amanda fucking palmer

surreal moments #1-5 and ... i'm out.

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:36:36 -0500

i wrote this whole long blog on the plane over to australia and the evil that is mac mail ate it. it’s been eating a lot of things lately. it must be hungry.

anyway, fuck it.
i’m now sitting in a cafe in sydney with my twitter-ride comrades, kate and tina, who are indulging the fuck out of me while i sit here and write this.

then i’m heading totally offline for about two weeks. no phone, no email, no twitter.

where will i be?
i’ll be outside sydney, hiding.
just yoga, people, food, meditating and a good long breath.
…it’s technically teacher training but i’m not actually planning on teaching, at least not until i get old and start my nightclub/juice-bar/cinema yoga studio, when i’m like 90.
i will wear only kimonos and start chain-smoking menthols because at that point i’ll be like FUCK IT.

neil will be 105 (or dead -but let’s hope for the best) and will hopefully enjoy my kimono antics as he sits in a bathtub, reading and sipping endless cups of tea, with cream and extra sugar.
being old will be great. i’m psyched.

then i head to melbourne for two weeks relatively OFF and try to be an artist again.
melbourne ninja gigs a definite possibility, and it looks like i might do a mini-gig in the butterfly again just for contest winners who help me promote the show at the forum
(which needs help BADLY, since i’m going up against the soundwave festival…if you’re in melbourne and want info on how to help me, go HERE.)

then i tour oz and new zealand, and somewhere in there i’m headed to a recording studio outside adelaide…just to see what happens.

i haven’t been in the studio since “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” with ben folds. it’s time. there’s songs. if all goes well, i’ll be able to put this shit out myself. pray for me.

i wrote some more blogs on the plane to be sent while i’m gone (one about michael jackson…i watched “this is it” on the plane - but now i’m thinking i might save it for later so that i can add to it - and one about Evelyn Evelyn).
and i also left tons of shit for sean and beth to twitter while i’m gone. i’ll be with you in spirit :)

……

so

the trip to france was a mistake.
i should have checked the weather. i’m a fucking idiot. i somewhere imagined the south of france being perennially warm. like florida, or other places with palm trees.
it was fucking mitten weather.
it was one of those snowball trips…i took a gig at the MIDEM conference because i thought cannes owuld be warm, and then..why not book a gig in bordeaux? and then…why not book a gig
in a nearby little town? c’mon, it’ll be warm…and quaint….

it was not warm, it was not quaint, i was tired and the travel was hard, and the shows were fine, weird and quiet.
france outside of paris is a really small market for me - there were only about 200 people at each show.
and they don’t really follow me online. so they don’t know me as well as, say, people in san francisco, or london.
this is the thing about the net.

my panel at MIDEM was short and trivial, we didn’t talk about anything very significant.

but i could talk about THIS for hours….in the cities where my fans are online and really follow me, the SHOWS ARE WAY BETTER, BECAUSE THEY KNOW ME.
it’s like internet dating. we get to know each other over the course of a year or two and then when we finally get together, it’s like we already know each other and can get right to the (often great) sex.
when i play for a cold audience who doesn’t follow me, it’s closer to going on a blind date with a third cousin. not as sexy.

surreal moment #1:

this living statue was stationed outside the main MIDEM conference hall one night.

i gave him some money, which i always do….even though the fact that he was using two trained cats kind of bugged me out.
he saw my MIDEM badge and my music case and must have somehow decided i was important and/or famous.
so after i took this picture with him he turned to me and told me, in VERY broken english, about his horrible fucking life and how he’s old and his three children are grown and how he hates being a fucking statue and how he can barely make ends meet and could i please, please, please help him out with his music career, he plays guitar and has to get out of this fucking racket man it’s killing him.

it was humbling and kinda painful.

surreal moment #2. no comment.

the suits at MIDEM were all running around talking about apps and social networking and the future of the music business, and meanwhile i’m trying to ignore it all and stay focused on what’s important:
the music. the fans. the simple connection. i feel like you can get lost in a sea of clever concepts. sometimes i feel like the suits overanalyze everything so much they forget why people love music.

but i got to meet some awesome people i’ve been chatting with online. mike masnik from techdirt (sweetheart) and jeff pulver for the 140 conference (ditto).
you can tell they love music and are geeky in a way that drives things forward.

having spent a lot of time thinking about it, i think i have a point.
the whole point is: if you’re an artist, you either like connecting or you don’t. if you like it, you’ll find every possible creative way (online: blogging, twittering. live: meeting, signing, hugging etc.) to do it.
if you’re a misanthrope, you’re simply fucked. it’s 2010. the currency is connection. the internet is the tool.

my favorite picture from MIDEM…check out the comments when i twittered it, they’re hilarious: http://twitpic.com/zoqpf
“4 out of 6 cute, nerdy, industrious & chairless men at the #MIDEM conference prefer mac over PC.”

MIDEM also made me a great couple of friends…one is the DJ/producer hal ritson from the young punx, who i’m going to collaborate with on a dance mix of “map of tasmania” (you heard me).
he’s aces (esp if you’re in the UK, go watch the video ROCKALL, it features some of the guys from the mighty boosh and it’s hilarious)

hal took this photo of me with the french police outside the french music awards…

this is me & hal at the super-cheesy david guetta afterparty.
i borrowed thomas’ prada sunglasses to try to fit in.

he introduced me, in turn, to a UK dj named caged baby, aka thomas, whose sunglasses i stole and who just happened to live outside bordeaux, where i was headed.
so my awesome housemate geeta showed up and hopped on the party train. thomas took us to a restaurant in a 600-year old chateau in the middle of nowhere that had fucking miro and matisse pritns hanging on the walls….

surreal moment #3, and this one almost legitimately surreal….

people eating pasta under a miro.
sorry the pictures so bad.

i twittered this and a lot of art lovers expressed horror at the blazing lighting on the paitning.
i think it looks worse than it is.

we also noticed there were no bars on the windows. so if you’re in the market to steal some miros out of a restaurant, head to france.

and off we all went to bordeaux, and drove 2 hours into cognac country to thomas’ house.

he lives surrounded by vineyards and 6 other houses.

this is geeta, outside the house:

thomas in his home studio….

and his one-eyed cat, nelly, named after lord nelson:

thomas fed and watered us and we felt loved.

then we headed back to bordeaux and i played my second show outside of town.

i lost my ATM card.

then geeta lost her ATM card.

(well, to be fair, a bank ate it).

we were broke for a while and a small crisis day ensued.
i wound up borrowing cash from the promotor.

by now, i was in a foul mood.

i bought a winter jacket, finally accepting the fate that it Was Not Warm the South of France.

…………..

then geeta took off for paris and i flew to vienna. where it was snowing.

but i didn’t make it to vienna. by connection from bordeaux was late and the last plane from paris to vienna left without me.
so the fucking airline gave me a hotel voucher for one of those soulless airport hotels with one-piece plastic bathrooms and no minibar.

due to the lack of minibar, i twittered for wine and two people from paris showed up.
i had never met either of them.
one was nina, she brought a great bottle of red and some m&m’s.
one was olivier, he brought TWO bottles of red a bunch of twix.

when such events transpire, there’s only one thing left to do…
so i did it.
an hour long drunk french webcast.
i slogged my way through my first françoise hardy song on ukulele.
olivier played cameraman with my mac while i performed a touching & drunk rendition of “makin’ whoopee” as requested by neil.
(the whole webcast was recorded and, beware tired slightly drunk amanda, you can watch it HERE.)

anyway, by then i was really really fucking tired and everyone got kicked out and i went to bed.

i love the internet.

the internet means free wine driven to you when you’re tired and stuck at a shitty airport.
the internet is an awesome thing.

surreal moment #4,
playing a weird ninja gig in vienna in front of a defensive missile tower from WWII.

then we all headed to a cafe and hung out…..

it was the world’s fastest ninja gig.

i announced it 25 minutes before going.

the actual show in vienna was fucking incredible…the antidote i needed after the french shows, which were quiet and small.

