………..


the comments on this last blog were some of the most intelligent and profound i’ve seen. so many people took the time and energy to write such well-articulated ideas.
seriously, fuck me, you guys are a intelligent bunch.
it made me hope that you guys are also reading the comments as they come in - in cases like this i feel like i’m just the topic-starter and the real meat is in the spaces below.

as i read thorough, my head spanned at the expanse of comments from people with family in military, the (many of you, weirdly) who grew up in households with news/reporter/media parents, you ladies who have gone through menopause and assure me that you don’t bawl at the news anymore (thank god for that, can’t wait), parents who’ve given up, journalists who don’t read newspapers, lots of students who are trying to make sense of their educations, someone with palestinian parents who forced them to digest news that didn’t become real until later, the woman whose doctor PRESCRIBED her a news moratorium…..

there seem to be three really resonant main categories:

1) the self-proclaimed “news junkies” who gather LOTS from LOTS of sources, direct and editorial 
2) the casual news-gatherers, who skim papers on weekends and check headlines and pick up news from friends and shopkeepers
and
3) the fuck-it-all-it’s-just-way-too-depressing-to-deal-with bunch.

i learned:

-not many of you still read touchable, burnable, crinkly, old-school news papers, and
-many admitted to doing what i do: stealing the arts and style sections and only scanning the rest.
-many of you seem to go through phases, just like i do, and you’ll read the news when you have time.
-most of you get your news from online sources….
and
-a vast majority of you get your news updates and links from twitter.  

now, this probably has plenty to do with the fact that i linked to this blog from my twitter feed and that skews the numbers, but still. it’s incredible how quickly that happened. i had barely HEARD of twitter a year ago. now it’s dominating our minds. amazing.

so many of you made such eloquent cases for WHY it’s important to stay tuned in.
yet
at the same time, so many of you made good arguments in favor of tuning out. 


hm.

……………….

i remember my british grandfather, when i was a little girl, would listen religiously to the BBC on the radio.
he was legally blind and almost as deaf. he’d sit in the kitchen of my grandparents house and during news hour (this was in the states - he emigrated when he was a teenager) everybody had to fuck off.
he would sit there at the kitchen table, at 82, his head engulfed in those giant headphones. every day. i used to think “what’s the point, old man?”

one day, while my grandmother and grandfather were just quietly piddering around at home (both in their 80s), a group of armed crackheads broke into their house. 
they tied my grandmother to her bed at knifepoint, and stole her wedding ring from off her finger, took everything of value in her room, and left her there.

my grandfather missed the whole episode. he was in the kitchen, two rooms away, with his headphones on; the BBC world service blaring away. 
they were probably talking about the genocide in rwanda while my grandmother was getting tied to a bed.

find poetic meaning where you may, but either way, there’s a song in there.

………………………..

i did notice an interesting trend.
a good handful of people brought up 9/11.

what’s interesting is that half of you said “after that, i couldn’t deal anymore and i just switched off” and the other half said “after that, i decided to plug in and care more”.
obviously polarizing, that event. i wonder what it means, and what this ALL means, for a generation of teenagers.

i hope you caught the comment/story somebody posted about their grandfather dying in his sleep the night before 9/11.
the personal, the personal, the personal will almost always win over the political. 

that image of the twisted south tower antenna now haunts me as a symbol.
that antenna was used to transmit most of the major TV signals in new york city. 
when the tower went down, so did the signals.
we feel safest when we can communicate, no matter what.

i guess that twisted tower falling to the ground scrambled some people’s signals, for good.



……………………………………..


a few comments….

my friend andrew anselmo:
The reason I keep abreast of the news, even news where I can’t affect the outcome, is that this news eventually affects me and my loved ones.  The financial crisis is a classic case; keeping abreast of the business world over the years made me think that I should change where I keep my money (i.e. prepare for a drastic drop in the dollar).  The Peak Oil issue is something I surely can’t fix or change, but it is something I can prepare for.

TERESA JUSINO wrote:
None of us can save the whole world. But I think that it everyone picked the ONE thing that mattered most to them, and chipped away at it, we’d have the whole world covered. :)

marygaughan wrote:
news is the key to democracy

MaraJade wrote:
….And finally, for what it’s worth, I don’t think “the news makes me depressed” is much of an excuse for metaphorically staying in bed all day. As you say, “It’s so depressing when people die in real life.” Sure. But a person can either sit in a useless puddle of angst and whine about how they can’t stand that other people’s suffering makes them depressed, or they can do something about it. My mother often says that if you see suffering, you own it. To me that means that if something in the news really affects you that strongly, see what you can do about it. Turning away and doing nothing in the face of suffering is tantamount to accepting its inevitability and even more important, your own utter powerlessness to affect any kind of positive change whatsoever. I can’t and don’t accept that, so I won’t turn away and hide.

kendrick hugh wrote:
personally, as a Buddhist, I take time to recognize the suffering of beings all over the world. I try to find out something about all beings lost in war or violence, because at least their existence is remembered by one more person. I wouldn’t suggest this course for anyone - without meditation, I wouldn’t survive it.

and Owen wrote:
“does it matter if i don’t know that that people in DC were getting gunned down by a couple of crazies from the trunk of a car?”
I think it maters a lot more that people don’t know that 100,000 people were killed in East Timor by the Indonesian government with tacit American support during our life time.
Midnight Oil coined it Compassion Fatigue. It’s a real affliction.
i feel that. (amazing band, btw).
we all have such different tolerance levels. 
we all have limits, and sometimes i think it’s wise to remember how we’re built.
we all have different needs.
and jobs.
and functions.

i used to feel so guilty for not having a real job. 
i used to feel so confused about my purpose, and so futile in the face of people who built real bridges. bridges for cars. 
every year i get a little closer to realizing that both the music and bridges are the connective tissue of life - without one, the other is pointless. 
we need to get around and survive, and we need to feel like we’re getting around and surviving for a reason.

i used to be obsessively fascinated by the idea that EVERY generation seems to have produced people who like designing bridges.
and singing songs. and talking politics. and … you name it. how does it work out that way? 
what if an entire generation of people decided they all wanted to build bridges and nobody wanted to make any art or run the country?
once i realized my little hole in the cosmic balance, i didn’t mind filling it so much.

here’s what i think:
we take so much for granted, and we do, because we can.

this conversation would look positively disgusting in the context of a regime in which we had to battle bloody battle for our RIGHT to share news, share the truth, converse freely.
anyone who grew up in a repressive country with stasi/secret police/government ban on the free press could look at these “i’ll find out if it’s important because someone will tell me” comments and see sheer ignorance and arrogance. but i don’t think that’s quite it.

i think different times call for different measures.

a lot of people are tuning out because they FEEL they can. they’re american, those around them are picking up the slack. i feel like that to some extent.

does the president read the paper cover-to-cover, or does he rely on his aides to do that and brief him?
do you see where i’m going with this?

streifen wrote:
in today’s world, when things are rapidly changing and people are being fucked around and fleeced by the politicians and powers that be at every turn….the decision not to be informed…needs to be an informed decision.

that’s well said.
we rely on each other for all sorts of different things.
as long as our decision to Not Tune In is informed, and as long as we feel like we have trusted lifelines to the news, we feel safe (…does a family/household of 6 all have to sit around reading the entire sunday paper, or can they designate? likewise, are you satisfied to rely on your news-junkie friend at the water cooler for breaking news while you spend your fuck-off time at work on wikipedia researching balinese dance traditions/obscure david bowie bootlegs? seems like many of you are.)

the interesting thing about connection and community is that you need LOTS of PEOPLE to cover LOTS of areas, and news is one of them.
i know that if/when the shit hits the fan post-apocalypse style, i won’t be able to feed myself, but i’ll sure as hell know a lot of people. maybe that’ll save me.

Taliae wrote:
In the age of globalisation and in an era when technology is rapidly advancing and becomming more accessible, I find it interesting that so many of us only pay attention to that which directly affects us - like in your village metaphor. I’m even quite often like that. And I think most of my guilt around not following the news stems for this issue. I feel that as someone in the developed world who has been afforded many opportunities and who has access to many resources and much information, that it is almost a duty (of sorts) of mine to be well informed so that I can give back. I’m an activist and I often feel that I’m a bad activist for not being more informed and not having a depth of knowledge about what is going on around the world and affecting other human beings. It’s almost like globalisation and technological advancements have opened up the world but, because it is so demanding on people, so in your face, it has made many people revert back to the local sphere.
i find this most fascinating because like it or not, that’s where we’re heading as the oil runs out. etc.
we will HAVE to become more localized to survive. it’s all lining up quite nicely, isn’t it…

laura wrote:
….I just kind of got sick of the news, especially because the news I had to keep up with was student news. Not reeeeal news….

…and so interesting that what we consider the “real” news is so relative. 
what’s more important news: the single tragedy in your family or the death of an entire village you’ve never heard of?

we have to deal with it all. 
it’s funny that i titled my blog post “the (actual) news”. it’s all bullshit semantics, mang.

momothesheepwrote:
you actually have me confused. You talk about being overstuffed with information and need - and you are right. For our survival we don’t need to know what is going on anywhere except our immediate surroundings. so I guess I should ‘unfollow’ your twitter… you post like 100 tweets a day and I’m just overstuffed with information about your day, your period or PMS & wine drinking.

i often wonder about that. sometimes i feel like i’m adding to the noise instead of using my time more wisely. i dunno, dude.
sometimes i feel like i’m actually making an impact by being so honest about myself and my life when other artists aren’t. 

sometimes i play games with myself, and with my audience, to see just how far i can share myself. i actually deleted a twitter right before sending it this morning about a MOUNTAIN-SIZED zit i had coming in on my left ass-cheek. the epic kind of zit you get once every few years that you can actually feel when you sit down. a literal pain in the fucking ass. i had a whole little relationship with this little guy before starting my day, finding a flashlight, positioning myself in front of a full-length mirror to better get a look at what the hell was going on with this guy.
and i was so tempted to put it out there. i was so tempted to see the reactions of “oh my god, i hate ass zits” on the one hand and “too much information, i’m unfollowing your ass” on the other.
i deleted it when i realized that i was about to commit a cartoon crime of senseless overindulgence.

but….

in a way; it’s not. i know for a fact that I’M inspired when i read super-intimate tweets by friends and other artists, when i read interviews with diamanda galas talking about her extreme personal details and habits. i feel less alone, more human, more brave, more real. in the end, it’s not about the ass-pimple. in the end, it’s about the humanity, about people willing to share their imperfections and strange little habits so that we don’t feel alone.

those who are disgusted and must turn away in horror are not enemies; they’re just not in tune with me. which is fine.

very often, hearing one little anonymous voice in the dead of night saying “me too” somewhere out there in the universe makes me so, so happy. 
i think this is why we all love twitter so much: if you have enough connections, then somewhere, somebody will be out there when you need to feel connected (which for certain types, like me, is often). 