i stayed at a fans house, a great girl named kathi who has a wonderful posse of friends and a cat who i got to cuddle at night.
kathi gave up her actual bed for me, which was fucking noble, and i burned my chin on her chandelier. long story.
she also had a friend named KLAUS who does great shiatsu. he chinese cupped my back and when i posted on twitter that it felt better than sex,
i got a faux-grumpy email from neil saying that he was getting flack for not being as sexy as chinese cupping. so i took it back.
but check out the awesome photo (care of kathi):

in the background: the chin eating chandelier.

i played at the Arena, the same place the dolls have headlined and also opened up for NIN back in 2005.
beautiful old, old, old converted building with tons of character and vibe:

it was a stupendous night all around….great sound, great people.
i sold out the joint, almost 1200 people, i couldn’t believe it.
the feeling of playing solo to so many people while being technically off tour was transcendent.
i had this sort of “holy shit, i can just DO this” feeling. it balances out the times that i don’t, and can’t. those times do happen.

i’ll look for good footage to post, but i think the highlight was the beginning, when i covered a song by HEINTJE on ukulele.
this will only be hilarious to german-speaking people.

here’s a fucking epic photo by @nacaseven taken from side of stage:

this is what the outsides of me have been doing.

the insides of me have been depleted, and sort of lonely.

i am really, really, really looking for the time off.
i haven’t had time off-line and alone in about 3 years.

it’s time.

i love you.

rock on with your smocks on

xxx
AFP

p.s. congrats to my neil-moxy, by the way, for getting an oscar nomination for “coraline”. sadly, no, i won’t be there, it’s the same night as my show at the sydney opera house.
but if bjork calls to loan me the swan dress, i’ll swear i’ll consider warping time and space and heading over. anybody got a tardis handy?

p.s.s. TOUR DATES:
February 26
The Forum Theatre
Melbourne, Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 4
Spiegeltent
Adelaide, Australia
Ages: All
BUY TICKETS!

March 7
Sydney Opera House
Sydney, Australia
Ages: All
BUY TICKETS!

March 8
A & I Hall
Bangalow (Byron Bay), Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 10
The Zoo
Brisbane, Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 12
Bodega
Wellington, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 16
Al’s Bar
Christchurch, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 17
Kings Arms Tavern
Auckland, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

April 12
The A.R.T. [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Cambridge (Boston), MA
DETAILS COMING SOON! Stay tuned HERE and HERE for additional info…

April 17
Òran Mór [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Glasgow, Scotland
Ages: 14+
BUY TICKETS!

April 19
The Academy [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Dublin, Ireland
Ages: 14+
BUY TICKETS!

FOURTH SHOW IN LONDON ADDED!
April 22
Koko [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Camden (London), England
Ages: 16+
BUY TICKETS!

April 23
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
Ages: 14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
SOLD OUT!

April 24
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
Ages: 14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
SOLD OUT!

April 25
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
Ages: 14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
SOLD OUT!

April 27
L’Europeen [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Paris, France
BUY TICKETS!

April 28
Melkweg [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
BUY TICKETS!

April 29
Kampnagel [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Hamburg, Germany
BUY TICKETS!

May 1
Babylon [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Berlin, Germany
BUY TICKETS!

May 3
Gloria [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Köln (Cologne), Germany
BUY TICKETS!

May 4
Arenbergschouwburg [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
Antwerp, Belgium
BUY TICKETS!

And lots and lots more to come in the US and such…

p.s.s. surreal moment #5, going into a bathroom in vienna and seeing this poster called “TOILET CAM”.
who do i see (bottom right hand corner) but my fucking friend scotty the blue bunny. small, surreal, little world.

FAME WHORING

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:23:00 -0500

i’ve had a hard time waking up lately. as soon as my brain activates, it floods with content. i’ve run out of RAM.
i have too many subjects to cover.

“as in life; in blog.”

what’s the latin for that? i want a plaque.

so, i simplify.

i wanted to talk about the golden globes.

later, i will talk about all sorts of other crazy shit, like getting married, and…stuff.
hell, looks like i have my whole fucking life to talk about that one, what’s the rush?

…………

so, the golden globes, and fame whoring.

we went because “coraline”, which was based on neil’s book, was nominated for best animated feature.

in order to understand the background of all this, you need to know a few things.

i do not ever go to the movies. i have almost no awareness of famous hollywood people.
when i’m in my chiropractor’s office i will occasionally read a tabloid, or i will get wind of some cultural phenomenon through links that people send me.

there were probably 70+ films up for nominations spread across the actor awards (“avatar”, “inglourious basterds”, “up in the air” and a few others were hugely represented)

of these 70+ films, i had seen ONE of them.

coraline.

(i’d seen ONE of the television shows: “entourage”).

no offense to neil, but if i hadn’t been his main squeeze, the chances of me seeing it would have hovered close to below zero.
i just don’t make time for movies. ever. even on planes nowadays, which used to be my film-culture catch-up ground, i end up sleeping or reading.

so…i felt like an alien. but i have to say, i enjoyed the fact that i had a VERY VAGUE idea of what people are supposed to do at these things.
i decided to keep it magical, do no research (how would you fucking research this anyway? buy “the red carpet for dummies”? call fucking j-lo?) and just do what i’ve been doing my whole life: wing it.

(i actually just googled “red carpet etiquette” and theres a slew of shit. thank god i missed that.)

we showed up from the airport (focus films paid for everything, thanks guys) a few hours before we had to get to the joint for the event. (the golden globes are held in a beverly hills hotel restaurant-banquet-hall.)
a team of stylists descended upon me, arranged a few days before by me & fabulous lorraine, neil’s main assistant. the make-up was done by jennifer (who came through neil’s LA assistant, kitty, who knew she’d toured with tori amos), the hair was done by chris (also a friend of cat’s) and my dress was whisked in and tailored by a fantastic gal named jessica, who saw my blog about looking for a dress and emailed in. she found the dress, rented it for me with money i wired into her account, and showed up with silicone tit-shields, a fucking SEWING MACHINE and a cute friend named max who took a picture of the three of us attacking me into glam shape, snip-snip-here-merry-old-land-of-oz style:

i’d narrowed the dress selection down to the slinky beady one and kambriel’s beautiful coat-dress, and we decided, group consensus, to go with the beads. (thanks for all your input, by the way. i think about 700 of you weighed in with your opinions).

jessica had brought a bunch of slips to go under it, and HAND-SEWN one to match (she’s a serious find), and we tried out every combination.
the ending consensus, including neil (and this was his gig, so i didn’t want to ho-bag him out at his own event) was to sport the balls-out slipless dress for the carpet and keep kambriel’s for the afterparties.
i folded up kambriel’s dress and kept it in my ukulele case, which i carried around all night, since i don’t really own a purse. my 8 year old EMS hiking backpack and the beaded dress woulda clashed.

then we got in a car and drove off.

have you ever wondered how the red carpet shit works? i’d never thought about it.

the red carpet attendees all have to arrive by limo and line up in a queue.

you’re on camera when you get out of your car.
i, of course, being impatient and knowing fuck-all about the protocol, didn’t realize i was supposed to wait for a valet to escort me out of the car on the side where all the cameras were, so i hopped out of my side, lugging my ukulele case with me and missing the shot to be captured by network tv for posterity, which means i can kiss my fucking acting career goodbye forever.

then you wait in another line to enter the event via the official red carpet, where the camera crews are lined up.
the red carpet is long, flanked on one side by the press and paparazzi and on the other side by those giant fake walls covered with logo endorsements that you’re used to seeing.
above those fake walls are stands of high-paying onlookers, who observe the entire circus from above.

this was all outdoors and it was raining, which happens once every decade or so in LA. this was clearly pissing off all of the celebrities who had paid a fortune to look amazing and were now getting fucking wet, especially the chicks in long dresses whose trains were now soggy and discolored. still, the smiles were wide and never peeled off, because when the cameras are on, you don’t stop that shit.

i never knew how this worked, and i’m sure there’s more of an art to it (someday i’ll ask a famous actor), but you’re basically supposed to parade casually and slowly down this long carpet and wait for the photographers on your left to yell at you if they care who you are. if they care who you are, they yell, you turn, preen and pose, and all the other photographers next to your yelling photographer will chatter and twitter and decide if you’re important enough for them to look away from who’s coming down the pike. it’s really, really weird. there were several red carpet “stations” throughout the night. the main one was the one when we entered, but there was another one inside the hotel, and one outside the NBC party later that night. at one point, i saw a german newspaper and they yelled at me so I went over and chatte with them in german (i think that’s where the below photo came from). i noticed a crew of bored-looking australian newspapers a few people down. mind you, they’re all behind a little waist-high cattle wall. i hadn’t been yelled at, but australians are generally friendly. i walked up to a woman, said hello, and started to chat up my upcoming tour dates in oz. the woman glared at me and hissed