Anthony goreilly wrote:
“Dude, WE WENT TO THE MOON. Seriously, we can pretty much do anything, once we stop talking ourselves out of it.”

@John C Welsh wrote, in response:
Amen to that man. THE FUCKING MOON.

i double-amen that. 
i mean, THE FUCKING MOON, right? 
what the hell are we doing?

………………..

i was driving yesterday and listening to NPR and heard this little segment from “On the Media” called “talk is cheap”
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/12/04/03

it discussed how big conferences on the “future of news” were FUCKING STUPID because they were attended by old white guys TALKING ABOUT doing shit,
while young people (like many of us) are simply logging on, creating sites and DOING SHIT….not organizing endless “future of news” conferences to TALK ABOUT WHAT WE’RE DOING.

agreed. if it RSS feeds, it leads, motherfuckers.

do it.

…………………………………………………..

some links:

the outlets, sites, papers that were mentioned most were cnn, bbc, the times, the guardian. lots of google news/facebook/yahoo news.

lots of you mentioned rachel maddow. i had never heard of her. i’ll check her out:
rachelmaddow.com/

lots of you defended your right to get your news straight from john stewart and the colbert report. 
whatever it takes, man. humor FTW. i agree.

i grabbed these at random, & i kept it to the english-language ones.
i haven’t checked these all out. proceed at your own risk:

bbcnews.com
cnn.com
washingtonpost.com
theweek.com
drudgereport.com
321gold.com
salon.com
democracynow.org
americanresistanceradio.com
rense.com
physicsworld.com/cws/home
americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org
commondreams.org
mediafreedominternational.org
firedoglake.com
feministe.us/blog/
(canada): rickmercer.com

don’t want to forget THIS:
i’m also on the email-list from moveon.org.
it’s excellent.

……………………….

in closing?

i DO have a minister of information.
it’s the internet stream that i have created & fashioned for myself,
and it’s YOU - it’s this collection of people.

and we ALL share ALL of us, here.

i’m only gradually (especially as i tour) starting to feel the deep, profound impact of ten years of service in the entertainment armed services, dresden dolls platoon.

i’ve earned my medals and they’ve come in the form of an umbrella which is large and weather-proof enough to house my own tribe, and here we are, new and old, trusted comrades.

…………………………………

coincidentally - or maybe not - i did a webcast last night.
it was a typically unplanned fuckshow…around 3 hours of me, beth, kayla and an assortment of random housemates and friends messing about with some music thrown in, some “lady gaga: friend or foe?” roundtable discussion (jury, STILL OUT - i think that’s a whole nother blog). 

we got a lot of irritated viewers bored by our endless discussion which not only went nowhere but was also interrupted by some incoming french dancer houseguests of pope’s (they’d barely heard of the gaga) and by my landlord lee waving a comic at the camera trying to discuss the significance of international art and the language barrier…oi vey, it’s fucking wild kingdom at my house sometime. we made some dough by selling signed christmas cards and redeemed our souls by gifting away lots of fun things, including a copy of neil’s new book (“the absolute death”), some tickets to the slutcracker that my friend katrina galore brought over and some t-shirts donated by blake. [quick sidenote: we’re giving away another copy of “the absolute death” and all you have to do is make sure you’re signed up for my mailing list. we’re going to announce a winner (via mailer) in the next week or so, so SIGN UP and stay tuned. good luck!]
the tickets and shirts were given, respectively, to the best twit-pic’d slut-holiday costume and the best improvised jellyfish hat…which blake determined were THESE (we have to agree):

(@peackockharpy):

but this one….THIS one….

(@soapeater):

(by the way….if you guys are reading this and we didn’t get in touch with you, there was some confusion about the winners. tweet @electroblake and maybe he’ll show you some mercy).


it all got me thinking. over 10,000 people came over to see the webcast at one point or another. on average it was being viewed by about 1,000+ folks. 

at one point we were playing ukulele…kayla had hers tuned and ready and she threw in a random tegan & sara cover of “hell”, which we sang together, fucking up most of the lyrics.
this prompted an unexpected text message from sara (yes, of tegan and sara) to remind us that “practicing is for squares”. 

that made our life. it also made me realize that at a certain point i’m going to have to get my shit together and start making my webcasts GOOD, because people are starting to actually watch them. 
i’m also starting to feel like the Future of Amanda Fucking Palmer might be in webcasting. there’s so much you can do. any ideas, hit me.

here we are, post-webcast.
LoveTheBellyLoveTheBellyLoveTheBellyLoveTheBellyLoveTheBellyLoveTheBellyLoveTheBellyLoveTheBelly
HOLIDAYbelly, fo shizzle dizzle, check out the snowflake pyjamas, homes.

(left to right: beth, kayla, katrina galore, e stephen).


photo by beth the next morning….signing the special hand-written AFP christmas cards. i limited the christmas message i would write to 140 characters……


….and some of you have really dirty minds, i’ll tell you.

merch plug:
the hand-written cards are still available until december 10th with a dresden dolls/AFP merch purchase of $75 or over. it was only available “a la carte” on the webcast.



they’re beautiful…it’s a folded-card with a photo (by nicholas vargelis, taken of me illicitly in a masonic lodge, for realz) from the WKAP book, and it comes in a fancy envelope with red-foil lining and a gramophone stamp. that $75 can include anything…the amanda/neil book, the new DVD, the new tour merch, AND and and…the dolls section has a special in which you can buy all CDs/DVDs we’ve ever put out for a really low bundle cost….go to: http://www.jsrdirect.com/webstores/afp&dresdendolls/


- time lapse -

i’m on a plane now.

i just flipped through an issue of interview magazine.

the models all looked lonely and unloved to me in their amazing sunglasses.

i also have amazing sunglasses.

i feel loved and not too lonely. 

i wonder what is going to happen next.




love,

AFP





p.s. 
a note on the blog format: as you can see on my myspace…i am going to change the format of the blog so that the text is no longer white on black (fixes coming up on amandapalmer.net asap). i can’t stand it anymore, and lots of folks were complaining of sore eyes.
any feedback, send it in to sean or leave a comment here.



Cross-posted to MySpace

Hell video is UP!!! (and, um, WEBCAST TOMORROW! and THE POPS!)

HOLAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it is thursday, december 3rd.

sean’s note: amanda may have a “blog-fairy” but she’s yet to get a “photoshop the sharpie’d incorrect dates off my face so that she doesn’t make public spectacles of how tired she is” fairy…yet. i have a feeling she’s going to have me look into this.

Beth’s note:  I called Amanda to tell her that it’s actually December, and she replied that she “doesn’t believe in months, she only believes in John Lennon.”


jesus what a day yo. seventy degrees in boston in december. the polar bears up there are strapping themselves into little pods and heading to better climates.
like mars, and points further west (or east, depending where your sunset is). FUCK man. i spent most of the day doing manic apartment cleaning and behind the machine,
listening to mahler and other choice tidbits.

i have been flattening my old posters! i have been throwing out old notebooks!
you can SEE parts of my floor!!!!


frealz

first of all, regarding THE (ACTUAL) NEWS blog…

damn, more than 400+ comments and counting.
i have a SHITton to say and respond to regarding the “news” blog. so many people seem to have the same lines of thinking and it’s gotten my brain on some paths i never thought it would tread upon.
many, many thoughts, composing slowly. so many of your comments are so wise and intelligent and sometimes i feel like your colletive ideas and poetry dwarf my actual blog. but there you have it,
i love that so many people can weigh in on one topic and you’ll get a collection of thoughts together in one place that you will never get again. it’s amazing. so more on that later. right now, i gots to run to dinner but the day could not go by without an awesome collection of the days NEWS…..

if you haven’t weighed in: do. HERE.

the AWESOME karaoke verité video i made for the new tegan and sara song “hell” is NOW ONLINE!!!!
it was posted today by both spin.com and gothamist.com and we’ve added it to the AFP youtube channel.

i filmed it the day before the burlington vermont show, while i was practicing with nervous cabaret in preparation for the tour (the one i just finished).

it was me, michael fucking pope my film and video hero, his camera, my ipod, a bunch of new yorkers, 4 hours, and one bad-ass song.



also thanks to ali and josh for letting me use their apartment (and cat) in park slope.

….i got the idea brewing when i saw some footage of tegan intro-ing the song at town hall in NYC a few months ago and talking about how she would pass all these homeless people in her new neighborhood in vancouver and feel that awful feeling you feel of frustration and hopelessness. i worked from there. some of the best things that happened never made it onto film, i wish you could have seen what i saw that day. it felt really good to run through the city at the top of my lungs, with an actual excuse that was (relatively) sane. i always feel like doing that. but i rarely have a reason. and there you go.

i sent it to tegan and sara….sara loved it, haven’t heard from tegan yet. YAY.


………………………………………….

i’m going to do a special friday night (#LOFNOTC!!!) WEBCAST TOMORROW! PARTY ON THE INTERNET, BABY! beth is coming up! wine!!! song! STUFF!!!!
it’s always a crazy mess but from what we’ve got planned we’re going to

-show you and sell&send a bunch of pretty pretty AFP christmas cards (dead body and chrsitmas tree and personalization included)!
-give away a copy of neil’s “absolute death” collection that just came out, what i wrote the intro to
-do other weird random shit, probably dig up some stuff to auction
-and if i get my act together i’ll play you a new song on piano, maybe…take a few requests, questions, make some prank pizza calls.

anarchy, pretty much. hopefully we will entertain your asses.
i might also try to lure my housemate mali up to play a song.

we’re going to kick off at around 11pm est.

oh! and don’t fret, if you can’t make the webcast, you can order the holiday card HERE, RIGHT NOW, for the next 24 hours.  we’ll stop taking orders after the webcast finishes so i have time to personalize all your cards.  or, if you’d rather, the cards are FREE with an order of $75 to our webstore.

…………………………………………………


UND

earlier today i stopped by symphony hall and worked out more of the setlist. fuck this show is going to be EPIC!
JUST as i was coming in the door they’d gotten the big vinyl banner ads for the show….i snapped a picture….
that security guys is checking me OUT.

hawt.

the awesome photo in the photo is by ron nordin:

keith lockhart was in his office next door and i got to spy-watch him all alone, through the blinds, practice-conducting a choral thing he’s got coming up. sometime my life is so rad.

there will be CONFETTI CANONS!!!!! i demanded.
regarding the SET and the song choices…you can weigh in, there’s still a LITTLE bit of time…and we haven’t 100% finalized the setlist, so go HERE and throw in your two cents if you have a strong opinion about “space oddity” vs. “life on mars” and other such things.




also,



LOVE
AFP




Cross-posted to MySpace

the (actual) news

i arrived late monday night in DC to visit my dad (jack), little half-brother (alex, who’s 15) and step-mother donna. 
my sister and her beau, gareth, came down with me on their way back from the boston thanksgiving to their european homebase in holland.

i was overwhelmed by everything yesterday, have to admit it, still haven’t quite done a complete reality check, still haven’t gotten my period.
i wager 50 bucks on getting on the plane without a tampon. we LOVE that.

maybe i should buy some tampons at the airport.

WHEVS.

i ignored life, business, and reality and instead concentrated on the actual news today.

we visited the Newseum, which is a stone’s throw from the capitol building, it opened about a year or so ago where the national hotel used to be
(famously, where john wilkes booth stayed before assassinating president lincoln.)

it was HEAVY fucking DUTY….like i twittered: i don’t recommend going while experiencing PMS unless you want to cry every few minutes.
the admission is twenty bucks (as opposed to the national gallery and pretty much every other DC museum, all free and funded), it’s slightly glossy & hi-tech, BUT you can’t go wrong when your fodder is the biggest, most gut-wrenching life-changing events of the last century and how they’ve been portrayed.

outside the museum, for all to peruse, are the front pages of every major newspaper in the country, by state, so you can read ALL the daily headlines.
very cool to see how it all compares and stacks up….

(stolen from http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/Newseum%20Headlines.jpg, all the other pictures are by MOI or my sister)


they have a huge section of the (west) berlin wall…..that’s alex, my little bro….

and an INCREDIBLY moving exhibit of 9/11, including a section of the antenna from the south tower and a ton of papers that came out on 9/12…..

a great lincoln’s-assassination exhibit….i photographed a bunch of the imagery b/c i think i’m going to start going, aesthetically, in a faux-painted-b&w photo direction this year.
i simply love it every time i see it, the high contrasts and the surreality:

this pulitzer-prize-winning photo was taken just blocks from my house in the south end of boston…..
i’d never seen it.
there was a HUGE fire in the back bay in 1976, the year i was born.

crazily/wonderfully, the child in this photo survived the fall…..

…and i ran into two priests who were PSYCHED by the woodstock exhibit…..

i’d been twittering my ass off from the museum (most of the former shots made the stream)
and this wonderful chick jaime (@wojo4hitz) was reading my twitter and working in the DC courthouse one block away.
she staked me out and when we left the building she came up to me. we walked for about 10 blocks and caught up on life & media.
she was rad, and an AVID follower/filmer of tegan and sara. it was my first hardcore “i found you through t&s and love you” fan and i felt special.
thanks tegan and sara.

my sister took windswept pictures…..
then we Did A Fancy and went to the private bar of the national press club, since my stepmother donna has an in (her father, don larrabee, used to be the president - ooh lala).
we drank beer and discovered that they had an upright piano that had once been played by harry truman while effing lauren BACALL sat on it looking fancy.

can’t beat that…..


and went home just in time to watch obama give his address on the old school boob toob.
(transcript: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/01/obama-afghanistan-speech-text-excerpts_n_376088.html - or just youtube search “obama west point”.)

we’re sending 34,000 troops to afghanistan. ok. what does it mean? fucked if i can tell you. i can tell you that the man Gives Damn Good Speech. 

i haven’t had a TV for so long that it FASCINATES me to see those people moving on the big screen. 

it brought up an interesting point, having spent the whole day in the newseum.

granted: i am PMSing.

i cried at the berlin wall photos.
i cried at the 9/11 footage, the reports from the reporters about what it was like reporting from ground zero, the footage of people unable to speak without weeping about watching people jump.
i cried at the HINDENBURG going down.
i cried at the JFK funeral footage.
BAD DAY TO GO TO THE NEWSEUM, AMANDA?

but while looking over an exhibit of the DC sniper with my sister, i brought up an interesting topic…..

i don’t read the news. well, sometimes i do. sometimes i junkie out, on it. but rarely. less and less.

i rely, like many people do, on the “if it’s important, it’ll find it’s way to me” system, and when i’m feeling LEISURELY i’ll pick up the new york times and skim it cover to cover, with special attention given to the arts section.
i remember following current events back in 2004, 2005, i’d be home from tour and read the paper every day after yoga. 
near my period days, i’d cry at pretty much any article that involved faith, death, war, or humanity (hint: i could not read the paper while PMSing without crying two or three times. for real. i didn’t need to keep a calendar).

at some point i stopped. got busy. did business of band and touring life instead. checked email instead of the news.
i figured i did not need this extra information of faith, death, war, or humanity in my life. 

i never went into a total vacuum. but mostly…? BBC world news in the car when i was driving at home (rare) and that was IT.
fuck it.

i mentioned this to my sister.

(my sister at this point was appalled and pointed out that it was my human obligation to know all news).

i hadn’t known about the DC snipers (she was appalled). i hadn’t known what exactly the unabomber had done, or even that he was caught (she was aghast). 

where had i BEEN? what was i DOING? 
i don’t know. other things? does it matter? i’m not sure.

i’ve always been incredibly spotty in this area, to say the least. i couldn’t name you a shitload of vice-presidents and i cannot tell you how a bill becomes a fucking law.
i haven’t had a TV in my presence since i left my parents house at 18.
my grasp of history is like my knowledge of music, incredibly specialized and really useless (i can tell you a lot about german unification and the revolutionary war in the states, and i know NOTHING about pretty much anything else, and don’t think i’m kidding. but i also didn’t know exactly who kurt cobain was when he died. i miss a lot).

in addition, i think i started making excuses when i started traveling the world and considering myself a resident of Nowhere, Planet Earth.

the question posed was: what do we need to know about what and why? 
how educated do you need to be, and why?

does it matter if i don’t know that that people in DC were getting gunned down by a couple of crazies form the trunk of a car?

how much of how much do you need to know?

i make the argument frequently that we’re overstuffed with information. there’s just too much, period. 
we don’t need to know how many people are dying all the time everywhere. we’re not BUILT that way, dammit.
we’re psychologically equipped to deal with the deaths of our own village. MAYBE the next village over. 
that’s IT.

i brought up the recent trip to china i was on, where i saw people who i could only assume, in their small village lives, had only a VERY PASSING GRASP of national affairs (much less american affairs) in their sphere and it made very little difference to their families, their work, their world.

i do, however, know and feel to the core of my being that as an american, i’m coasting and basically letting a ton of people do my job for me  by not constantly voting in my local elections and not calling my senators when something’s important. sometimes i let myself off the hook by blogging about political things and pointing lots of people in a certain direction. but only sometimes.

it brings up TONS of issues, political, personal, and non.

now i need to know:
how many of you follow the news, how much, and more importantly, WHERE?
newspaper? online? tv news? radio? pacifica? huffpo?
every day? once a week?
more importantly….why?

note: perezhilton doesn’t count. neither does TMZ or tuning into the daily show (though you get points, i suppose)…i’m talkin’  ”the actual news”, even though i know that in itself will start an argument.

i’m really curious.

and if you don’t tune in, why….?

and

do you feel guilty? 

x
afp

p.s. in NOT actual news news, i’m in the huffington post today…
a FANTASTIC in-depth article by holly cara-price that discusses a lot of great things: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/holly-cara-price/amanda-palmer-ino-rulesi_b_375071.html

post-tour. pre-menstrual.

feeling extraordinarily shaky and sad. post-tour mortem, maybe, i also hate, hate, hate, hate the cold weather to the core of my being, i’m also buried in a pile of Work Shit and everybody else around be seems to be dealing with one drama or another. a few minutes ago my best friend’s mom passed away. she was old, it was coming, but it sent waves. i’m happy i’m not dead, and i’m happy nobody i know is dying at the very moment. that helps.

i may try to blog on the plane down to describe my despair, but i may just let it leave. PMS. it’s not just for dinner anymore.

i’m also working, in my head, on some other blog topics i’d love to throw out there. 
topic one: children. i read THIS and it pissed me off. i need to explain.
topic two: labia. why the fuck are pre-teen girls slicing them off to be “normal”? NO GOOD, says amanda.
topic three: what i’m doing for the next year and how you might be able to help….

speaking of help: if you HAVEN’T YET VOTED IN THE BOSTON MUSIC AWARDS…..DO SO HERE. and HERE is a little giveaway/thank you we’re doing for those who vote. your vote over there actually counts, and there’s only another day or so left. do it.



anyway.

tour’s over and i’m finally alone after the holiday blitz. leaving in just a minute to go to my dad’s with my sister and her Man for a two-day visit.

what a fantastic fucking tour it was though…every show has it’s little stories and weirdnesses and the band just got better and better every night.
by the time we finished, it felt like it was time to hit the road and really play. the guys in nervous cabaret, and melissa, their manager, they’re just wonderful people. i felt lucky to be with them.

here’s the gang, backstage RIGHT before we hit stage for our last show, in knoxville:
that’s (from left to right) elyas (frontman & guitar), fred (trumpet), brian (drums) and sam. kenny’s missing, but you’ll see him further down….
in a sheep head.


i met a lot of people i’d known before, i signed every night, i got to collide with a bunch of friends, people fed us delicious foods.
we felt taken care of. except in northampton, when the fucks at the venue wouldn’t turn the heat on. fuckers.