“please back off. we’re only talking with the real talent here.”

oops. and ouch. i backed off, though of course my inner demon wanted to lean over the fucking cattle wall and hiss back in her ear that her mom sure had some real fucking talent last night. anyway.

here i was, belly and all:

and as promised on the blog, neil took this picture of me pulling a dead amanda palmer on the carpet.
some tabloid picked this up and it would up getting over 75,000 hits on twitpic. i was proud.

while wandering around, i saw this chick with a Rock Love tattoo on her back.
the “Rock Love” tattoo was designed by someone on the dresden dolls’ forum (theshadowbox.net) ages ago, and a bunch of dolls fans got it tattooed on different parts of their bodies in fandom solidarity.
so i asked her what her name was and what the story behind her tattoo was. she said her name was jenna and she found the picture “randomly on the internet”.
it turns out she’s from a television show called “glee”. crazy.
so many fucking famous people in one place.
there was a huge black dude at a table next to us and he had an awesome facial tattoo and i almost went up to compliment him.
he looked really familiar.

i found out a few days later it was fucking mike tyson.

this was the joint. on stage, presenting an award for something or other, is paul mccartney, who was supposedly in some huge band in the 60s:

(p.s. just kidding, i know who paul fuckin’ mccartney is, at least)

i had never seen an awards show like this, even on TV. i think maybe when i was little i’d caught glimpses of the grammys and the oscars and i had a vague idea of the deal.
but mostly i was just enthralled by the strangeness of it all. it’s live TV, so the room was SUPER BRIGHT and lit for the cameras, and there were obvious political wars going on to our left and right as the tables were filled with industry brass and agents who were all pulling for their shows to win. it was like a giant, well-organized junior high school cafeteria, with the super-popular kids sitting in the tables closest to the stage.

obviously, since it’s filmed live, there were commercial breaks. during the breaks, an announcer tells everyone that they’ve got about 4 minutes to mill around before getting back in their fucking seats.
during these 4-minutes, there is EXXXTREME POWER NETWORKING. all the agents and stars mill around, pollenating and trying to find people they know, doing the business of Hollywood.

i’d had no idea his show was nominated, and it was nice surprise to run into the only person i actually knew, adrian grenier from “entourage”…he’s also in a band called the honey brothers that i’ve played with a few times; the whole thing is a story for another day. adrian is one of a long list of people i have to indirectly thank for my engagement to neil, in a weird roundabout way. my great-grandmother’s ring (also a whole nother story) wound up symbolically blazing in this photo, which made me smile:

the bathroom was a SCENE and a half.

have you ever been to a bathroom in a nightclub when a bunch of chicks are cluttered around the mirror, frantically applying make-up with a fervor so intense you’re convinced that they’re about to walk out the door and be caught by the hollywood paparazzi on fucking national TV? well, there you go, these chicks actually were, and they were OUT FOR BLOOD.

there was a team of make-up artists (hired by the event, i assume) in a section of the bathroom who were there to fix broken nails, curl limp lashes, kill that frizz, and get rid of that damn shine.
i snapped this picture and posted it to twitpic, it was a hit. one of these women was famous, but i forget which one….lemme go check.

(the twitpic comments claim that one of these ladies is jenna fischer, one is julie benz from “dexter”, both from TV, i assume.)

note my stealthy cameo in the mirror:

please, please, you must read the telepromter for this photograph to make sense in it’s full irony:
(i almost got thrown out of the event for taking this one. apparently they’re very protective of the illusion.)

after about 12 awards had been announced, we got really bored.

i mean, it actually is boring, especially if you don’t know who most of the people are.

mo’nique, who’d i’d never heard of but immediately loved, gave the best acceptance speech, totally from the heart.
meryl streep also gave a really good speech, about being a vessel as an actress.

most of the speeches were really stock and predictable.

“i would like to thank God, my crew and wonderful team, and my sweetie, without whom I’d be nothing.”

neil gave me a great parody acceptance speech later that night when i was in the bath. i wouldn’t be nothing without him. but my life would not be half as wonderful.

after a while, neil started crossing off categories to see how long we had left to go:

(i decided to ebay this baby and it just closed at $515. neil & i signed it and we gave the money to doctors without borders, who are representing in haiti. there’s another charity auction with a few days left going on right now on the AFP account, as well: handwritten lyrics to “gaga, palmer, madonna”…oh, and my old iphone…shit, now i’m realizing i’ve never formally promoted that ‘lil eBay of ours, either……..again, another day)

then we hit the parties.

standard bragging rights dept:
i met robert downey jr, (childhood crush fulfilled), quentin tarantino (loud-mouthed weirdo in person, but i think that’s his schtick), t-bone burnett (awesome, awesome), neil patrick harris (doogie!, and his hot boyfriend), a bunch of the cast of high school musical (none of whom i knew, but one was named zach), and a bunch of other movie stars about whom i was clueless.
i also ran into steven merchant who i knew from BBC6, and who is really tall and really awesome and who i really need to remember to mail a copy of the Evelyn Evelyn record.

i wore wicked high heels and my toe next to my big toe on my left foot still has a pinched nerve.
bucking the beauty standard amanda?? eh?? eh?!? next time: sneakers.

this is the other hot dress, the one that got very little spotlight due to its lack of tits…designed and loaned to me by the ever-wonderful kambriel, she calls it the “silk midnight bustle”.

(photo by heather selick, the kick-ass wife of henry selick, who made “coraline”).

and here’s the one that got me D-LISTED (as “hot slut of the day”, rad: http://www.dlisted.com/node/35697#comments):

when we left the NBC party, we got yelled at by some photographers who wanted to get shots of me in the naked dress.
which was of course, stuffed into my uke case where the kambriel dress had been all night.

“amanda palmer and neil gaiman!” they yelled.

“hi” we said.

“naked dress!” they yelled.

“it’s in my ukulele case. i could change back”, i said.

“change back!”, they yelled.

“ok”, and change back i did.

the shots of me changing wound up on the net, hooray for changing in public:
http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2010/01/golden_globes_amandapalmer.html

and this shot wound up winning me BEST and WORST dressed at the golden globes on the same site:

here’s where things start to heat up.

reading the comments over there (http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2010/01/globes_bestworst_012210.html, if you’re interested) is like a study in 3 different subjects:
online celebrity gawking, feminism, anti-feminism, and the power of twitter to derail a internet poll.

first off, what was i thinking wearing a dress like that??
i was thinking: “this looks hot. i’m not afraid to rock this. the photographers will think it’s scandalous, and people will hopefully think i’m ballsy. i may never go to a red carpet thing again, so i should WORK it.”
plain and simple.

why did i not shave?
because i rarely shave, and i thought this was a lovely time to do some feminine culture-jamming.
god knows we need it.

although, in turns out MO’NIQUE showed up with unshaven gams! check it out. she’s a fucking sister and between that and her speech, i’m SOLD:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1244457/Precious-actress-MoNique-shows-hairy-legs-Golden-Globe-awards.html

(check out the text at the bottom? coincidence? I THINK NOT!!!)

what was interesting to me were some of the comments that went like this one:
“i can understand and respect somebody’s decision not to shave, but really, for the golden globes??? get your shit together and shave.”
this is like a man saying “i understand this whole equality of the sexes thing, unless it means i’m not going to have dinner on the table, made by fucking YOU, when i get home from work.”

double standard.

one thing i noticed about this event and the parties was how RAGINGLY SEXIST it was.
i don’t do too much political/feminist railing in my blogs. i usually leave that to other people.
but seriously, these parties could have been straight out of 1956.

everybody loves to dress up. but it’s so interesting that “dressing up” - in this context - means getting very, very narrow.

so it is in hollywood, land of dress-up, and so it is that you don’t see a ton of movement there on the feminist front.