SO many people brought wonderful THINGS, from food to booze to love and presents, i can’t list you but i can thank you.
thank you. thank you. really. you know who you are. thank you.

i feel sickeningly grateful for what i see when i hit the road.

one thing that makes me happiest is seeing how fucking NICE all of my fans are to one another.

if it felt like extended family before, now it feels like close family. the degree of trust is just insane.
we’re like deadheads without the tie-dye.



my favorite shot of all tour, taken as we paraded onto the stage in brooklyn:
by http://www.flickr.com/photos/subinev/

speaking of that night.
you should watch this. it’s a fantastic clip of the band, me and neil and the assembled entourage of freaks backstage in NYC getting ready for the show.
2 hours before this clip was taken, neil and i got rear-ended on the BQE on our way to the show and had to pull over and deal with the scary shakiness of being in an accident. we were both a little freaked.

the shirtless man you see is sam, the trombone player. 

the space you see up parading through before the show with the megaphone is the bar UNDER the venue…we had to walk through it to get to the lobby so we could enter from the back of the house.

it was fucking fantastic. i felt so happy to be alive (car accident notwithstanding) and have this job. you can tell.





but now?

it’s reckoning time as i stand at the cliff-edge of my life and look down at the abyss.

i just wrote three paragraphs of bitchfest about my life and deleted them. some things are better left unblogged.
PMS. the other white meat.

instead
here are some great shots from tour….


these first few photos are by bryan bruchman (in portland, me):



the confession booth in portland, maine.
i twittered a few minutes before going down and those following my on twitter came into the janitor’s broom closet with me.
some people brought me beer! like this kind gentleman (who introduced himself as neil’s freind, the writer joe hill. then i googled him and now must read his books.) 



wine.


phone.


win.


i think i love everything about this picture:



my girl beth (holding the CD) and her hot girlfriend kayla (holding the redbull, which we actually didn’t sell at the merch booth), hocking merchandise.

if they look adorable, it’s because they are. they live together in brooklyn and rescue cats when not digging me out of various holes.
how can they not be?

i love them and i don’t know how i’d survive all this insanity without people i liked around me.

this is kayla displaying progress on one of the live-action-auction paintings.
we tried to have a different painter come and paint on stage every night:


the paintings we didn’t auction live are up for auction on our brand new official ebay…we’ll be putting all sorts of weird shit up there from time to time, who knows what. but for now…three tour paintings. you can find it HERE. 

here are two more, that sold live at the brooklyn show….(that’s fred harper on the left with neil and molly crabapple on the right, in-between fred and i):
photo (as well as a bunch further down) by lauren goldberg/fairytalevegas.com

kenny, the sheepish bass-player:

photo by bryan bruchman



rocking out:
photo by jim gavenus


and yep, as evidenced below, i’m still in love. so’s he. it’s good. it’s better than good, it’s the fucking best.


we’re good for each other.
this is not a department of my life about which i cam concerned.

writing this blog is helping cure my PMS. mostly the pictures are just making me happy.



this is mr franz nicolay (of major general, the hold steady & world/inferno friendship society) KILLING it with us in brooklyn…


and the incredible sxip shirey………..and if you were wondering what kenny looked like WITHOUT the sheep head, there you have it:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshlarkin/4117971483/

the boys….elyas, fred and sam….

photo also by josh larkin

painting by HeatherRose in burlington on the first night of the tour:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherrosestudios/4102565996/


being an adult during the talk for hypebot.com:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phearlez/4119219535/in/set-72157622717319917/


being a total child and playing ukulele atop some poor bastards shoulders:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dust/4122387700/in/set-72157622819660064/


with my dad, mr jack palmer, at the falls church. VA show…..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brightestyoungthings/sets/72157622857172140/

and here you have the whole deal………….me and my peeps in falls church, as part of the hypebot talk (which you can see HERE…)

XXXXXXXXXXX
AFP


ps - we SOLD OUT of the new design of hoodies on tour, so we reprinted and you can order ‘em here to keep you warm this chilly winter: http://www.jsrdirect.com/webstores/afp&dresdendolls/clothing.html
we MAY also reprint a short run of the tour tees (sans date back) for those of you who loved the art but couldn’t make it to the shows, so keep your eyes open.

MAILER: new show in FL, absolute death, a is for accident, holiday sale, and more...

PLEASE NOTE: The content of this blog was originally sent out as an e-mail on Thursday, 11/26. To get e-mails like this when they first go out, please be sure to sign up for the AFP mailing list! From time to time you will be the first to know about shows, new releases and merch, discounts and promotions, and exclusive giveaways. Even Amanda’s Mom is signed up for the mailing list, so don’t worry, there won’t be any spam and your contact info will NOT be shared.


so much to be grateful for it’s disgusting so i’ll just shut my trap and get on to the business….

the mini-US tour was incredible.
thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who housed us, fed us, brought us moonshine, sang with us, bought shirts to keep us breathing and generally helped us keep this beautifully fucked-up circus ship afloat. this tour was very special for me, and i’m really glad you all came it in such numbers. a huge thanks is due to my SLAMMIN, kind, wonderful & magic support and back-up band, nervous cabaret. they helped me kill it nightly. thank you to everybody who helped fill their coffers when we passed the hat. they loved you guys and couldn’t stop talking about how fucking loving and smart and righteous the AFP fans are. i’m proud of all of us.

here’s a picture of me & the band outside backstage in philly, taken by the amazing mr. kyle cassidy (who many of you know the work of, from THE BOOK):


i haven’t done the whole “tour recap” blog with all sorts of videos and photos like i usually do (yet) BUT i posted right before the last show about our “day off” in asheville, nc. last-minute-twitter-gig + recording with the band at moog + all sorts of other dechauchery, ended up = one of the best days of my life.
read about it HERE.

you should also watch THIS footage of me, nervous cabaret, mr. gaiman & the rest of the gang going nuts backstage before the brooklyn show.
the fine folks at flipswitch filmed it for us, and i love it…it’s such a good slice of what the hell it’s like back there before you see the stage magic. also includes the opening number from that night (“missed me”)…including a megaphone parade through the basement of the club and the audience. you cannot not watch this:


NEW SHOW: 12/13 in ORLANDO, FL

ye asked, and ye shall receive, motherfuckers: i just added a date in florida!
just a single weird gig, just because.
neil will probably be with me and we’ll be signing copies of the book together if so.

it’s going to be at the social on december 13th, and it’s an EARLY show (4pm). all ages, but it’s SUPER small so if you want to go, for the love of god, buy your tickets now.


photo from brooklyn (taken by michael pollack)

ABSOLUTE DEATH

speaking of neil: i realized during ask amanda the other night that i hadn’t officially mentioned to all of you that i just wrote a piece for his book, absolute death (oh how the tables have turned)!

off of the website of fancy author-man: From the pages of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN comes the young, pale, perky, and genuinely likable Death. One day in every century, Death walks the Earth to better understand those to whom she will be the final visitor. Today is that day. As a young mortal girl named Didi, Death befriends a teenager and helps a 250-year old homeless woman find her missing heart. What follows is a sincere musing on love, life and (of course) death. A practical, honest, and intelligent story that illuminates “the miracle of death.”

i wrote the introduction but there are another 350+ pages of awesome (that i had nothing to do with) which you will love. it’s on sale right now at amazon so save yourself $30 or so, and get it there…



NEW MERCH / HOLIDAY SPECIAL / A IS FOR…

for about two more weeks or so, we’re doing a little bit of a “holiday special” where anyone who buys $75 or more worth of stuff from the AFP/DD merchstore gets this fine holiday postcard, signed/personalized by me:


we added some lovely, lovely new things up there, so please do have a look if it’s been a while…hopefully you find a thing or two that you like.

we’re still trying to sort everything out from tour and see what we have left to sell online, but in the meantime we HAVE added the beautiful new design from jason at gutterpark…this was his take on “who killed amanda palmer,” and we made it into a shirt and a hoodie:


people who couldn’t make it out to the shows saw pictures of it online and have been asking if they could get it…now the answer is yes, right here.
also on the store, we have a limited batch of “a is for accident” (technically the first-ever dresden dolls’ release), signed by both brian and i:


a lot of people weren’t aware of that release so we figured we’d give it another little nudge by signing some copies and for the first time ever (!), release it digitally. here’s the best part: every cent made from that album, actually goes to brian and i (not roadrunner). for those of you asking how you could support us directly, here is yet another way to do so.

on the digital front, it’s up on bandcamp (with a bonus track), itunes (just search for “dresden dolls” if you’re outside of north america and you should find it on your local itunes, too), amazonmp3, and a bunch of other places…

for those who don’t know, it’s all live tracks and demos recorded before the self titled, but there are a few exclusive songs on there that we’re still quite fond of.

where it all began, people…

SOON…

…i’ll be buckling down for boston symphony hall new year’s preparations, doing my little one off in florida (see above), doing the holidays, then heading to europe and australia. dates and details on that, soon. promise.


xxxxxxx
AFP

off day. off day? we don't believe in off days, motherfucker.

tonight we finish up the tour in knoxville, TN


AAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

i think yesterday in asheville might have been, just in, like, sheer volume of speed and awesomeness, the best day of my life, ever.

thinking….. 

yep. 

i can honestly say that.

therefore: i am forcing myself to blog it in it’s entirety and post it up.

it was supposed to be a day off. you know. sleep late, find breakfast, park ass in front of mac, answer emails.

BUT

a few days ago I got an email from the guys at the moog factory, in asheville, NC, who invited us to do a recorded session there, in addition to geeking out over their gear and getting a tour of the facility. 

so we drove to asheville on our way to knoxville for our off day.

we left around 10 am, dropped beth’s girlfriend the lovely kayla off at the airport, and hit the road.
we made it to asheville with 25 minutes free before needing to be at moog.


so i announced a ninja twitter ukulele gig in the town square.

this was us, right after convening…

…and we’re crossing the street because one of the 20+ attendees who had happened to get my twitter (i announced only about an hour beforehand) was a great gal named gina who worked at malaprop’s bookstore. 

so she herded us over there and we did the rest of the gig in the bookstore….

and took a picture…


and the whole thing took less than a half hour.
i grabbed everybody’s email by having them text me as i flew out the door.

then on the drive to the moog factory about 20 minutes away, we passed these toilets for sale on riverside drive.


we were late. 


but we HAD to stop and do a 3-minute photoshoot.


the moog factory was incredible….
our hosts jason and jeff made us feel incredibly welcome and let us run around like geeks.



we got to see all the fancy fancy behind the world’s hippest analog keyboards….

(this is steve, my current sound guy…..) 


(this is me and fred, the trumpet player from nervous cabaret, in a forest of theremins….)




sleeping moogs!!!!



then we put all of our instruments through crazy pedals and did a recording that was put to tape and filmed for paste magazine….

i got set up with the two standard moog keyboards of the present day (the voyager and the little phatty for you gear dorks) and we slammed out fantastic live versions of “astronaut”, “missed me”, “guitar hero” and “runs in the family”. 

it sounded SICK. 

SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK.








THEREMIN!
on GUITAR HERO!!!!!




awesomeness.

i was so theremin slap-happy by the end of the day that the sweet men of moog gave me one to keep.
i was a very happy girl.




by then it was around 9 pm and did we stop?

HELLZ NO

we had an invitation from a friend of the band’s to do a last-minute session in their studio. the man was danny, the studio was echo mountain,
which is a state of the art joint in downtown asheville. they’d just finished up recording a record for band of horses.

we squatted all night, pounding out songs from our entire live set….leeds united, missed me, guitar hero, runs in the family, astronaut, house of the rising sun (the standard), that’s not my name (the ting tings), a new nervous cabaret song and a late-late night cover of “makin whoopee”, while everyone was about to keel over with exhaustion.



me & elyas from nervous cabaret, with the bourbon….











and then it was 4 am, and then we were done.


i took a cab back to the cheap hotel where beth had parked herself all day to catch up on email, she’d left me a text with the room number and left the extra key at the door.

my cab driver and i talked about music. he was real nice, i liked him.

he said he ”used to play in a band mahself and all that.”

“really?” 

i said

“yep”

he said

“i was in two bands back in the day. the one that done good, that one recorded two singles. and we got to the whole business and toured and all that.”

“yeah?” 

i said. i was really tired. it was 4:30 in the morning at that point.

“yep. and you know, it got to be where i looked round and i saw that i wasn’t gonna make no money from bein’ in some damn band. but those shows sure did feel good, i liked the playin’.”

“do you still play?” 

i asked

he said

“yep. oh all the time, yep. oh well you know. we play in the living room. sure is fun. but you know how it was, it ain’t a real job, you can’t make any money doin’ it.”

“i know” 

i said.

and i knew.

“yep. you just can’t. it ain’t no way for a person to actually live their life, you know?”

and i said

“i know.”








and i didn’t.

3 years, 3 tours, 3 shots

things are fucking amazing.
tour is hard.
tour is great.
my brain is mush.
so much to tell, but it can wait.



for the time being….here are three photographs that make sense of my life.

they were all taken, in almost the exact same spot, by my good friend kyle cassidy. (www.kylecassidy.com, @finallykyle)
kyle, he is a ninja photographer. 
and we, we are the masters of the 6-minute photoshoot.

i met kyle back in 2002 or 2003 in philly when he came to see the dolls open up for sleepytime gorilla museum. he invited us to crash with him and history started it’s usual course.
since then, i’ve crashed at his house countless times and we have taken thousands of photographs together….and now, we’ve made a book together.


this magic cobblestone alley is right outside the stage door of the Theater Of Living Arts on South Street in Philadelphia. 

we didn’t mean for it to become a tradition, but it did…. 
all of these shots were taken about 2 minutes before hitting stage, almost exactly a year apart from each other, for the past 3 years.


…………………………………..

december 28, 2007.
two years ago.
on the dresden dolls’ “no, virginia” tour. 

it was snowing. it was freezing.

brian didn’t come out with me, so i shot alone.

i miss him.

it was an amazing show.




…………………………………..


November 23, 2008.

one year ago.
on the “who killed amanda palmer” american tour.

with my beloved friends in the danger ensemble, who performed their asses off with me all through that hard winter….. 

from left to right: Kat, Mark, Lyndon (violin), Tora, Steven.

it was freezing cold. but it was not snowing.
many of us had the flu.

i miss them.

it was an amazing show.



…………………………………..

November 18, 2009.

otherwise known as last night.

also known as the “touring amanda is still fucking touring because she can’t stop touring” world tour tour.

….with the fine fucking gentlemen of Nervous Cabaret, who are serving hard time as my back-up band and KILLING IT.

it was chilly, but not freezing.

the leaves, they were brand new and were so soft and yellow it was like they had fallen on the ground right that moment.

i don’t miss anyone. 

they are all here with me in falls church virginia, backstage making trombone farting noises and eating wonderful food brought to us by a beautiful local girl named tash.

it will be an amazing show.

east infection: china & singapore.

sometimes you have to go all the way to china to have a important conversation, because the world gets thrown into perspective.


in vermont right now, about to start my first real tour in ages.the back-up band (who are also my support band), nervous cabaret, sound FUCKING AMAZING. drums! guitar! bass! HORNS!!!i cannot wait to hit the road. i’m really, really excited. i have missed making HUGE LOUD NOISE. here we go, yo. neil will join me in NYC (sold out, baby) and northampton.i’m also doing a YOGA class in northampton, for you mindful types. info HERE.

11.11 Burlington, VT
11.12 Portland, ME
11.13 Northampton, MA
11.14 Brooklyn, NY
11.18 Philadelphia, PA
11.19 Falls Church, VA
11.20 Carrboro, NC
11.22 Knoxville, TN

(and a friendly reminder before it sells out:12.31 Boston, MA - TICKETS!)

so so…

after i landed from singapore (the night of nov 2) having been on various planes (singapore > tokyo > detroit > boston) for a good 24 hours, i sat like a zombie in my apartment for two hours, conducting a twitter Q&A because i couldn’t think of anything else to do in my purgatory before gig time that wouldn’t turn my brain into a smoothie. it’s funny, that. the easiest, simplest thing for me to do to stay awake and alive is answer questions from strangers. not read a book. not crochet. there’s something peaceful about it, the engaged output, the bouncing along the kind and distracted trampoline of happy and loving communication. as i follow other celebrity and semi-celebrity twitterers [neil, kevin smith, wil wheaton, diablo cody (ps i just read her book “candy girl” in a fit of jetlang and i love love loved it), margaret cho, and tony hawk come to mind) and how they joyfully bounce along the same trampoline, i don’t feel quite so weird.
only a few hours after i landed i went a played a private gig for the students of northeastern university, feeling quite frisky. their little university nightclub/cafe featured a built-in starbucks, which loomed across from my stage like a fluorescent dark green gate to hades. i started the set with “creep” on ukulele (it’s becoming a classic) and jumped up on the serving counter to deliver the last verse, bruising my left shin quite extremely in the process. then i went home, drank wine with beth (and my new helping angel hayley) to sign hundreds of DVDs and CDs. the who killed amanda palmer DVDs that were sold in the london webcast auction - which i signed well over a month ago and shipped home from the UK - have been detained by the international postal gods and no amount of praying will bring them back to us. i finally gave in and decided to sign a whole new batch. sorry to all of you who have been waiting. i’m sorry things are always so fucked up. it kills me. i just want things to work. often, they don’t. all i can do is apologize and try harder.
china.
one odd thing: i decided not to email AT ALL while over there (i set up an autoreply), though i did a little experiment and allowed myself to twitter (and read responses).what i discovered is that it was a wonderful way to stay connected and yet not working, though i must say in enjoyed the patches of days where there was simply no phone service at all.the one thing that was effected, is how i put the blog together. for those following me on twitter, some of this will be weeks-old news, though it’s unlikely everybody caught every photo and, ahem, nuanced 140-character reflection. but truly, being able to post pictures on the fly while i traveled (i probably posted several dozen, or more) made it much easier to feel like i wasn’t going to have an epic task of sorting through an entire pile when i got home. 
since i never have the discipline (and, i like to think, this is a good thing, otherwise my life might end up consisting of 45% living and 55% blogging) to blog daily or even weekly when things are going so fast, i have a hard time deciding what to share. i could go on for pages about any given topic or city, since we were moving at light speed. since i am not trying to be a travel diartist/traveloguist of new-york-times-literary-supplement proportions (don’t have to! i’m a fucking rock star! ha.) i am simply going to grab some random photos, out of order, and write about some of the thing that i felt over there. that will be much more fucking intersting than, “and then we went…” and then after that we flew to…” - i think that would be fucking boring and for fucks sake who cares, anyway?
some background, so you know: i went to china because neil is working on a book. a book about china. probably a non-fiction book about china and also about buddhism (not my fault, i swear) and about the classic chinese story of the journey to the west, the tale of a real-life monk who traveled from china to india, which later became mythologized into a famous folk tale which is about as familiar to the chinese as the bible is to western folks.
i added gigs in singapore, where neil was visiting the writers festival, because i knew i had a little fanbase there.the whole trip was only about a week. the flight took a day in each direction.
the photos without me in them are mostly by me, but there are some photos thrown in by neil and our bad-ass ex-pat british guide, ian ford.the photos with me in them are by neil, ian, or otherwise noted.


in china, people believe things are getting better.
i don’t know, man.



we went to a school in chungdu that has just been rebuilt after the brutal earthquake.neil was there last year, shortly after the earthquake, and fell in love with the place and the kids. he’s helping them build a library.
i was introduced to the assembled children as neil’s “wife” after it was decided by the powers that be that it was too inappropriate to introduce me as “girlfriend” (…or “concubine”, which was MY vote).
the children greeted us at the doors of the school by saluting and wrapping red “young pioneers” neckerchiefs around our necks. i nearly died with happiness.





i can capture the world with my bare hands:

watching neil work is wonderful:

this is his first non-fiction book since the eighties and i loved seeing him play journalist to all sorts of folk. his brain was an experience sponge, and i sort of enjoyed the idea that the whole of our experience was going to somehow wind out being weaved into whatever he writes. for the first time in my life i feel like i’m in a relationship where there is utter, wonderfully attentive mutual artistic support with no threatening imbalance or drama.i cannot wait to see what he comes up with. i really love him. 

mah jong and knitting, in the street:

photoshoot in singapore, in a dress from shanghai:



vegetarianism/pescatarianism in china was not so difficult due, simply, to the extreme abundace of food at all times.much of this had to do with that fact that for the majority of our time, we were getting wined and dined by fancy people who wanted to take good care of neil.almost all meals are served to the whole group of diners (i really like this system - i am generally a non-commitment freak in all ways and enjoy buffets) on round lazy susansthat rotate around the table so that everybody can grab what they want, when they want. hoorah. there was much fish and many vegetables. i am not an overly-anal pescatarian, and when my fish was cooked by being sizzled alive in a roiling boiling sea of pig’s blood, i simply dealt. (yes, this happened).




however:these were chicken feet that looked like a holocaust-pile of hands belonging to small, uncooked, children.this was the only point in our entire trip that i got slightly squeamish when a dish landed in front of me. (i dealt really well with the pig testicles).i would cleverly send the rotating table in another direction by pretending to be constantly very interested in the dish that was precisely 180 degrees AWAY from the uncooked-child-chicken-feet, namely, the sauteed spinach.




i can capture the world with my mind:

chungdu, at night:

mongolian death worm….we escaped with our lives. don’t ask:

a very, very, very brief flash-gig in shanghai that involved no notice, no sound, and an audience of about 9 people:


sitting. my meditation practice, which has been going wonderfully lately, ironically fell into toilet while we were visiting a blur of buddhist temples.but java and i (she’s in the pink) grabbed a still moment behind a group of women practicing at the top of a mountain. the monk sneakily hiding behind that pillar on the left was beating a drum.i wonder if neil is going to go to buddhist hell for taking this.perhaps he’ll just be reincarnated as a nokia cameraphone.





this group of girls saw us walking on the way down the mountain.they wanted pictures with us because we were white.then ian told them “i was a rock star from america” and they all screeched in unison & demanded photos and autographs.i should try this trick EVERYWHERE.


i am happy for you happyness, while you spend for my broken:




who does not love…


and my favorite…WALKS THE SLOW!



at an ex-pat bookstore in chungdu, neil reads from the who killed amanda palmer book….
i played ukulele. it was bizarre to see all the westerners.