it makes matters worse that when you do pull a move that is slightly out of the box. then you’re really under the gun.
(julia roberts famously flashed some hairy pits at a paparazzi camera at a red carpet event a few years back and got a titanic load of grief for it, doubled by the fact that her dress was “old” - she’d already worn it to a premiere 7 years before - HORRORS….and my etiquette lesson continues….)

you can go in any direction to be “shocking” to this crowd. hell, they’re “shocked” by lady gaga smearing blood on herself at the MTV awards.
have they never heard of g.g. allin? annie sprinkle? throbbing gristle? (google it, kids. those are people worth knowing about).

once you step outside the mainstream, whether you’re doing something deliberately saucy (like wearing a naked-dress) or something “normal” - but outside the beauty standard (like not shaving) - you’re going to be accused by the peanut gallery of the same thing: FAME WHORING.

once again, it’s A LOT like high school. there was such a strict code of sticking to the party line, and one step outside said line could cost you your social life.
most important: if you stepped outside the party line, you would be accused not only of being a weirdo, but far worse: of being weirdo DELIBERATELY to get attention.

and to a certain extent, its true. you KNOW that by dressing expressively, you’re asking for grief.
when you choose to do it all the same, you’re asking for a life of paradox, grey area and misunderstanding.

so many of my fans know and understand this.

just like any kid who decides to fuck what his friends are doing and swim against the stream is signing himself up for a school career of getting shit in the hallways, any celebrity who decides to present themselves outside the standard box will be confronted for “acting out” to serve their own, greedy personal needs.

a lot of celebrities go through phases where they duck under cover for a while, pop out and declare their independence and then duck again so they don’t drown in a cesspool of negative comments from the peanut gallery.

most celebrities don’t dare cross the line.
why bother and possibly fuck up your career?

luckily for me, i CAN’T fuck up my career….not this way, not really.
i don’t need hollywood to love or accept me in order to get work. my work is elsewhere.
i’m in another world and i can risk it.

so if i can explain this (please lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood) in a nutshell:

i do this sort of shit BECAUSE I CAN.

want some irony?
i DID shave for the boston pops show a couple of years ago.
why?

because of MY MOTHER. the pops was a huge deal to her, a giant deal locally, and i sort of wanted to make her happy, in my own, strange, non-sequitur way.
why did i think that this was any different? i dunno. i change my mind, i create my own weird standard as i go along and i make random decision every day. then i stick by them.

i also pointed out recently in an interview that i NEVER would have had the balls to do this 10 years ago.
but here’s why: the public didn’t know me. i didn’t have ten years worth of cred under my belt.

now, when i pull shit like this, i have a legion of fans and friends who know who i actually am, what i actually stand for, and where i’m really coming from.

i’ve made a career’s worth of decisions to steer away from certain kinds of mainstream success.
now i’m IN CONTEXT.

i could talk for a lifetime about the laws of fame and celebrity, but this blog is getting long.
you ain’t heard the last from me on this topic.
stay tuned for life.

in a nutshell, if you’re headed out:

CHANGE IT UP, FEAR NOTHING, RESPECT THE UNEXPECTED, HARM NOBODY.

love,
AFP.

p.s. in international news, i wound up, TOTALLY ACCIDENTALLY, at a french music awards show (featuring fucking jay-z, rihanna, beyoncé, mika - who ROCKED - and a bunch of other crazy famous people) about a week later. my friend hal ritson from the young punx managed to get this before french security came after us with their oozie-baguettes:

BELLY!!!

p.s.s. SEE ME LIVE BEFORE YOU DIE: mont-de-marsan, vienna, melbourne, adelaide, sydney, bangalow bay, brisbane, wellington, christchurch, auckland, london, edinburgh, glasgow, dublin, paris, amsterdam, hamburg, berlin, köln, antwerp, and SO many more to be announced soon (SO STAY TUNED)! tickets and more info at http://www.amandapalmer.net/afp/upcoming-shows

Cross-posted at MySpace

mes amis, j'arrive! j'arrive! (bordeaux, etc!)

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:52:56 -0500

my french friends….!
please send this to anybody you know who lives in the south of france!!
i am now in FRANCE for shows at the end of THIS month (january). i’ve got so many exciting things planned while i’m in town.

for starters, i will be playing two headlining shows in bordeaux and mont-de-marsan, get your tickets now!

January 26
Théâtre Trianon
Bordeaux, France
BUY TICKETS!

January 28
Café Music
Mont-de-Marsan, France
BUY TICKETS!

i will also be at the MIDEM conference speaking on a panel called “New Models at Work-The Artists’ Perspective” on january 23rd from 10:05-10:55am in Auditorium Debussy. more info HERE.i will also be doing a NINJA UKULELE GIG AT THE CONFERENCE!!!
sometime on saturday afternoon (the 23rd).
i will make sure i play somewhere ANYBODY can come see (not IN the conference, which is expensive!!!)
please follow me on twitter @amandapalmer to get the details on that day, it’ll be announced around noon!

bises
x
a

————

mes amis français… !

svp envoyez cela à tout le monde que vous connaissez dans le sud de la france !!

je viens en france à la fin de CE mois et j’ai tant de choses à faire pendant que je suis là.
liberté ! fraternité ! nudité !

VOICI LES INFOS !!!!

January 26
Théâtre Trianon
Bordeaux, France
BUY TICKETS!

January 28
Café Music
Mont-de-Marsan, France
BUY TICKETS!

je serai aussi à MIDEM à une table ronde qui s’appelle “new models at work - the artist’s perspective”, qui aura lieu le 23 janvier de 10h05 à 10h55 à l’Auditorium Debussy.

JE FERAI AUSSI UN CONCERT GRATUIT NINJA SUR LE UKULELE A MIDEM !

ça veut dire que je vais annoncer un lieu à la dernière minute et puis envoyer un message sur twitter pour l’annoncer à tout le monde. ce concert sera dehors et vous coûtera rien. je jouerai pendant quelque temps et puis je rencontrerai qui que ce soit. je vous signerai les seins si vous voulez.

ce concert sera DEHORS de la conférence — il fera pas partie de midem, qui coûte cher !!!

svp suivez-moi sur twitter - @amandapalmer - pour avoir les détails ce jour-là (le 23), l’annonce aura lieu vers midi !

bises
x
a

webcast tomorrow/i need a place to stay in melbourne AUS

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:46:00 -0500

i owe you a giant mega real-ass blog, what with getting engaged and posing dead on the red carpet at the golden globes last night. BUT scheduling calls if you missed the memo, miss @bethofalltrades and I will be webcasting TOMORROW (Tuesday) at 5PM EST. it’s a Post-War Trade-themed webcast, so we’ll be auctioning one or two of our most popular items (signed and nommed) as well as GIVING AWAY things like BPAL scents, slap bracelets, eyeshadow sets and magic eight balls. plus there’ll be some uke-playing, a ton of ASK AMANDA and, as always, wine. please come. it isn’t a PARTY ON THE INTERNET without you.

now for the rest: if you’re not from australia, you can most likely ignore the rest. i’ll try to post again tonight or tomorrow.

pronto:
I NEED A PLACE TO STAY IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
i also need a KEYBOARD to borrow for the duration - an 88-key digital piano type-thing with built in speakers or an amp.
weighted keys if possible. if you don’t have a seat and stand i can grab. i’ll cover any transport and cover you with free tickets and merch and love, of course.

dates: between around february 11th & feb 27th (give or take a few days, possibly).

ideally, your classical-piano-playing great-aunt just died (not that that’s ideal, but…you know) and i can use her house before the estate salesmen come.
or you know of a flat sublet, or own a huge shining-like hotel and can give me the top floor.

i plan to write and play/bang on piano, so in the best of all worlds i can make noise at NIGHT.
i need hella privacy, so a house share/flatmate thing is only in the cards if i have a lot of space and closing doors.

it does not need to be free, but i’d ideally like to not spend an arm and a leg and be somewhere homey.
musts: reliable internet, proximity to CBD or brunswick street/fitzroy (or somewhere else super cool).