NO PLEASE DON’T SHOOT I SWEAR I WILL NOT BRING THE ROCK TO CHINA.
(for reals, though, we were often gun-fever tested. swine flu is a huge deal there right now.)

shanghai, at night:



the gigs in singapore were amazing. people there were just incredible. passionate, intelligent, hilarious.i had no idea there was such a concentration of dresden dolls/amanda fans there (and in the philipines, some people came over for the show, which blew my mind)….
i decorated my keyboard with #LOFNOTC gaffer tape at the book festival gig….


we did a talk about the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book, with lots of q&a, which was fun….
(photos by ariddesert87)



i am not afraid.
fuck safety.
i rock on purpose ALL THE TIME



neil managed to get an interview with the “number four buddhist monk” in china.
we talked to him after a huge group lesson at a big temple:

neil said:”if you want, you should think of something to ask the monk”.




i could not think of anything to ask. what do you ask the number four buddhist monk in china?













exactly.


and anyway, this guy outside the temple put my mind completely at ease:

the monk bonked my head with a holy drum, blessed me, and gave me some holy water to take home in a spring water bottle.when i open my nightclub someday, i will add a dash of it to the bar’s first appletini.
don’t think i’m kidding.



i can capture the world without pants:








it was halloween the night i played singapore.there were some zombies…

….and i brought them on tiptoe quietly into the dressing room, where neil was asleep, the poor man, since he’s spent 6 hours signing autographs.i invited them to EAT HIS BRAINS:

they were psyched!





it’s funny.

sometimes,

but at the same time,


and sometimes….




































LOVEafp.

Trick R' TrEET From Team AFP

Trick:


and TrEET:


Happy Halloween

Love,
Team AFP

Dear Robert Smith (an open letter)

Here is a picture of a piece of paper i decorated in 1988. It’s been living in a shoebox and has survived five moves:


(note: i wrote this in the spring, a few days after coachella. i let it sit in my drafts folder because….i don’t know why. i just did.
the other night i was twittering about how much i loved the cure and wil wheaton and zoe keating both chimed in and encouraged me & i pulled it out of it’s misery and am finally sending it. i should also add that @robertsmithdoll & i are now friends since i provided him with back-up in his online webcast fight against @billycorgandoll. you can watch the recap at partyontheinternet.com for now)

Dear Robert Smith,

The weirdest thing about writing you this letter is the constant temptation I’m feeling to use words I’ve read thousands of times from my own fans, written on all variety of international stationary and ripped-off spiral-bound school-notebook paper: “I know you’re busy. You must get lots of letters like this. You must hear this all the time….”

And should you never happen to read this (and it’s really fucking long), that’s ok. I am writing it for me as much as for you.

And I’m also writing it for my own fans, because I think they’ll relate to what I’m going to say and I think it might help them to understand me.

****

(audio cue: for those of you if you really ARE going to read this long fucking letter, I suggest you throw an old favorite record on for good measure. it might help. i suggest a cure record. or something sad. i’ll wait. ok, now read.)

****

So. I saw you play last night at the Coachella festival outside LA.

I played the day before on a different stage, and I’ve just finished a really long and grueling and pretty fucking wonderful world tour promoting my own new record which came out in the fall (and it’s called Who Killed Amanda Palmer and I think you’d really like it). Coachella was basically the last stop before I take my first true break from touring in a long, long looooooooong time. I’ve been traveling endlessly and brutally with The Dresden Dolls - and now solo - for the better part of eight years.

And I’ve gotten a little lost.

Last night, you helped find me.

I need to explain. And I need to thank you, and also…I owe you an apology.

Last night, before you took stage, I was feeling exhausted but happy. I hate festivals, usually. I’ve been touring too long to think that I could actually enjoy attending one. But this time was different. When I saw the Coachella line-up and saw that it included The Cure and Leonard Cohen and My Bloody Valentine, I decided to turn the weekend into a vacation, instead of coming straight home to Boston.

So I played Saturday (my set, by the way, was magnificent and I crowd-surfed to Wagner) and by Sunday I was feeling the weight of the year since the release of my own album lifting off my shoulders. I found friends here and there in the festival mess and actually sort of starting enjoying myself. I hadn’t thought much about what the experience of seeing The Cure might be like. had simply planned it out months before in my off-handed responsible-adult kind of way: “hm….need to book flight to coachella, must check festival line-up, hmm, leonard cohen and the cure are playing, their music changed my life once, long ago….quick note to adult self, should see them play, might have some sort of awesome nostalgic experience, leave time in schedule for that possibility.”

I don’t GET excited anymore. Not like I used to. I wasn’t even thinking about what to expect from you.

I just knew I should be there.

My Bloody Valentine played right before you and I hadn’t known what to expect of them, either. I was alone, and the sun had just set, the cold was coming in over the desert and the palm trees were illuminated and beautiful. I’d ditched my crew and was enjoying the feeling of being solitary and anonymous, two drinks in my system, exhausted from my own shows, finding a comfy little spot not too far from the main stage to savor whatever it was that My Bloody Valentine would dish out.

I hate this: but I barely enjoy watching bands anymore, at festivals or anywhere really. I’m kind of burnt. After so many years of touring, you can probably relate. It starts to blur. Bands playing on stage start to resemble ants building hills. Kind of cool….but very practical. The magic starts to wear off after you realize that they’re up there WORKING, day after day.

But…I’d really, really loved My Bloody Valentine in high school.

They’d been a mysterious and sex-charged sonic force given to me on a 90-minute tape by one of my first loves, a boy named Stu. I wore that tape out…”Loveless” on one side, “Isn’t Anything” on the other. I’d never heard music like it before and I’ve never heard anything like it since - they created something completely unique and perfect. It was my summer soundtrack after tenth grade, along with a Velvet Underground (VU) and a They Might Be Giants (Flood) tape. It was the music that lived in my head for that week of the parentally-forbidden boat excursion to nantucket island where Stu was working a summer job as a short-order cook and where I had my first escape from my little suburban town life, having the kind of sex where you understand for the first time what everyone’s been talking about….the real, loving, deep, pleasurable, flickery-afternoon-light-streaming-onto-a-futon-filled-with-sand-from-the-beach kind of sex. My Bloody Valentine played all that weekend and all that year, keeping me feeling special, fillin gmy ears daily with their mostly-impossible-to-understand-lyrics. I never knew what any of the band members looked like (since the tapes had no artwork) and knew nothing about the history of the band (since there was no internet). I never thought in a million years I’d see them live.

Their set mesmerized me (what perfectly controlled grace, what unapologetic and passionate love-noise) and my heart started breaking open a little bit as I felt the reality of my long tour starting to end and the reflections and refractions of what I’d done - and what I was doing with music, with my life, with my fans - flooded into my brain. At exactly the moment I was struck dumb with the combination of pure guitar noise and the crashing realization all my own teenage fantasies really had come true (was I really playing at a festival with some of my favorite bands from high school? My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Leonard Cohen? Pinch self….yes, I was, oh my god….I was, I really was…. GOD DAMMIT) a fan spotted me in the blaring noise, tapped me on the shoulder and held up her phone, onto which she’d written a text message: “I love you so much I can’t even speak. Will you take a picture with me?”

I hugged that girl for dear life. She probably had no idea why I was crying so hard.

While she stood next to me, and we watched these serene noise-gods on stage playing to a rapt crowd, I let myself go and allowed myself to lose it. Put my hands in the air and closed my eyes and tried to put the music inside me. Towards the end of their set, they built and sustained a wall of shimmery sonic assault for about twenty minutes, the whole band barely moving on stage, just gracefully and subtly plucking miniature millimeters of guitar string that flowed through pedals, amps, wires and speaker cones to be transformed turned into crashing towers of decibels and lightyear piles of psychedelic raw sound radiating for miles into the cracked flat desert night. I swear to god, I’d only had two gin and tonics at that point. I hadn’t taken ANY acid or ANYTHING.

My Bloody Valentine finished and I walked like a zombie, tears still streaking down my face, past the crowd, feeling dazed. I went back to the VIP tent, sank another gin and tonic. Then headed back out for your set. I clambered through the crowd and got a decent spot in the front left section, about 100 feet from the stage. And I waited.

I braced myself. Funny, I hadn’t been expecting to feel like this. I was nervous. I was afraid, sort of.

I waited for you.

You…

You were my whole world for so many years of excruciating teenager-ness. From the first tapes I copied from my step-brothers ultra-cool tape collection, you had me. The rest of his collection (The Cocteau Twins, The Clash, The Replacements) well…I liked it all well enough, but it didn’t speak to me. Not the way you did. There was something so honest, so painfully honest and real, about your words and your delivery. I desperately needed someone to believe. Someone who was telling the truth. As far as I could tell, nobody else was. The teachers and family around me were stupid, lame suburban pod-people, allowing themselves to be spoonfed the cultural koolaid. I was fourteen, I was an opinionated little twit, I wanted to feel and to scream, I needed allies, comrades, back-up, and I was pissed that I couldn’t find any.

Mostly, I just needed a favorite band. Didn’t everybody? I needed a home that was Mine, a t-shirt I could wear that would serve as a constant reminder to the rest of the eight-graders - all of whom, in my snot-nosed way, I considered irretrievably lost and flailing in their own personal suburban circles of fiery hell (aka The Mall) - that I actually did belong somewhere. So I abandoned The Stray Cats (sorry, Brian Setzer) and decided to devote myself soley The Cure. Those first few years of being in love with you were like any honeymoon stage of a relationship. My heart would pound if I flipped through the Cure section at the used record stores in Harvard Square and spotted a piece of vinyl with unfamiliar artwork (sadly, those were often $30 japanese imports that I could never afford and that were too big to effectively shoplift). Your posters were the cornerstones of my bedroom decor: one huge wall-sized poster on each side of my cluttered room, the main shrine above the defunct fireplace devoted to the Boys Don’t Cry poster surrounded by strings of colored christmas lights. They glowed around your silhouetted figure and guitar, and I gazed nightly at your back. You turned away from me, hiding the tears in your eyes, in a truly ground-breaking Sensitive-Man-Stance. I felt certain that I was worshipping at the altar of the correct church.

(the poster is still - thanks mum - up in my old room, i took this picture a few days ago when i was out there eating dinner):

I bought every album, knew every word to every song, I read and re-read JD Salinger and Albert Camus when I found out that you’d referenced them in your lyrics.

I bought every piece of paraphernalia I could find - buttons, patches, 7”-vinyl interviews and shirts (I had a collection of eight, two of which I still keep and treasure and occasionally wear to bed when I need comforting).

I drew pictures of your face and your hair (it was very, very difficult getting your hair right, dude) all over my school binders and on pieces of cardboard that I would add to the growing collage on my wall. I re-painted your album covers on various surfaces. I spent hours in class perfecting the band’s name font as it appeared on “Head on The Door”, working hard to get squiggly criggly letters just right. Once I had mastered this skill I applied it (using all variety of magic marker and fabric paints) to jackets, hats, ripped jeans, the inside of my closet and (occasionally, when I got bored) my forearms. I drew a cartoon for my xeroxed high-school fanzine depicting The Cure in a galactic battle against my nemesis, that most-hateful of bands that represented everything wrong and false: New Kids on the Block. Your band won.

I tried to write songs like you. The THINGS you sang, the way you weren’t afraid to peel yourself open and purge, seeth and cry about the brutal feelings that we ALL HAD but weren’t expressing, that is why I loved you. All other music fell short. You were Real.

I listened to you and thought: THAT. I want to do THAT. Whatever he’s doing. Whatever he’s making me feel….THAT’S what I want to do to people someday.

I didn’t even know what you were talking about half the time, but I knew you were reaching deeper, further, realer than the other records in my collection. In your lyrics, you were shredding people apart for being superficial, for not being authentic. People said the music was gloomy, depressing, over-dramatic. I never heard it that way. I just heard it as honest. I’ve learned from watching thousands of bands over the years: it’s not enough to just ooze pain or complain into a microphone. Lots of bands try to do that and fail miserably. You did it right. You were tricky. You used just enough words, just the right words, always the perfect package…enough melody to draw me in to hold me there and drive the stake of prickly truthfulness through my heart.

And at the end of the day, you write a damn catchy pop tune when you feel like it. And that inspired me so much as a writer…the fact that you could be so passionately agonizing on one track and then turn around bopping and dancing light-heartedly the next. I followed your example and I assumed that everything was up for grabs when it came to songwriting. You made this ok.

I wanted to know things about you. I needed to.

There was no Wikipedia, no Google.

So I read whatever information I could find and where I got this information pre-internet, I don’t know exactly….mostly magazine interviews, I think, the accompanying pictures from which I would clip out and paste to the wall. MTV and 120 minutes would occasionally let information drop, which I would suck up like a sponge. I learned enough to know that somehow I had to save the money for a ticket to Crawley, Sussex, in the United Kingdom, where I would somehow run into you and that you (according to a story in my head that seemed very real at the time) would instantly befriend me. I vagely knew that you were married (happily, according to all counts, and possibly even with children) but this was somehow easy to overlook. Clearly, the minute you met this very intelligent, beautiful and raw open wound named Amanda, you’d probably just leave your wife (who’d understand, of course, and she could even hang out with us…she was British and Your Wife and thus probably pretty hip). And you would most likely ask me to marry you. I would say yes. Tickets to England were expensive. I was frustrated. When my parents informed me that we were going on a family trip to London the spring that I turned fifteen, I was excited MOSTLY because I assumed this would be the trip that would bring us closer together. The closest I actually got to finding you over there was the UK-only pink-cover cassette version of “Three Imaginary Boys” at HMV on oxford street. My sister Alyson took a picture of that moment (note the double denim!!!):

I wasn’t thinking about how or whether any of this would come into focus when I made the plans to see you. As I stood there, packed in with the other bodies at the festival, feeling free, feeling ready for anything, feeling grateful, most of all, that I’d taken the time out of my life to be standing here in this desert at the moment to see my old favorite band play, the cogs started turning. This was what I’d wanted, this was the feeling I’d signed up for. The nostalgia. This was why I’d bought my ticket to spend the extra day here. I wanted to re-live something. Right? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t really given it any thought. I figured it only made sense given that the closest I’d ever come to having a religious experience was at a Cure concert in 1991.

Oh god, that show….that show that I looked forward to for months and months and months and months. Due to a massive stroke of synchronicity my mother, who had only Rolling Stones and Beatles and Fleetwood Mac and Handel in her record collection, had an ex high-school sweetheart who was driving a truck in your touring crew. She knew nothing about the rock road, but he’d come through town a few years before and hooked us up with Beach Boys tickets. That was my first real concert, I was 12. It was boring. I didn’t really care about the Beach Boys. But a few years later he phoned again and said he was driving for The Cure and she recognized the name…no doubt from seeing it plastered all over her youngest daughter’s bedroom walls, school binders, and (occasionally) forearms. I remember the sheer volume of the scream, on the order of thousands of decibels, that escaped my mouth when I was told that I could not only GO TO THE SHOW, but POSSIBLY GET BACKSTAGE. I ran, making banshee-like sounds, to the phone and called Holly, my best and only friend and fellow Cure-devotee (though not, I was certain, as devoted as I….since she was convinced she was going to marry Johnny Depp from 21 jump street, who was totally not as hot as you). We would go together. I dreamed night after night about how you’d breeze by me in some anonymous backstage hallway, recognize that I was your true love, and possibly make out with me. I knew this was a distinct possibility because by penpal Eve Stoddard had been to a Jane’s Addiction show at a concert at the EXACT same venue, had snuck backstage, run into Perry Farrell randomly and HE had kissed HER. Obviously, this was rock and roll and anything was possible. I plotted and spent countless hours thinking of what I would say to you when we finally met. I barely slept the night before the show.

left: gothy little amanda, right: holly and me.

It was the Disintigration tour, you opened with “Plainsong”.

****

(audio cue, for those listening, please stop reading and throw “plainsong” from “disintigration” into your speakers. if you don’t have it, download it. and you know what? just get all of disintegration if you don’t have it and let it play for the remainder of this letter-reading. why the fuck not? you’ll thank me, it’s one of the best records in the world. sorry, robert, back to your letter.).

****

As the lights went to black and the crowd roared and those first few chimey sounds started to fill the air, I felt my heart racing. I was going to see you.

Really see you. See you in the flesh. Hear you singing, watch your voice make sounds, live, for me, to me. To us.

My senses sharpened. I held my breath.

When that music crashed into place (and what a perfect choice, that one, a perfect set opener, and perfect album opener….and god, just a perfect song: the huge major-chord crash of joyfully celebration with lyrics as dark-light, lush and vast and deep and bittersweet as love itself), when that first giant synthesizer belted it’s long, jagged and beautiful wave forms into my ears and meshed with the smash of cymbals and dazzling of lights….in that moment, my heart exploded. I now knew something I didn’t know before.

I’ve never forgotten that moment.

Tears streamed down my face and I thought THIS, THIS THIS - it was a feeling that I wanted to bottle and eat and never forget and repeat again and again as long as I lived. Every hour I’d spent longing, every doodle on every notebook, every lyric that I’d quietly memorized and wondered about, all the love I felt for you, for everything, it was all trapped up in this one moment. Not belonging, not feeling right, not feeling human, not feeling good enough, all those feelings were crushed away by the music, by these magic sounds, by the sound of your voice. Here, I belonged. Here, life was perfect. I don’t know if my mouth screamed, but my heart did. In pure joy. I don’t remember much else of the set. I was ecstatic.

I brought home a souvenir of that night, an empty envelope that my mother’s truck driver friend gave to me with all of the bands autographs. I still have it, carefully hidden away behind one of your posters in my parents house. I used to take it out every few weeks and just look at it and think: he touched this.

I was 16. Last night, I was 32. I found myself being recognized in the crowd at Coachella, a few people behind me calling out my name…they had seen my set, they were fans of mine. They were happy I was standing there with them. I was happy they were standing there with me. We were excited, The Cure was about to come on.

I looked around to see who was standing near me. I was alone.

I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me, who seemed really nice. It turns out he was a devoted Cure fan named Dereck who had been to 12 or 13 shows. We started talking, but after a few minutes the crowd started to pulse and murmur: the band was coming. I exploded in cheers and screaming. I’d forgotten about this feeling. My enthusiasm was matched by a few around me, but I also felt sort of self-conscious. I was a bit overexcited. As you started playing, so many of my teeange memories and lovers started flooding back. Your face, your hair, your red lips, the sound of your voice were like a portal. Was this what I’d come for? Maybe.

You wound up tainting and nurturing my early loves and relationships, you were there as a thread, as a spectre, as a soundtrack.

There was Peter, the swarthy 18-year old who had a vintage cadillac convertible and worked crew on the summer-stock production of “The Wizard of Oz” that Holly and I both decided to join when we were 14. After I pledged my undying devition to him AND gave him my first (admittedly disastrous) blow-job in the woods near Granny Pond and he never fucking called me back after dropping me back home, I mourned for ages. I spent tearful weeks trying to decide what the proper reaction was to this kind of brutal rejection and heartbreak and I finally settled on mailing him a fountain-pen-written copy of the lyrics from “The Same Deep Water As You”. At the time, it seemed perfect.

(I know now; he wasn’t worthy.)

What the letter said was:
“kiss me goodbye
pushing out before i sleep
can’t you see i try
swimming the same deep water as you is hard
the shallow drowned lose less than we
you breathe the strangest twist
upon your lips
and we shall be together…”

What the letter meant was:
“why did you drive me to the woods and let me to give you my first (admittedly disastrous) blowjob and then pretend I didn’t exist, you dickhead?”

One summer later, there was Ira, the adorably tall boy with the pink mohawk and scratchy stubble and checkered jacket who I admired all summer in Harvard Square and wanted desperately to capture. When we finally got to his house in the woods of Concord (his mom far away somewhere) we entered his room in the dark, and he plugged in the christmas lights that surrounded his favorite band poster, a slightly smaller version of my shrine….it was you. you, with your back turned to us, hiding the tears in your eyes. You kept your back turned while we made out passionately and gave each other head (my blowjob technique had markedly improved by this point) and I was totally ecstatic because HOW RIGHT MUST THIS BE? THERE’S A FUCKING BOYS DONT CRY POSTER ON HIS WALL SURROUNDED BY CHRISTMAS LIGHTS. We were soul mates. Ira called me back. (But not for very long - that one also ended in sad agony).