HOOK ME UP!
email mah team - Us@amandapalmer.net - with any info you got. (pictures, address, general run-down of the situation).
if it sounds like something that’ll work, we’ll be in touch with you ASAP.

thank you thank you
for the rest of you in melbourne: expect ninja gigs and weird happenings up the ass.

xxxAFP

p.s. ADELAIDE: working on possibly adding a second show AFTER the spiegel…somewhere weird. i’ve been having people send ideas. you should e-mail Us@amandapalmer.net with the subject line of “ADELAIDE VENUE” so we can investimigate. i’ll tweet as soon as/if we pick a place…

awesome art by emi boz

p.p.s. ain’t seen them up’n’comin’ tour dates, yet? January 19
Party on the Internet! [WEBCAST]
Boston, Massachusetts
Watch live at approximately 5-9PM EST on partyontheinternet.com

January 26
Théâtre Trianon
Bordeaux, France
BUY TICKETS!

January 28
Café Music
Mont-de-Marsan, France
BUY TICKETS!

January 31
Arena (Big Hall)
Vienna, Austria
BUY TICKETS!

February 26
The Forum Theatre
Melbourne, Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 4
Spiegeltent
Adelaide, Australia
BUY TICKETS!

March 7
Sydney Opera House
Sydney, Australia
TICKETS COMING SOON!

March 8
A & I Hall
Bangalow (Byron Bay), Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 10
The Zoo
Brisbane, Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 12
Bodega
Wellington, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 16
Al’s Bar
Christchurch, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 17
Kings Arms Tavern
Auckland, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

April 23
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
SOLD OUT!

April 24
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
SOLD OUT!

April 25
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
SOLD OUT!

telling The World

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:57:23 -0500

dear The World,

we are going to get married.

love,
amanda palmer and neil gaiman

cross-posted to neil’s blog

WHAT TO WEAR?? and tour dates.

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:41:47 -0500

in most important news: i have NEW TOUR DATES and if you can help me spread them around, please, please do.
as you know, i have absolutely no help from the record label now, so i’m on my own promoting these shows.
in the states it’s easier and the word spreads faster, but in places like france i really, really need help:

AND please, please buy tickets in advance.
if you’re not in these areas…the best thing you can do send these tour dates to other folks you know who live there.
it’s just us, people.

January 19
Party on the Internet! [WEBCAST]
Boston, Massachusetts
Watch live at approximately 5-9PM EST on partyontheinternet.com

January 26
Théâtre Trianon
Bordeaux, France
BUY TICKETS!

January 28
Café Music
Mont-de-Marchsan, France
BUY TICKETS!

January 31
Arena (Big Hall)
Vienna, Austria
BUY TICKETS!

February 26
The Forum Theatre
Melbourne, Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 4
Spiegeltent
Adelaide, Australia
BUY TICKETS!

March 7
Sydney Opera House
Sydney, Australia
TICKETS COMING SOON!

March 8
A & I Hall
Bangalow (Byron Bay), Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 10
The Zoo
Brisbane, Australia
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 12
Bodega
Wellington, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 16
Al’s Bar
Christchurch, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

March 17
Kings Arms Tavern
Auckland, New Zealand
Ages: 18+
BUY TICKETS!

April 23
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
BUY TICKETS!

April 24
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
BUY TICKETS!

April 25
Bush Hall [w/ EVELYN EVELYN]
London, England
14+ (under 18yrs with an adult)
BUY TICKETS!

beautiful art by @AiriZombie

meanwhile….
mother of FUCK.

if i leave one more thing in the back of a cab or in a restaurant in new york, they’re going to start a museum of recovered items.
i can’t wait to visit it, and see all my stuff.

so far nothing tragic, but i’m leaking energy like a tanker with a iceberg-sized hole. and i can’t even blame it all on the drinking. half the time i’m sober and just going way, way too fast.
my brain is on spin cycle and my soul is in the wash, but nobody added detergent. nothing’s getting clean. need. yoga.

in better news, neil loves me, and i love him. so really everything feels ok. i reach out to him in the middle of the night and whatever is missing can be missing, because he’s there. i’ll shut up after i say it one last time: i love the man more than i can say. every day i can’t believe how fucking lucky we are to have found each other.

the private evelyn evelyn show the other day was a huge success (we held it at the slipper room and gave tickets away to people who sent in drawings of conjoined animals, via twitter)…the twins have gotten exhausted from all of the meetings in new york, but they’re holding up. they can’t decide whether they like sushi or not. jason thinks they hate it. i think they’re warming up to it. they disappear frequently on “snack breaks” and we have to go hunting for them. they almost got caught shoplifting a twix bar from a duane reade. they will not talk to men who have beards or mustaches.
they’re also becoming more active on twitter (@evelynevelyn), even though they still haven’t mastered the use of the “@” symbol. they’re TRYING. jason and i are so proud of them.
i’ll post a whole blog on them, the secret show they just did, and all the exciting news (and album artwork!!!!) sometime soon. first things first.

it’s been a week of fancy fancy people. new york will do that. last night: jason, neil and i ate with kyle cassidy, photographer extraordinaire, cynthia von buhler, the artist who’s doing all the illustrating for Evelyn Evelyn, and the writer peter straub, who’s a freind of neil’s. kyle dubbed us #tableofawesome. i met today with a director names sarah benson, from soho rep in new york, to jam and talk projects.

and don’t ask why, but breakfast yesterday ended up with me showing john cameron mitchell, the creator of hedwig and the angry inch, all of my dress options for the golden globes red carpet walk.
i will not tell you which one he picked, i might influence you. but here we go:

red-carpet-arama….please weigh in. today i bought SHOES which will go with almost all of these. otherwise, plain black heels.

i am not shaving.

i got these shoes as well. they will go with almost anything here, esp the gold and copper dress…:

DRESS-OFF 2010!

1. my freind kambriel’s “stormy weather” flapper dress:

2. another dress from kambriel…it’s a gold coaty dress made from ancient fabric her grandmother bought in china:

note the pretty bustle in the back….

3. a couple dress options from my friends at skin graft, in LA….both with detatachable shoulders:

4. and this one….

5. the new years outfit, by elena (will swap out the boots for heels):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tender_buttons/4241731123/in/set-72157623131837926/

with coat…but here you can see the skirt…

AND, last but not least…
6. this wonderful girl jessica in LA offered to look into some antique rentals and she found THIS baby….
so i’m having her hold it…

front:

back:

slip underneath it.

ok people.
WHAT TO WEAR???

have at it.

xxxx
AFP

how to play tchaikovsky in the style of the punk cabaret.

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:19:00 -0500

i can’t honestly tell you why i decided to do this.
i think my initial thought was: “hoh, shit. i’m playing the boston pops again…i should really do something classical and force myself to sit down and practice.” =
i never, ever practice the piano. i fucking hate it. i hate. hate. hate practicing the piano. HATE IT. REALLY HATE IT.

for real: that is why i wound up with this job, dude.

when i was a teenager, my mother bribed me to take classical lessons. seriously. she offered to raise my allowance by a couple dollars a week if i would do it.
thanks, mom, for caring. i probably would have tried the same thing.

but i was a stubborn, stubborn, little twit.

i would sit there in the lessons, looking blankly at the weird squiggly notes on the page in front of me, and i would simply CHEAT during the lessons and watch the teacher playing the part.
I would try to capture it in my mind and then play it by ear. i refused to look at the sheet music, and when i was supposed to tote this music home, i simply WOULDN’T. i just didn’t practice.
I HATED IT. is this clear?

i remember one time a teacher told my mother to buy me a metronome to keep by the piano.
i was told i had to practice with the metronome.

i was not an extremely violent child. i think i was normal-violent. you know, typical sister hair-pulling and stuff.
i did not throw things or hurt people (very much) or have massive temper tantrums (well, after the age of 4 or so).
i was relatively mellow.

but i swear to god, that fucking metronome made me want to wage war on the entire planet, with nuclear power.
it’s tick tick ticking in my ear was the equivalent of someone laying your hung-over head on a metal plate while hitting it repeatedly with an anvil.
i just FUCKING HATED IT.
so one day, when i was sitting in the living room at the piano and supposed to be practicing something-or-other, and the metronome was just tick-tick-ticking it’s relentless tick-tick-tick of doom, i grabbed it and flung it across the room. it smashed against the empty fireplace and never tick-tick-ticked again.
i felt really, really guilty, but also shame-free, like i’d been taken over by an alien force.
as far as i was concerned, that olive-colored metronome was a Tool of the Devil and i’d done a Good Thing.
i don’t even remember my mother getting angry. i think maybe she gave up after that.

when i got to college (and at this point, i was pretty determined to be a musician when i grew up), i developed a catholic guilt about the fact that i was so lazy and i decided to take up classcial lessons while i was there. i tried. i really did. i tried to practice, i forced myself into a basement practice room a few times a week and turned beethoven’s “pathetique” into a long classical whip with which i destroyed my laziness. but still, i hated it. i liked having this powerhouse piece of classical music under my belt and i liked playing it, but i also had this deep sense of unsettled “why the fuck am i doing this? to prove what?”
i would count those lines ad infinitum and try to make sense of the squiggles. to this day, you will hear me muttering “every good boy deserves….” as i try to deduce what note is what when looking at a treble clef.
i’m just retarded. do not ask me why i cannot rememebr that B is in the middle of that music staff. i just can’t. i can listen to any song of the fucking radio and immediatly play it by ear but i cannot remember that that little note in the middle of that little staff is a fucking B. oliver sacks could probably tell you why.

anyway, in college i would go off onto massive tangents of improvisation during my supposed practice time, but i was finding it difficult to write any songs in those years.
after i graduated, i never gave another thought to learning or playing a classical piece, until this last year.

something in me stirred and i decided to re-discipline myself. at the london show this past summer (the union chapel one), i kicked my own ass to play a little bach piece.
i’ll dig that up and tweet it.

and for the pops, i simply wrote them an email saying “i want to play a concerto”. keith wrote back with a bunch of suggestions from mozart to rachmaninoff to tchaikovsky, and i listened to everything and tried to determine what the easiest and most bang-for-the-buck would be.

i got the music and started practicing in early december. neil and i were holed up for a week and i tried to practice a couple hours a day.
i had hooked up with my piano-playing friend, murray barg, in boston, and he had helped me slog through the sheet music to make sure i wasn’t getting any notes wrong.
and for the tempo, i simply watched youtube clips of van cliburn kicking the shit out of it.

i soon realized that in order to play this piece (tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto), i would have needed to start rehearsing in 2008.
there was just no fucking way.
no way.

i thought for a second about calling the pops and having them pull it from the program (they really wouldn’t have cared, the symphony doesn’t rehearse that shit until THE DAY OF THE SHOW. FOR REAL).
but i couldn’t stomach it. i felt like a complete loser.

i looked back at the piece realistically and decided that i could probably master the first few minutes, and even then it wouldn’t be at tempo, and it would be sloppy as fuck, and i would have to push and pull the tempos.
but even then, i decided to do it.

i called my friend lance horne and asked him to learn the rest of the piece. (thank cthulhu for lance).

beth planted the obnoxious cell phone and created the velcro tear-away windbreaker of garish doom. (thank cthulhu for beth).

and then i simply spent a few hours a day in my apartment in boston, for the rest of december, practicing that shit.
i don’t think i’ve ever, ever in my life practiced something so much.
at the end of the day it wasn’t even about the performance anymore. the performance became an afterthought.
it was more like a test of my own will.

…drum roll….

the result, ladies and gentlemen (and thank god someone caught it & posted it, whoever you are….thank cthulhu for you too).

the result is what i would call pure, unadultered punk fucking cabaret.

fake it til you make it, people.
nobody’s keeping score.

xxxxxxxxx
AFP

p.s. about to hop on a train with the evelyn twins and jason. we’re taking them to THE BIG CITY for their mini-show next tuesday and for endless business meetings. i just posted about a twitter ticket-giveaway for TWENTY PEOPLE so if you wanna come, check out the details HERE.
then i’m off to LA for the golden globes, where i’ve been informed i will actually, no fucking shit, be walking the red carpet with himself.
i am not sure how much i am supposed to care about what i cam wearing so i am bringing two pairs of pants in case one gets dirty. seriously, whats the deal with shit like this?
i need to ask my sister, who, even though she lives in EUROPE, still reads US magazine. she’ll know. nobody’s found bjork’s email. swan dress, not likely.

Cross-posted at MySpace

still life with author and chainsaw

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:34:26 -0500

holaaaaa

sitting at home right now, up late and unable to stop working…700 more emails to answer and a huge tour to prepare for that won’t even happen for a few months.

i feel like i’m stuck in a rusty cuisinart. moreover, i just decided to take two days away from home and new york to go to the golden globes with neil, who got nominated for coraline.
this is awesome but also means my brain turns into more of a reduction sauce for a fancy squash dish.
rg.
anybody have bjork’s email?
i want to ask if i can borrow her swan dress and maybe trick it out with some sequins and blood.
that plus my armpit hair will make sure they never invite me back to hollywood.

lee has a cold and i have a full house of guests right now, jason webley is here…and so are the evelyn twins. they refuse to sleep in a real bed and instead insist on sleeping on the floor on four thick carpets with sleeping bags (don’t ask) and so i trip over them every time i have to walk from the bed to the bathroom. they’re so weird.they’ve been trying to use twitter and jason and i have been encouraging them, but it’s slow going. more on that noise later. it’s been a trip. they’re practicing hard, though, and jason and i are helping them with their piano songs and stage outfits for this spring. we’re all excited to bring them on tour. the london tickets are selling well (each night is over half sold out„„get tickets HERE). for those who were confused, the order of the night is jason, then me, then sxip, then the twins. you should not miss this fucking show.
tickets are also going up super-soon for some other cities so be sure to watch the dates and follow the AFP news twitter…

mostly i’m just spaced-out, full and tired. i have a life hangover the size of 2009.
literally and figuratively; i feel like i haven’t been genuinely hungry in a week but i keep eating…since mealtime still comes.

and re: hangover…
i cannot give enough thanks to all the folks who came out to the new years show at the pops….it was fucking incredible.
i haven’t prepared so much for a show since….i don’t know. a long time. probably since the dresden dolls’ roundhouse DVD shoot, which took
months and months to put together.

we pulled it off….mostly.

i did go ONE MINUTE over the curfew, which of course cost their unions thousands of dollars. (oops.)

and i spilled champagne on the stage (sorry.)

the pops were fucking RIGHT ON. i developed a twitter relationship a few days out with the bassonist…
i mean, how rad is an orchestra that has a guy with a twitter name like @BigGayIceCream?
keith lockhart led with aplomb, we got rave reviews in the boston globe and boston herald, and generally kicked ass all over the place.

the best bits of the night were the tchaikovsky (which i fairly butchered even after those dozens of hours of practice), “missed me” (which i’m still hoping will surface on youtube),
“hurt” (the NIN song. i’ll embed the clip up at the end of this blog), and “pokerface” (yes, “pokerface”, the way your mother never intended it).
stay tuned, all will be explained.
the clips are still spilling in…filming was verboten but things are creeping up onto youtube. i’ll post them as they come, with photos and stories behind all.

for now, some other photo highlights.

symphony hall, all decked out….

this outfit was hand-sewn by elena sanders, and looked fucking amazing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbane/4236387522/in/set-72157622993984815/

the pops & AFP

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/coma_high/4234360248/

i convinced neil gaiman, who is actually quite a good musician but doesn’t tell anybody, to play the chainsaw on “missed me”.
he was fantastic. here he is, sporting his instrument. he was a right bastard about the tuning (he’d wanted a european chainsaw tuned to the key of G,
this was an american chainsaw tuned to the key of DESTROY)

his hair is always doing the most incredible things. i think i might love his hair more than himself.

speaking of incredible things…
the night itself was a mad mix of people and opening bands and mayhem out in the lobby, half of which i couldn’t see.

but i did manage to sneak down to the dining room (right before i played) and do a quick song with miss tess and her back-up band….
this is us attempting “makin’ whoopee” with her band figuring out the song as we went along….(this dress was handmade by kambriel of http://www.kambriel.com)

this is lance, holding my leg during dress rehearsal earlier in the day….

singing “hurt”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tender_buttons/4241733473/

me & the crewe singing “mein herr” from cabaret.
the boys in drag were a huge hit…..

the dress rehearsal for “leeds united”….

stealing keith lockhart’s thunder and conducting the orchestra during “coin-operated boy”….

but all told, this was my favorite moment of the evening……

while the orchestra struck up “auld lang syne” (to which, i must admit, i knew not a single fucking lyric), i took a minute off, located and kissed my doxy on the stroke of midnight (or close, i think it was 11:59).
this photo was taken by the geidts, from the balcony.

i love this man so much. i really do.

TWO THOUSAND AND TEN FTW.
i hope all your new yearses were as good as mine.

i used to hate fucking new years. i could never find a genuinely good time. the hangover was never worth the party.
this one was.
my house and the cast of the show stayed up til 7:30 am, bumping to a mix that becca darling made of michael jackson and beyonce.

AFP’s 5 simple steps to enjoying new years forever more

a) join a band
b) go solo
c) fall in love
d) secure boyfriend for new years
e) find a national orchestra to sit in with.

works every time.

xxxx
a

p.s. if you’re in NEW YORK, follow me on twitter right quick.
i’m about to announce a way to get a spot to a totally private evelyn evelyn party that jason and are throwing during the day next tuesday *somewhere awesome* in manhattan.
there will be no tickets sold and we’ll only give spots to about 20 people. follow me HERE. also, if you’re in NYC and have a weighted, 88-key keyboard we can borrow, email hayley at amanda palmer dot net.

p.p.s. as promised, NIN’s “hurt”, with the pops (arrangement by lance horne):

Cross-posted at MySpace

"if you want to get rich and screw, start shooting hoops"

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:56:06 -0500

so. while i’m holed up in my apartment practicing tchaikovsky with my fucked-up heater in fingerless gloves & losing my mind, i figured i’d give you something to read.
this was today’s lefsetz letter:

…………………………………..

Did the Beatles plan on dominating the world?

No, they just wanted to escape a life of drudgery in Liverpool.

But their music became a mania. Suddenly, not only were they rich and famous, they had innumerable groupies beckoning.

Like Tiger Woods.

When the Beatles hit, even into the heyday of Led Zeppelin in the seventies, if you wanted to get rich, you were a rock star. Baseball’s reserve clause had not yet been broken. The NBA did not yet have Magic and Bird, never mind Michael Jordan, it was almost a sideshow. As for golf… Arnie Palmer was a swinger, but he was more about endorsements than lifestyle, and at the time, nobody wanted to be icy, pudgy Jack Nicklaus.

No, you wanted to be like the English cats. Or the players from San Francisco. Who’d practiced for years so they could now get up at noon, do drugs and get laid seemingly whenever they wanted.

It all came down to the music. Jimmy Page didn’t pick up the guitar with a desire to be famous. No, music was a calling. And after seeing the Beatles on “Ed Sullivan”, boomers picked up instruments, took lessons. They did not get plastic surgery to appear beautiful, take media training so they could expose themselves well. It was all about the tunes.

It hasn’t been about the tunes in eons.

Sure, there were starmakers all the way back to the days of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis. But what drew us to the stars of the classic rock era was the seeming lack of manipulation. Playing by no rules, creating opuses sometimes an album side long, these musicians put the music first. Unlike athletes shilling for Aqua Velva.

Things turned bad with corporate rock in the midseventies. Too calculated, it was supplanted by disco and then in late ‘79, the whole business imploded, only to be resurrected by MTV, which evidenced completely different values from the FM radio that preceded it. Suddenly it was all about image.

And now MTV might be dead, but conventional wisdom is image triumphs. That’s what TV wants. That’s what the magazines want. That’s what TMZ and Perez want. Radio was something you listened to. All the foregoing media enter through your eyes.

So right now, Mariah Carey might be parading around Aspen, but she’s not staying there based on her new album’s sales, they stink, she’s living off the past. Even Alicia Keys. All these heavily-hyped artists, the Cliveisms, they’re built for stardom, but today stardom doesn’t permeate every nook and cranny, and so many are turned off by the hype, and music sales suck. And seemingly the more popular you are on the hit parade, the fewer people want to see you live. Dave Matthews hasn’t had a radio hit in eons, but he was the biggest tour grosser of the decade.

But, of course, Dave Matthews has been around for fifteen years, he was the beneficiary of the old game. What about new artists?

What about new artists?

If you want to be a “rock star”, be an athlete. Or a tech entrepreneur. That’s where the money is. And groupies like money.

If you want to be a musician, you must flush image down the toilet, be three-dimensional, write from the heart and make yourself accessible to fans.

Yes, today’s musicians are the opposite of the titans of yore. As opposed to being crafted with no edges, sculpted to perfection like Janet Jackson, who also can’t sell a record, they’re lumpy, with warts, they’re completely human. And they write about their humanity. And they make themselves available on Twitter and other social media.

I’m not talking marketing. This isn’t so much about selling as a redefinition of what a musician is. Sure, first and foremost you play music. But how do you get an audience?

How do you get friends? Real friends?

It’s very difficult staying alone in your room, not interacting online. If you want to be part of the community you must venture out, whether it be into the real world or cyberspace. You must make yourself available. You must be ingratiating. You must be open and willing to share.

Who does it right?

Taylor Swift. Her songs couldn’t be more personal. They’re not bland statements denuded to the point where they can be sung by and related to by everybody, rather they’re distinctly her.

John Mayer tweets his personality. Go to http://twitter.com/jOhnCmAYer and read, you’ll end up thinking you truly know him. Furthermore, on his blog he stood up for James Cameron, who called a fan an asshole (http://www.johnmayer.com/blog/permalink/5379). Mayer didn’t believe it was a fan, but an e-Bay whore. But the point is, Mayer took a stand. That’s how you grow your audience, by having a personality, just like them.

Will musicians ever become rock stars?

Not like the athletes. The athletes have got all the money and all the TV time. If you want to get rich and screw, start shooting hoops. And isn’t that fascinating, no one thinks they can play in the NBA without a wealth of court time, but people think they can succeed in the music game without paying their dues whatsoever.

And athletes don’t succeed by revealing their inner lives, they make it via their robotic skills. The opposite of musicians. And did you ever think that whoring yourself out to corporations works for athletes but not musicians for this very reason? Because it’s not about who athletes are so much as how skilled they are at their sport?

In other words, if you’re pursuing the rock stardom that’s bandied about in public today, you’re pursuing artistic and commercial death. A “rock star” today is someone who’s winning in the commercial world, which is the opposite of art. A true rock star is beholden to nobody. Hell, these athletes play for a team, or their sponsors. Which is how the major labels killed music. Because you were playing for them instead of playing for yourself.

Sure, eventually new acts will grow and dominate. But the ascension will be very slow. The rocket to outer space paradigm of MTV is history. Shit, isn’t that the point of reality TV? Anybody can be famous for fifteen minutes?

You want to be famous for much longer than that.

Old thinkers will use the old tools. Radio and TV.

You’re not opposed to those, but you focus on a direct connection with your fan.

Do your friends abandon you willy-nilly?

Of course not.

Then again, you think twice before you screw a friend, before you cancel plans.

So put your fans first. Establish trust. And practice.

Because it begins and ends with the music.

………………………………………

HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH
and
DOUBLE AMEN
and
FUCK YES
and
i would have said it about the same way, but i’m busy making music.
thanks bob.

xxxxxxxxxx
AFP

ps. the lefsetz letter is a bloggy letter written by bob lefsetz about the music industry, tech stuff, pop culture, skiiing, and bob lefsetz’s personal neurosis.
he’s ALL ABOUT THE CAPS LOCK.
CAPS LOCK FTW.
anyway…i take no responsibility :)
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

pss. (shhhhhh) somewhat-secret new years eve tickets discount info, if you wanted to come but were too poor: http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=10476.0

Cross-posted to MySpace

all i want for christmas is burning love

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:10:24 -0500

hola comrades!!!

i’m currently at home, practicing away for my show on new year’s eve with the pops. those of you who haven’t gotten your tickets yet, you still can, HERE!

those of you who have: i can’t wait to see you all, hopefully dressed to the nines; i’m talking ball-gowns and tuxes…..do it up, people…have fun with it!

secondly, in boring business: there are NEW TOUR DATES UP!

i am playing solo in france (in bordeaux - mmm, wine - and in mont de marsan) and in vienna at the end of january!
also, my australian and new zealand dates for feb/march are coming together!
also, the first few LONDON Evelyn Evelyn shows (that will be ME, JASON, the TWINS and sxip shirey!!) have been announced!
go, go go to the tour page to get tickets and info and buy tickets!!!!

so……….um………would you like to know what i would like for christmas?

i’ll give you a hint…it is not a pony….

….it is not a hot british studmuffin waiting to make sweet love to me in a comfy cosy bed
(well, wait a second, i sort of already have that. skip.)

it is not my own personal jesus, mary and joseph “precious moments” plush creche set….

….it is not even word peace!

no!!!

though all of those things are nice, they would be difficult to arrange.

so, i will tell you.
it is not unlike what i asked for for my birthday, and it costs you no money, just a few minutes out of your life to be slightly creative.

here is what i would like.

1.
do you have a record album that you REEEEEEEEALLY like?
could be anything!!….maaaaybe even…oh i dunno, a record about astronauts and love and stuff with a pretty dead girl on the cover?

make sure it isn’t ILLEGAL to copy this music, because everybody knows what the law says!

2.
now, do you have a blank CD?

great!

3.
do you have some sharpies or some other colorful permanent markers???

great!

4.
do you have a computer that can burn CDs?

great!

you know what to do!!!!!!!!

go for it and please go hog-wild making your hand-decorated CDs as cool and pretty as you can!

(and if it’s especially pretty, send it to art@amandapalmer.net so we can see!!!!)

phew!

that’s it!

i sure hope you can find some music out there to put on that CD!
so many things are illegal to copy nowadays, it’s really a bummer!

though…we all know that if you copy music it’s really awful for the artists of the world, because they HATE it when terrible people like you
flaunt the law and copy their record albums for their friends and loved ones for christmas!

and now for my final trick, here’s a nice christmas card to go along with your totally legally burned CD!!!

print it out, sign it and give it to someone you love!!!

AUTOMATIC JOY!!!!!!!!!!!

all my love,

AFP

lady gaga, palmer, madonna (a kitchen-ukulele-blogsong)

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:42:00 -0500

was going to write a long blog about the Lady Gaga Question.
wrote a ukulele song about it instead, played it in my kitchen with a flashlight and and posted it to youtube.

here it is:

may still write that blog but it may be moot.

it is fucking amazing how prolific my ukulele writing becomes when i have other important shit i’m really supposed to be doing.

xxx
afp

Cross-posted to MySpace

how all my baby daddies die in the surf

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:44:00 -0500

it’s saturday.

neil and i have been at his freinds jonathan & jane’s house in florida, taking what we call a working vacation.
i was going to be home anyway, digging out and dealing, and home is freezing. so we came here, where it’s warm and there’s an empty house.
i twittered for a piano and was graciously lent one by a nice man, @johnnydiggz. thanks, @johnnydiggz. i have an orlando show day after tomorrow.
it’s sold out (woo).

i’m preparing.
the pops is going to be one of my ambitious shows to date and it’s driving me crazy. i can’t believe what i’m trying to be doing. oh well.
sometimes i wonder if i’m crazy to be practicing tchaikovsky for hours a day just for a few minutes of pay-off.
what the fuck am i trying to prove here, anyway? i dunno. i’m random. i decided, so i’m doing it.

we’ve been sticking to a general daily schedule which involves a lot of emailing, phone calling, writing, tea-making, piano practicing and cooking.

well, neil does the cooking. i do the dishes and try to look grateful.

we take the dog (neil’s Big White Dog, Cabal, who’s a german shepard who has buddha-nature) for walks. it’s frightfully domestic.

neil holds the dogs head and cleverly hides behind my hair.

i’m also working on a lot of different stuff….the evelyn evelyn record, the pops arrangements, the upcoming year, the new musical theater show i’m doing next fall and can’t announce yet.

i’m working hard.
i’m writing songs.
i’m happy.
my brain has been wandering a lot.
i’ve been doing a lot of internal and external housekeeping.

my brain is trying to sort through many things at once and exhausting itself.
big life. small life. business decisions. personal shit.
this is THAT moment where i’ve said: “when i have time, i’ll….”
this is time.
what am i doing?
it’s always interesting to see what i do when the time becomes real.
it’s never what i thought it was going to be.
i try not to stick to any plans.

i brought by old rolodex with me (picture taken last week) from home…

….and pulled all the cards out in the sun.

it was a snapshot of my life in 2004, a laundry list of radio people, managers, lawyers, newspaper writers, photographers, college booking agents, promotors.
back when i was single-handedly running the dresden dolls empire without an agent, a manager or any help. just me and brian in the kitchen, burning CDS.
i don’t need these cards anymore, and the contacts i need, i have somewhere already.

the rolodex has just been sitting there under piles of shite in my bedroom for years. it was time.

most of them i threw away, some i saved to put on my mac.
the rejects we burned on a log in the fire tonight while we ate our dinner (neil made pasta with shrimp).

it was fun to watch all the business cards from roadrunner records employees go up in brilliant flames.
no malice.
just. over. it. and….please god let the reign of terror end gently. i keep waiting. wanting to be totally free, not quite getting there.

i put my feet through the sand this morning before i started emailing and practicing and i looked at the man i love.

he was walking a white dog.

we started talking.
he said hi.
and asked my name.
and i told him it was candy and that i had 7 kids and was a day-shift stripper at the place down the street called “bare assets” that he probably drove by but didn’t notice.
and what did he do for a living?
oh? what kind of writer? screenplays eh? you much be really famous then, if they’re making a movie out of some book you wrote.
so, you like kids?
i told him about how my first three baby daddies had died; one suicide (pills), one in iraq, one was shot by my brother (it wasn’t just my fault, there was a shoddy drug deal involved too).
he was curious. we talked for about a half hour. he told me about being alone in a big house. then i told him my real name (jordana).
then i went back to being his girlfriend.
we do that.
i really like him.

………………………………..

speaking of mr. man, there’s finally news about the short film we made together, called “statuesque”
i acted in it along with Bill Nighy, my friends Becca Rosenthal (aka @becca_darling) and Emilie Bera,
who you may remember from the dresden dolls’ paradise DVD.
mr. neil gaiman wrote and directed.

it’s airing in the UK on Christmas Day at 22:00 on Sky 1.

it’s a silnet film; the music was done by our friend sxip shirey, who lots of you know.

from the producer, hilary:
The series of eleven films starts to broadcast on Monday 21st December and goes out one a night up to and including the 31st December at 22:00 each night. The first film is a fairytale with Tim Spall and Natascha McElhone, the films are all very different - ranging from Mackenzie Crook and Lindsey Marshal in a slapstick comedy to a story set in a war zone by William Boyd and directed by Richard Eyre to one about a dog alone at St Pancras Station on Christmas Eve searching for a friend to one about eternal love…
here’s an ARTICLE about it:
http://screencrave.com/2009-09-04/bill-nighy-amanda-palmer-silent-statuesque-neil-gaiman/

and here’s a shot i forgot about, of me and neil on the set at night:

tune in.

we’ll also be showing the film at the NEW YEARS SHOW (get tickets, for christs sake) and michael pope is also going to be showing two new films he’s creating just for the night: one is to accompany one of my selections for the orchestra (bjork’s overture from selmasongs/dancer in the dark) and one for the countdown. i’m so fucking excited.

the opening acts will be local throwbacks miss tess, april smith, and mr. sxip shirey himself.

i dont’ want to ruin any surprises but expect 60s, 70s, 90s, and 2009 to all be musically represented. i skipped the 80s, because i’m masochistic like that.

more soon.

love
AFP

p.s. if you don’t know what to buy people for christmas, i’ll tell you. AMANDA PALMER AND DRESDEN DOLLS MERCHANDISE. lots of specials going on: HERE.

p.p.s. nothing can say it better than this can.
the artist who painted painting behind the child terror, eleaonor phillips, sent it in.
god damn, i can’t wait to meet this girl when she’s like 12.

Cross-posted at MySpace

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

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:02:00 -0500

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!)

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:55:00 -0500

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

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:48:22 -0500

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.

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:51:00 -0500

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...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:24:25 -0500

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.

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:14:00 -0500

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

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:08:00 -0500

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.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:05:00 -0500

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.