My first real true love, the one I was with for a long long time…he loved you too. It was part of how we knew. He had a deeper, longer, more grown-up relationship with your music, but it went without saying that our common love of The Cure made us love each other more. You connected us. He called me back for years (and really, lovingly appreciated my now finely-honed blowjob techniques). He still calls me back, 15 years later, even though we’re not together.

My first boyfriend in college, Matt, was a huge fan. We met after he saw me play my first college show and he showed up knocking at my dorm-room door later that night with a lit candle in a Twinkie. He died a little while after that.

One of my better friends and housemates around the same time, Chuck, who was the fattest, smartest person I knew, endeared himself to me forever one night and he didn’t even know it. We were in the common room of our house, a place called Eclectic, watching the episode of South Park where you showed up as a special guest. When Cartman screamed “Disintegration is the best album EVER” at the end of the show as you vanished into the sunset, Chuck started violently punching a couch pillow and screaming “YES!!! YES!!! FUCK YES!!!” at the top of his lungs. I decided then to love him forever. He died a few years later.

I didn’t have many friends, not then. Not normal friends my age. I wanted to. In high school and college I had lots of passing boyfriends and intersting romances, but rarely real friends, pal-types, the ones that stuck.

For a time, I was led astray.

I admit it. I tried to be goth.

I assumed that if goths liked The Cure, they must be My People. I wanted to hang out with people who felt deeply, who worshipped at the altar of emotions and radical truth, like I did. They wore black. So I started wearing black, assuming that I would be waving the proper visual freak flag to let people know how I was aligned. It didn’t really work. I frequented goth clubs. It was a long, slow painful realization but I finally understood that just because these people were dancing to your music (or The Smiths or Depeche Mode) it didn’t mean they would understand me. I spent a lot of time wandering around disoriented in goth clubs in boston, new york, all over germany….sitting at a dark corner table, nursing beers and smoking, waiting for a song I loved to come on so I could dance, alone. I liked dancing. I would close my eyes and forget. I would abandon myself. But I never met anyone I liked or who liked me. In fact, almost nobody talked to me, ever.

This was obviously not working. What was up with these mean and unfriendly fucking goth people??? Weren’t we supposed to be united in our love of emotion, love, pain, joy in the brutally honest? Didn’t they understand? Hadn’t we come here to commune, to find each other? Obviously not. I felt betrayed and duped.

There was a little goth club in Bavaria (where I lived in 1996) that I would religiously attend every tuesday night. I would dress in black, I would dance, and I would pray and hope that some german goth might talk to me and be my friend. There was a boy there with hair like you, so I considered him an ally. One night, I finally got up the never to talk to one of the girls he was with. Later that night he grabbed my head and pulled out a chunk of my hair, which he shoved in my face. “Don’t talk to my girlfriend, or I’ll kill you”, he said. His friends apologized and told me he was drunk. My head hurt for a long time.

I quit goth.

Looking at the crowd around me at Coachella, I realized: there wasn’t a single person in black. Even the people who were obvious fans and knew every song; they were wearing white, gold, pink, blue. What the fuck was this, when did THIS happen? I realized, slowly, that you became huge while I wasn’t looking. In 1989, everyone who listened to you was black-clad. It must have changed. I leaned over and yelled over the music to my new best friend Derek (who was wearing a white and blue button up shirt) “WHERE ARE THE GOTHS? ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE WEARING PINK.”

“GOTHS UP FRONT PROBABLY” he shouted back. “THERE AREN’T THAT MANY OF THEM, ANYMORE.”

I started talking to him more. I couldn’t believe this guy was a cure fan, he looked so COMPLETELY ungoth. I asked him about the lack of keyboards in the set. I was REALLY missing the keyboard lines…they seemed so essential. Sometimes the slack was picked up by a guitar…but mostly, those wonderful shimmery keyboard lines were just MISSING. “WHERE ARE THE KEYBOARDS??” I yelled.
Dereck explained to me that “THEY’VE BEEN TOURING WITHOUT A KEYBOARDISTS FOR A WHILE.” He then proceeded to shout the entire history of the ever-changing band line-up throughout the past ten years. I hand’t know any of this. None of it.

The songs you were singing, they were so beautiful.
Some of them I knew by heart. But some of them, I didn’t know AT ALL.
I found myself getting hooked into the new lyrics, leaning, leaning in to hear what you were saying.
God you looked and sounded beautiful.

Dereck passed me a joint that someone else had passed to him.

“WHAT ALBUM IS THIS SONG FROM?” I shouted.
“THIS IS FROM 4:13 DREAM” he shouted back.
“IS THAT ABOUT TO COME OUT?” I shout-asked.
“NO,” he shouted “IT CAME OUT, LIKE, SIX MONTHS AGO.”

And it was then that I realized, without a doubt. It hit me and it hurt.

I abandoned you.

I was a Bad Fan.

Along with so much of the other music I listened to, I wandered out of the Church of Fandom in my early twenties and by the time I was in my mid-twenties The Dresden Dolls were in full touring mode. I was spending most of my waking life on the phone or on the computer, trying to make sense of this weird fucking life that I’d so wanted and I was so grateful to have - but at the same time, it destroyed something I cherished, which was the ability to hang out and absorb music, to live IN it.

I wasn’t a fan anymore. I couldn’t be. I was too busy working.

The magical mystery of needle hitting vinyl and sound suddenly appearing and the awe I felt when confronted with exotic, artistic beings on a screen or stage was replaced by the van, the stinking dressing rooms, the cables not working, the glare of the inner workings of tape and pro-tools, of booking and settling, of wheeling and dealing and moving and shaking.

At the end of the night, after the fans cleared out of our own shows and we climbed in the van, I always asked for the radio off please.

Music stopped being a ritual of joy and feeling and connection and turned into noise, into one more distraction. Piles of CDs always darkened my doorstep and I felt beholden to every band who thrust a demo tape, CD and (later) myspace link my way with a look of such yearning that i knew, i knew knew knew that owed it to this person to give some time to their music, because they were giving time to mine. On top of that, there was other noise all around. Tour noise, press noise, life noise, lawyers-and-managers-and-agents-talking-on-the-phone noise.

When the noise stopped, I didn’t WANT to fill it with music anymore. I wanted to fill it it with silence. Or talk radio.

I couldn’t go to live shows and not just see people working. It was so rare I’d see anything I liked. I sort of gave up, decided I’d gotten jaded. I stopped listening to you after Wish. I bought the albums (I could afford to now, I was on the up and up, throwing money around in record stores and leaving with stacks of new music that would then collect dust on my kitchen counter next to piles of free CDs that people would thrust at me at music conferences, CDs which were becoming a commodity as ephemeral and valueless as junk mail), but I couldn’t focus.
I could barely name one song you’ve written in the past seven years.

After watching you last night, I feel like I’ve done something terribly wrong.

You….

You helped saved me, you opened me up, helped me out of the darkness and gave me the tools to transmit myself, and I let you go.

Why did I do that?

I guess I had to…? To become….this?

To be a You for Other People? Maybe. I dunno.

I mostly feel like an asshole, a hypocrite, because I expect so much from my own fans.
I expect them to stay with me and love me forever and ever if they’ve loved me at all.
I expect them to follow through, to keep calling and checking in, to commit to the relationship.

But people, fans, friends, they do trail away, don’t they? Have children, have jobs, have schedules, forget about the songs they loved, maybe feel a little jolt of nostalgic happiness when they hear them on the radio but would never think of going to a live show….

You can step in the same river twice. You can never go back. Right?

Well. I went back and it worked. You made be remember. A lot of things.

As I stood there in the crowd at Coachella, I found myself wanting to dance. Dance like I used to in goth clubs, surrounded by dry ice and uninhibited by beer.
I felt self-conscious at first. But I just did it. I sang my fucking brains out and I starting dancing. And the more I sang, the more the people around me starting singing.
They knew the words, most of them.
I felt like I’d found my place, finally…not among the goths, not even among The Cure fans…but among the collected randoms, the flotsam and jetsam of coachella who were standing witness to you making music in that moment.

I held the hands of those standing next to me. I found myself taking Dereck’s hand. We screamed Cure lyrics gleefully in each other’s faces.

For a minute, we were best friends.

I never, ever would have done that ten years ago. I would have been scared shitless to do that when I was 23.

I’ve changed. I guess I’m brave now.

Was it the gin and tonics? I think they probably helped. But mostly, I think I understand something now that I didn’t back then.

These people, who didn’t need to wear the badge of black or goth (anymore, at least), these people who were not afraid to wear pink and sing at the tops of their lungs along with Cure songs, loud unabashed songs about BEING ALONE and FEELING AFRAID …

…it’s just….all of us.

I wish I’d understood this when I was in high school. I advertised my misery through my clothes. Little did I know that so many others were just as miserable and afraid but didn’t want to show it. I just assumed (as we all mostly did) that everyone was like me at some level, and if they weren’t making a point of looking sad and pissed off, well…fuck them, they didn’t understand. Many high school reunions have proved that theory WAY wrong.

I’ve heard rumors that you hate being called goth. Peter Murphy feels the same way.

Maybe we should start a club. The UnGoth.

Here are some photos from Coachella (mostly by Dereck) with my new pals.
I’m (ahem) in the black shirt.
On far right - in my garland - is Charlie Todd, who runs the amazing group improv everywhere in NYC…total coincidence, I met him in the crowd.
Hopefully we’ll make some art.

and with Dereck, my momentay soul mate…


So that’s my story, Robert Smith.

I plan to buy your new record and give a good, deep listen.

I’m sorry I left you, I want to thank you officially for changing my life….and I want to be a real fan again.

And if we never collide, just please know….I truly love what you do, what you are, and what you reminded me of the other night.
(Conversely, if you need a keyboard player….I’ll come for free, as long as you eat with me a couple times and we can share at least one bottle of wine and 3-5 stories each.)

Last but not least: have a very, very happy birthday.
I hope when i am 50 i am rocking as fucking hard as you, smiling so wide and still trying to change the world through being real and true for people…goth and UnGoth.

I love you.

Please never stop.

I won’t either.

With deep love,

Amanda (Fucking) Palmer

P.S. One last photo….i think this was during “Push”…Dereck capturing my ecstacy. That’s you, or some blobby shape of you, in the background. Once again, I swear that even though it looks like i am rolling HARD on ecstasy, there were no heavy drugs involved: