Wednesday, June 07, 2006

i don't have to go home but i can't stay here

last night, for the first time in my life, i was actually awakened by two (well, i assume it was two) people having sex. sex like you read about, sex like you rent at the porn store: like, serious, SCREAMING, wild, pounding sex. they must have been in the hotel room above me, they must have woken half the hotel or at least everybody in the adjacent rooms, i felt the ceiling shaking. thwok thwok thwok thwok thwok and then a rest, and another scream, and then silence, for a moment....then again. but i wasn't upset at all, even though it was about 4:30 am, and i'd had a terrible time trying to get to sleep...this was exciting. i lay there smiling to myself, thinking "I'm in hotel room in berlin listening to people have sex like you rent at the porn store." it made me feel happy, then horribly alone in my empty bed. i've been staying in this hotel room for three days, waiting to leave for home, where i'll only be for four days before turning around and coming right back. this has been the loneliest tour yet, and i've never wanted to be more alone. it's confusing to say the least.

i was seventeen. i was in germany for the first time and had just slammed my hand a good centimeter into a rusty nail, which was jutting out, unseen, from a door in the squat in east berlin where I was staying with jason.
that whole flood of emotions still feels the same, or - at least - I can detect them even though they've been pushed underground and given years of caring, karaoke and karate.

we were convinced that jan was home, since he'd said he would be. so we were knocking hard. It was freezing, winter vacation, just after christmas. the only heat jan had in the squat, next to his towering piles of dubbed cassettes (millions of dead cops, the cramps, sex pistols) was a retro little stove that barely kept the room above see-your-breath level. cold cold cold. he wasn't there. we pounded. then my hand went through the nail. i screamed. was it serious? well, it was bleeding, but not much. it was a hole, a nice little german stigmata. it only took 15 seconds before i didn't know myself whether i was crying to get attention for a wound that wasn't all that bad, actually in pain or shock, or crying about the fact that i was confused about whether i was crying for some real pain or over the confusion my possible ruse. this was a typical pattern in my life. maybe i was homesick. maybe i was just looking for a reason to weep and the nail was just a little gift. we bandaged and disinfected. the incident was easily forgotten. i think jan wasn't there. but he must have come home at some point. thwok thwok thwok thwok thwok. is there anybody out there?

i walked by that door yesterday. it's 13 years later and jan is still living in the same squat, one floor up. the cassettes are CDs, but most everything else is the same, jan still smiles his shining czech smile, his girlfriend cut up watermelon. we rode around on his motorcycle and watched berlin setting up for the world cup, the russian war memorial, drank come coffee, walked through a church with no insides. there are lots of these in berlin. in my bunk, hiding from the tour and the world outside, i've been watching DVDs of american propaganda films that were shown to soldiers in 1943...right before they were shipped off to die. a series of Seven Informational Films called "Why We Fight". brought to you by the ministry of war, the letter Z and the number 8. this is a jap, this is a german. kill, kill, kill kill kill kill. thwok thwok thwok, watching the bombs drop on every side, watching the bodies fall. hitler at nuremburg. metallica at nuremburg. morrissey at nuremburg. the dresden dolls at nuremburg. that was four days ago. we played right on the rally grounds.

the last three days of the proper tour were those huge festivals. i remember the purgatory-like feeling it had last summer. not many fond memories, mostly images of trailers, where we sat and waited to play, unfriendly people all waiting in the same miserable conditions, pointy shoes, and rain.

one day was good, there was some sun and some air and some shyness that was criminally vulgar....i hiked, with the Dancer, up the huge dutch hill and we looked down on it. there were tens of thousands of people gathered below. tranfixed in the flashing lights and the spectacle of it all. around us, european teenagers were all smoking cigarettes and throwing trash into the tall grass. you just played in front of all of those people, i said. so did you, he said. then we laughed, at the people. at ourselves, at all the trash.

you want your solitude, miss thing? you may just get what you wish for. you may just wake up one day in that twilight zone earth after all the bombs have gone off, surrounded by a pile of books. with no reading glasses.
we joked that it was the only hill in holland. made after the war.

when i was 9, i was at summer camp. not sleep-over camp, but a sort of dregs-of-whoever-was-left day camp at the local rec center. i was one of the richer kids with intellectual parents who simply didn't Believe in overnight camp (the way they didn't Believe in sugar cereal or gel toothpaste or nintendo). when there was a costume contest at the end of the summer, a la halloween, i (of course) threw myself into it full-force. alongside the makeshift draculas, freddy kreugers and michael jacksons, i went as The World. i sported an electric blue leotard and tights and onto my flat-chested, scrawny little body were safety-pinned asia, africa and the rest of continents that my step-sister helped me to cut out from green felt in the kitchen the night before, while my parents probably looked lovingly at their wholesome and intelligent children . but the majority of the contestants, who were mostly boys, went as boxers. not boxers with everlast belts, mouthguards and shiny warm-up capes and fancy boxing shoes. just 10-year old boys who had no costumes. take off the t-shirt, throw it around the neck and when you are asked to parade on front of the costume judges, start punching the air as hard as you can. then you were a boxer. i remember feeling that bizarre combination of feeling costume-proud and insanely jealous of those boxers and their raw power, as i stood there, looking like a spoiled rich art fag in my The World costume. i imagined them at home, eating sugar cereal and playing nintendo til the sun came up, unable to buy materials for any clever costume because their parents were mean and on welfare. but they were punching, punching, swinging with everything they had, putting me to shame.

one morning i woke up to find myself in a city that i had seen before. i hadn't recognized it in the tour book. i was in france, in an Again venue. i wandered up the stairs. ah yes, i remember this. was it a good show here? when was it, a year ago? six months ago? was it a good show? i couldn't tell you, i couldn't tell you if you held a gun to my head. but i remember what amandas remember, and this is what starts to disturb me. and then it hit me that this was happening in every city. was it my mood? was it bad luck? there it is, that's the same yellow backstage couch where i slept when i was ill before the last show here. hey, that's the closet with the electrical supplies where i tried to get some privacy to make a phone call home. that's the airport cafe with the internet. that's the industrial parking lot where i walked in circles for an hour to warm up my voice, and probably where i'll walk in circles tonight. that's where i couldn't find a bathroom in the morning so i had to poop in a plastic bag. that's the dressing room with no door and that's the same potato salad they put out last time. that's the guy i met with the long hair, whats-his-name, who promoted the show. hi. are there any good memories? honestly, they're really few and far between. tour doesn't tend to leave many fond memories. what makes it worth it? the shows should. but i can't remember them. they are mostly the same, even when they're good. it's like taking an amazing shower. do you remember it? even if something remarkable happens, like you have a profound thought, or come up with a wonderful idea? not when you take a shower every day. i doubt it. i don't take a shower every day. i don't want to. mike penta used to say, amanda palmer, amanda palmer is a dirty girl. he started a new toothbrush every two weeks.

when i go back to milan, if we play in the rolling stone again, i'll remember being doubled over with menstrual cramps in the bathroom before the show, not doubled over to really fix anything, because nothing was fixable, and not doubled over for the effect, because nobody was watching. just stuck, knowing full well that the few people outside the door were rolling their eyes at me. uh-oh. amanda's turning into a rock star. here we go. but maybe i was paranoid. it was too late for me to separate the cramps from the confusion. pounding pounding on the door. then i went back into my bunk, and watched The Wall, again, and the maid keeps knocking. thwok thwok thwok thwok thwok. housekeep-iiing. housekeep-iiing. brian throws his sticks, exits stage. i play another solo song. is there everybody....out there.

that was the day my mother emailed me some old pictures of my cat, govinda, sprawled on the back yard with first litter of kittens. the four of them are flopping all over her and her head is all upside-down with her tongue sticking out a little bit.

there i was, crouching in my pajamas with my eyebrows shaved and bleeding. in an overhead shot, in the the corner of a dank bathroom in a random rock club, clutching my little black book of poetry after the teacher smacked my wrists. smack smack smack. watching my 12-year old self come running at me with a dead rat.

bill asked me why i hadn't blogged in a while, that he felt the hole. i asked for a suggestion. if you can't say something nice, he suggested, don't say anything at all. nail on the head, i said. on the nosey!! so i decided to save it all for one, nice, poetic and painfully long entry. better that way.

it took a while, but it occured to me i wasn't really homesick. i was myself-sick, just sick to death of not being alone, sick to death of not having space to breathe, to make anything. to feel anything other than a kind of numb irritation and simultaneously sick of feeling disconnected, alone, missing my friends, my grounding home and hearth, my piano, the things that make me feel like myself.

this tour, which lasted seven weeks, is over. i'm getting on a plane. but it's not over. it's a four-day break. this was the first tour where, prison-like, i started crossing off days on my tourbook list, ripping out each page as it passed, one day closer to...what? to four days off? whatever i was looking forward to, i'm not getting it. i'm here forever, or at least for anohter five months, which feels close ot forever.

but there were some nice things. there was the scene with the rat. there was the beautiful flower animation. there was the dinner i ate in portugal, treated like a queen, eating real food, cooked by real people. this was good. there was dinner with dahlia the first time round in berlin. she made some broccoli soup, which was wonderful. there was the cafe in fribourg. there were a few other cafes. and there was seeing my family in dublin, for an evening. that was over a month ago. but it left a nice memory. stained, as it was, as it always is, with the soil of sorry-i'm-so-tired. sorry i'm not myself. sorry i'm not available because i'm exhausted and sorry i've been too much of a pussy to organize my life in such a way that i can sit with you without feeling like i'm collapsing into my appetizer, that i can enjoy a conversation with you without losing my voice. different city same story. i've started to sound like a broken record when i run into my old freinds, when it's now going on three visits and two years in a row and it's still: "i'd love to hang out but I'm just too tired...i look unhappy....well, yeah....i've been touring too much....we should take a break....i said that last time?....well, you know, it's hard to find the time to really go home for longer than a week or two...i said that last time? ...oh...i guess i must have...listen, the NEXT time i come to town we'll grab a cup of coffee and i'll....i know....i said that last time....well, what can i say....(insert ironic laugh).....i don't have a real life anymore......" and they let go of my hand and wave good-bye. with pity.

that was supposed to be a positive paragraph, it derailed. just like most days in the past month when i woke up thinking that it wasn't that bad.

i wrote a long blog about two or three weeks ago, when i was really in the thick of it, but i let it be, didn't post it.

now i am looking back over it, cherry-picking the parts that i want to reveal and letting the rest rot in it's stinking heap of negativity.
here are some excerpts:

.......................

excerpt 1

when I first went on tour, it felt a little like a vacation. free from the routines of home which had become too mundane and repetitive, leaving behind the smallness of playing local clubs to convincing a new audience, and the illusion of freedom and the open road. but even then, i went into the process unwilling.

i never wanted to Get Away or Escape From My Life As I Knew It. i walked blindly into it, taking each sacrifice as it came, since it wasn't real life. i assumed that the situation would either improve to the point where it would be enjoyable instead of just tolerated, either that, or it would end.

nowadays i'm softly banging my head against the thin curtain of my tour-bus bunk, not wanting to make any noise because i don't want to wake the ones sleeping.

all the journalists ask me: "aren't you afraid you expose your private life too much?" i find this funny. my family reads this blog, my manager reads it, the label publicist reads it, brian reads it, our crew and promotors read it. this is the fucking ART of telling the truth carefully.

if i actually shared my private life in all it's complexity and detail, i would anger and worry and confuse these people so much....i'd be crucified. so i generally save my personal conflicts, my true heartbreak, for the emails i send to the ones who don't need me as a boss, a rock star, a musician, an idol, a promotional tool or even an artist.

it shouldn't come as a surprise that everything i share here is heavily censored, well, slanted at least..a combination of the reckless impulses to emote and the simultaneous, hyper-conscious measuring of the consequences. i can complain about my own faults, my own mistakes, my own fears, but the line ends there. it's not my place to complain about everybody else's.

...........................

excerpt 2

i am a performer. it's my job to get up on that stage and entertain the crowd, even when i'm sick, even when i'm sick of it, even when i'm ready to keel over in exhaustion. there's something noble about plastering that grimace and/or smile on your face and heaving yourself up there, trying anyway. but for god's sake, i still need to be honest about it. i feel like that's the only saving grace. hello everyone, here are my mistakes. i don't want to be here tonight. we're touring too much and the show is starting to suffer, my voice is starting to sound like it's being ripped apart by the middle of every set. good evening everyone: no illusion for you.

i fuck up on stage, a lot. i never play a song perfectly, and i think that's just fine and dandy. i've played girl anachronism, by my count, over ONE THOUSAND times and i STILL fuck up the lyrics. i can forgive myself everything and anything as long as deep down, i am convinced that i am trying as hard as i possibly can. and i actually like it when things beyond my control take over and force some kind of snafu. i don't invite disaster, but when it comes in the form of a power outage or a blown monitor system or a broken keyboard, i notice how human i become on stage. and i notice, more and more and show by show, that people have not paid their money to sit down and witness perfection. they've come to experience something, feel something, see something real and human. and to err is human. to err while striving for perfection, the small but inevitable glitch of Real Life, is more beautiful than perfection in my book. i believe the japanese have a term for this.

..............................

....and the rest of it was too negative, childish and bitchy.
and i want everyone to love me and think that i am compassionate, wise, kind and clever.

somewhere in the UK, a girl near the front row fainted during "shores of california". she must have been no further than ten feet away from me, and i watched her limp body get passed over the barrier to the security guards. this is where things just seem insane. the human being in me, the woman named amanda, says: "stop. wait, there's someone suffering, do something." the performer smiles and keeps playing, continuing the ruse for the 92% of the audience that has no idea what's going on, in cahoots with the 8% that knows full well that you are deliberately ignoring a fucked-up situation. the solution? none. just mention over the microphone, after the song, how fucked up and inhuman it felt. but when there's no body, when the girl passed out is you, when the girl passed out is the drummer, ah, this is different. then, sometimes, you should downright lie.

or not.

or smile and nod?
or tell the truth?
or dramatize the truth? laugh about it?

when you're playing solo, the choice is yours.
when you're playing with a band, you need to agree to believe in the same decisions.
this will never be easy.

i do have still have fantasies.
i do love touring, and god, do i love playing for people.
when my life isn't ridden with pounds of extra rubbish.
it's sort of like anything you love. something pollutes it, and it really turns on you.
try eating a chocolate cake while listening to babies getting strangled. ruins it.
you want to be able to enjoy your situation, your work. you don't want the noise pollution, the emotional pollution, the baggage and the stress around you. but eveyone, including you, creates it. you're all stuck in a zoo-like environment, and nobody comes to clean up the cage very often. so you adjust. you learn to ignore it, grapple with it, evade it, solve it, eventually....you take it or leave it.

or, someone gives you a Book. you escape. you breathe and find a minute to read Alone even though people are shouting everywhere.

after watching The Wall again Again, i watched the commentary.
roger waters recited the beginning of a poem he had written:

There is a magic in some books
That sucks a man into connections with
The spirits hard to touch
That join him to his kind
A man will seek the reading out
Guarded like a canteen in the desert heat
But sometimes needs must drink
And then the final drop falls sweet
The last page turns
The end

and it goes on, more hopeful, turning the metaphor to his wife, to the book that doesn't end. i have had this Book on tour with me. it's remained unfinished quite on purpose, i was sucked into it and then started to measure Very Carefully how many pages at a sitting. i looked forward to two things for a few weeks. reading the Book, and having a cup of coffee alone in a cafe at the beginning of the day. but it needed to be Away. and sitting down.

a cup of coffee in the venue was worthless, and cup of coffee on the bus was more than worthless. the best cup of coffee was in a good cafe. a bad cafe was better than no cafe. a restaurant was also passable and i did that a few times but it could be unnerving, bothered by waiters. the worst case scenario, but still coffee, was to brew myself a cup of tea on the bus, walk in a straight line away from the Mess and towards Being Alone and sit there, on a stone, on a bench, on a mound of dirt. anything. just give me some solitude, some time to process those thousands of faces, those nasty comments, those conflicting thoughts battling in my already-boiling-over brain. stick me in a room full of people all sitting around, making small talk and sandwiches, staring at the wall, waiting for time to pass, and i will eventually just Go Postal.

there was another book, the one i kept stealing for the camera out of different hotel night tables, dramatically ripping out pages of genesis or whatever. but most of the good footage from prague got lost, and i don't know if it will ever see the light of day. as it poured down rain on the charles bridge, we tried to cover up the camera to get the shots of the book falling, page by page, into the river. under the covered entrance to the brigde were two blind women, street performers. one was playing a synthesizer and both were singing.....ave maria for an unwilling crowd. all trying to escape the downpour, crushed up against them. everyone was forced to listen, barely anyone gave them any money, and the blind woman playing the synthesizer just kept singing, empty eye-sockets rolling heavenward. when the rain lets up, the crowd will thin, and maybe people will listen. i knelt at her side and closed my eyes, all i could see was the heavy coat of the rich italian tourist in from of me. manta tried to get a shot, but the coat. the coat got in the way. a few nights later, a boy from the Brigade named valentin gave me his eye. i thought it was a language barrier issue, when he handed my a small cardboard box at the end of a show in switzerland and said "here's my eye." but no, i opened it up on the bus, and there it was. he was missing an eye, and this was his prosthetic. i put it over my own, stuck a wedge of orange in my mouth and scared the shit out of brian the next morning. when i want to i can make him laugh.

"It is still a fairly astounding notion to consider that atoms are mostly empty space, and that the solidity we experience all around us is an illusion. When two objects come together in the real world - billiard balls are most often used for illustration - they don't actually strike each other. 'Rather,' as Timothy Ferris explains, 'the negatively charged fields of the two balls repel each other . . . were it not for their electrical charges they could, like galaxies, pass right through each other unscathed." When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimeter), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy.'"
-Bill Bryson (from A Short History of Nearly Everything, aka The Book)

people complain in different ways and at different volumes. smelling the heroin cooking from the next dressing room cubicle, never being able to escape the noise, wading through piles of trash. and i LIVE here, i keep reminding myself. the floor on which i daily tread is sticky from vomit, stained with ashes and i rarely see a dressing room wall without a giant, hairy penis staring me in the face, bidding me a happy welcome. hello, amanda! i wanted to take pictures of every penis in every dressing room i've been in and make a nice little children's book. i wanted to take pictures of every piece of art hanging above every bed in every hotel i've ever stayed in and make a nice little flip-book. i wanted to do a lot of things. sometimes i get a good view of the sky. sometimes there's a hill nearby.

that was the day my mother emailed me some pictures that she had taken that morning of the newly blossomed rhododendron bushes ouside the old house.

after we climbed down from the view, it was dark and the festival was over, placebo had left the stage, we walked onto the space where we had both just played. where the hoards of people had just stood was now just a capret of cups and bottles, the smell of ashes and sweat and french fries and ripped-up dirt. we trudged through it with no snow shoes. wondering, as you do, who is going to pick this up before tomorrow, when it starts all over again? machines? immigrant workers, punching, punching, punching sticks into these cups at a rate of 2000 cups and 6 euros an hour? probably. don't complain you, we say to each other. what's your work day consist of? singing? getting your photo taken with a bunch of fans? sitting and waiting in a bus all day? shut up. just SHUT UP.

i miss myself more than anybody else.

everyday i reach back home, see my apartment, remember my life. when i get enough quiet to myself, the picture becomes clear. i see myself through four lenses, on the television, sitting in the chair in a hotel room, outside in the middle of a huge field in dunkirk, as a couple in the hotel room above me pounds and punches away, having sex like you rent t the porn store. so what was it? did you want to be alone? or have someone here in bed with you?

hand into the nail on the door. thwok. i remember when it seemed like staying in a hotel was a huge luxury. now the fists pound on the door. housekeep-iiing! housekeep-iiing! housekeep-iiing! thwok thwok thwok thwok. cardinal hits his head against the window. housekeep-iiing! stab those plastic cups. thwok thwok thwok thwok thwok. housekeep-iiing!! thwok thwok thwok! shoot that heroin, my friend in the next dressing room. smack smack smack. there's always somewhere out there a little less well off, isn't there? bombs could be dropping, i could have be ODing, there are much worse things out there than not getting your solitude. solitude is a fucking modern phenomenon, anyway. they didn't use to have it back before the 1500s. it was invented. by da vinci.

my friend reminded me this one: "i complained that i had no shoes, then i saw a man with no feet."

i, unlike a lot of my contemporaries, never actually went through a obsessive full-on pink floyd phase in high school. i've simply gone through a life-long Wall phase. it's not too late, i was discussing with dave. i don't have a bedroom in which to do it anymore, but i do have my bunk. i could download every album, leave them on repeat from my mac and exchange my bunk curtain with a big black-light tapestry of a fractal, put in some spider plants and start taking more drugs. a waft of incense and pot would wave out behind me every time i exited my bunk for the bathroom. i would become comfortably numb, and communicate with nobody (except via my sneakers, which would be covered with meaningful lyrics in sharpie) simply because NOBODY WOULD UNDERSTAND ME. and to a certain extent, i would be right. nobody understands fuck all about anybody else at a certain level. it's just the degree to which we want to be understood that screws some people.

it all became clear to me quickly: i need more time Alone. vast amounts of time Alone, dripping, oozing, mountains of time Alone. enough to fill up a stadium. but i ain't going to get it. i'm lucky if i get 1 or 2 hours a day, and that's not even actual solitude. that's cafe, walking-down-the-street-surrounded-by-voices solitude. from the start of this tour i felt like a polar bear in a zoo-cage. except i made the choice. i want desperately to entertain those people on the other side of the bars. i need them. i was supposed to have a full week off after this tour and i deliberately chose to give it up, to head back to england to do more promotion after being told by Everyone that it was So Important. still, my decision. why am i doing it, when i know it means yet more time in airports, with people, going crazy? i make these decisions in times of stress and accidental high morale, then regret them sorely. i suppose i continue to believe, as all of my rock elders keep telling me, that if i give it all up now, i may be free later. free to tour when i want, free to spend time with my friends and family, free to spend time alone, free to think. free to become myself again. free to write again. but all later. if i think it's worth it. today, i think it is. and it's never all bad. i am juts going to have to learn to be greedier in the correct ways, in the wise and compassionate ways, despite the pain in the ass it causes. there's no other choice.

every band has much the same different same story, every famous singer i meet gives me that knowing You Sucker sympathetic look when you tell them you're been on the road for six weeks and don't have much of a break for the next six months. but they can't do much to help you. they know you Know. they way they Knew. when they were that sucker. that's what the wink they give says. then where you headed? australia? brilliant! then back to the states? then japan? lovely! then europe for another while, good, good, new single coming out. great. this is the push, you know! someday you won't have to be this sucker. they pat you on the arm. but here they are, themselves. some happier, some more trapped, some less, some more free than me, some on the other side already. but we all talk about how we can't complain, because we don't want to, because it's Just Wrong, when there are bands in vans playing to 12 people and children starving in china. and we all sit there, mumbling black ego humor to ourselves, cooking at a slow roast in the dressing room trailer behind the tent, triumphantly safety-pinning another green continent to our electric blue leotards. grinning that toothless grin of empty accomplishment, stealing jealous sideward glances as the boxers around us punch into the air.

20 comments:

Mr.Cerne said...

Life smoothers us, the mothr who doesn't understand that, no, I don't really need to eat (I'm not hungry), the boyfriend who wants a kiss, the sex, and a movie (can't I take a day off), the friend who calls you up everyday which makes you want to scream (Leave me the fuck alone!) For one moment, everyone, GO AWAY . . .

And you have that moment, and it's bliss. And you cram a few more nto life, here, there . . . and you realize how lost you feel, how pointless.

You get trapped in an existentialist melo-drama, not knowing how to stay sane, when to be with people and when to be alone.

I'm not sure if we'll ever know that answer, A, hun . . . just breathe and know that, hey, there's a possibility of balance.

If only it were a simple matter . . .

- Frankie

jimmycity said...

Amanda,

Thank you for for sharing so much with us, with the world. I can't help thinking how much safer it would be for you to keep your connection with your fans to just your songs and the occasional photo op. Isn't that the way the other rock stars do it?

Seems to me you need your Alone time so desperately because you are so hell-bent on being In The Moment, working so hard to be Accessible, so bravely putting yourself out there and squeezing so much Life and Thought out of every passing moment.

You are an honest and courageous little girl with fierce talent. Your fans stand before you, mouths agape, marveling at your tenacity, electrified by your Art.

"Yes, Virginia" is played constantly n my pick-up, as I scurry about my corner of this world. I play it for friends and their eys open wide, unblinking, like deer in headlights. You are intense.

We love you and will always be waiting for the next beautiful thing you have to say.

veritas said...

oh amanda. you know, right now i wish i read this entry as a random find on blogger, seeing the soul without knowing you were an 'idol'. i don't envy you one bit; i feel thankful for my random boring life in a bookstore, begging food of my mother, shelving new cookbooks and old dictionaries.
i feel selfish loving your music/ does that make sense? not really, no.


i wish i could offer some sort of raw comfort that was... how do i put it. special? yeah. from one human to another. one random bit-and-bite over the net to another. you get flows of comments from all these people with little pieces of you in their hearts, all trying to fit something in yours.

i guess we all understand loneliness, and listening to a stranger orgasm below cement.
xxx

Alice said...

Well Amanda, I think you are human and a you have a nice soul. I want to thank you to sharing your feelings with us.
I think that your work, looked from outside can seems wonderful, but I can understand that as all works, there are good moments and not.
I am a photographer and when I say that to other people everyone says "what a cool work!", well, yes it is, but there are some moments that I want to close myself in a dark room (not for work!) and never go outside.
I understand that there was "something in the air" when you played in Milan (I had mestrual cramp too, heheh) but the show was wonderful and I want to thank you for this.

Go baby, you rock and be strong. Even if sometinmes you could think you aren't.

A big, big hug.

ALY

Ramsey said...

I think caulleen has a point....

Daimus said...

Digital crack
It doesn't quite tap the vein, but serves a need. And yes, the need must be served, for the servers sake.
They listen, and you squeeze it out, time and time again.
Would it be a shame to let it all go? What use is pain? Wishing for that horizon to come? If only it would. Move because you feel you must, and the parallels with junkies holding the last needle are complete.
If there was only one thing I could believe to be true, it's that the things which cause you pain are either wrong, or are there as a lesson to learn. If you don't serve it, and it doesn't serve you, then it has no power. I see that you are at a place where you are uncertain. It's easier to go on, survive, than make a stand. And that's a place any reasonable person frequents on occasion. Music is a manifestation, an interpretation. It's pure and as close to the source as anyone could ever dream of touching. Harm comes from incorrect interpretation. The pure filters through the dark and becomes grey.
I wish for you, strength, patience and clarity.
Some day, this will be a memory. You will be on the other side. The outside looking in.
And it will shine, brighter than anything you have ever imagined. It was honest. It was true.

EM said...

I hope you're living your dream ... because you're most certainly living mine.

Katie said...

I think everyone else has pretty much covered what needs to be said. And in truth, what actually needs to be said? Suffice it that you are amazing with words and it is a great pleasure to see new fodder for us.

Have you ever read anything by Gerry Spence? Easy in the Harness, is a short but stunning piece. And you talked a bit about freedom in here, and I think that would make for an interesting juxtaposition with Spence's essay.

Anyways... I have no words of wisdom. Just a thank you for the humanization you do for us.

lanilou said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
lanilou said...

I read this a few days ago and then last night I had a dream.

You were performing in a theatre next to a beach. In the intermission (yes, you had one at this particular performance) you and Brian walked over to the beach, bantering about the merits of Lionel Richie (?!). And the tide came in and suddenly washed over you. You both sat in the water, splashing around. You were laughing your beautiful laugh.

I woke up smiling too.

Yes, darling. I too agree that you need to take care of yourself. Perhaps you will force yourself to continue until this tour is finished, but after that please take stock of all of these things that you know. You are incredibly self aware. I believe in your ability to find more of a balance with this.

*Joins in with general Amanda love-in*

unknown said...

I find it very hard to accept the fact that other people may feel just as disconnected from everything as i do :(, it makes me want to cry, really it does. But I wont go into that, I'm commenting to tell you...

I'm glad you kept playing, when the man picked me up to take me outside, my mint green (not good) knickers were shown off to everyone that could see me, at least you distracted them from being fixated at my arse, seriously, it's big enough.

don't feel sorry or what ever, it was my fault for causing the problem; but i promise you next time I come to see you, I'll stay fully conscience!

And, if you ever find out how to not feel so disconnected from everything, I beg you, LET ME KNOW.

I want to see amanda perform as amanda, not a woman dying of cramps :), you can get a special magnet that helps increase the blood flow, it does help an awful lot, well that and lots of paracetamol and aspirin and ibruprofen.

I'm not going to be all sympathetic or offer advice, because really, what do I know, I'm just a random fan in the big wide world; obviously it hurts me to read this blog, knowing to some extent I understand (or so i think)
but I don't want to add to the negativity, it doesn't help. so really, just take care of yourself, and you're Amanda, end of story really.

love the girl who happened to pass out at a gig of yours somewhere in the UK

xxxx

utterly utter said...

Berlin is such a beautiful, tragic, crazy, intense, dark and fucked-up place. I find that my surroundings affect the way I feel so profoundly. They provoke the strongest memories. A particular scent on the air, the sound of a chiming clock, or the view from a window in the late afternoon sun. Suddenly they sweep you back to another time and state of mind. Disjointed moments of inexplicable intensity, scattered across a lifetime, a multiplicity of existences.

A little writing can go a long way. Sometimes the words just fail to come, and letting it go for a while seems like the only option. I find this. I feel like I'm echoing into myself, yet somehow it won't translate to words. People offer kind words and condescending advice, but they're like a slap in the face, because they don't understand what it was exactly that you wanted to express.

It can be galling that, no matter how far you go and how much you achieve, that sense of incompleteness and struggle can follow. I wish I had a more concrete answer to it, except that the one thing I try to remember is that, for all the bullshit and the loneliness and the disappointment that life throws, there will always be the art and the beauty that humans are capable of. I don't believe in god. I don't think that we can find answers to life's problems with blunted sentiment or organised passion. I do, however, feel that as long as we can have faith in the deliciousness of shared emotion amid the sea of the banal, there will always be a way to face the tomorrow.

Philsophically yours,
Anna

PS, my mother never believed in sugary cereal either.

Joshua Powers said...

I am going to be honest and admit I did not read this entry all the way through although I should be commended for reading so many all the way through. Anyways, you miss Palmer are great at what you do. You might be getting burnt out by doing these tours and living out memories constantly but think of your fans. We love you, we admire you, we appreciate your words. People such as yourself are how people such as myself get through the day. Words and music that apply to "John Doe's" life, to "Jane Doe's" life, to my life. Knowing someone out there feels the way we do, that contact is what people live for. Remember your fans are here for you.


josh

P.S. - If you don't mind the request a show in Alabama would be a blessing. I missed the last show you had due to surgery. :(

perra de la ropa said...

i feel odd now,i dont feel im writing to you, the musician but a normal woman.

i decided to post something because this days im feeling that way, i needed to have my own time, reading a book or even knitting but i wanted to be alone.
and its been the greatest week ever.

im embarrassed :B


anyway, i cant stop thinking of your music, and how much have helped me but anyway you know that, you must hear it everyday.
ill buy the two albums soon

take care.
Pd.- ill name my daughter amanda.

N. said...

Your Prague-Charles Bridge memory made me smile. I'd forgot about that, raining on the bridge, everyone huddling under the shelter and the blind women playing Ave Maria. Sometime back in September '05. They must play in the rain by the sheltering masses a lot.
Was glad to finally see you guys play in Tourcoing, France!

susie the q said...

Hi Amanda,

I read "Short History" earlier this year, and I hope you can get through it. Bill Bryson is pretty easy to read... just a little long-winded. Anyway, the idea I was most impacted with from the book was that the point of evolution *wasn't* so humans could exist. Humans are going to die out -- just like a trillion other species -- because there will, inevitably, be another ice age (in fact, we're kind of in the middle of an ice age right now, as you'll read from Bryson). We're really quite fragile... a nanosecond of a blip on the soundtrack of existance. A meteor six miles long, landing in the middle of the ocean, could wipe out everything.

With that in mind, why don't we all just do whatever the hell we want? For me, though, there's not too much to do in Indiana.

I'm loving "Yes, Virginia" so far, though it seems to be a little on the pop side. As long as your lyrics continue to be honest and you don't compromise your mad piano skills.

Hope to catch a live show soon, but Indy's been sold out. Next time, next time. :) Don't wear yourself out!

Redshift said...

Just saw you on the Jools Holland show. You were fucking awesome. I sat glued to the screen, all the passion and energy from your songs racketting through me. I've been caught in the feeling a lot of other fans of yours fall for; the feeling of personal connection to you through your blogs. Whether it's just classic human stuff no one really mentions much, or you're just more humane than anyone else would admit, you form this incredible link with your fans.

The same thing comes with your music. I sit every few nights with my MP3 player and a pack of Cigarettes, watching the clouds and listening to your music. It realeases me. In those few moments,there's no one to impress, no one to hate; or love. I have no self. That's what your music gives me. Contentment in short sharp bursts.

Mr.Cerne said...

I get a kick out of our community, here. we're all supportive of amanda. What about Ben? Poor Ben's not the Other half. He's an equal, though he never posts here.

We're all anonymous, invisible, and yet we are heard.

A, dear . . . cram in 'me' time whenever you can, and fuck the rest of the world. Your life is more important than your fines. i'd rather have you at least a little happier and content than stressing and getting vexated by touring and writing new music.

- Frankie

Mr.Cerne said...

Er, fines=fans

Natalie Rose said...

Dear Amanda,

My closest friend and I were recently discussing our high school experiences. We both went to small town, public high schools; we both traveled the honors/AP classes route; we both have a work ethic that we've since found baffle most people because it usually prioritizes homework above sleep, food and hygiene; we both had few to no friends in the schools we attended; we both had disastrous junior years and leaned on boys, both named Jonathan (they're still dating, I broke up with mine a year ago).

The similarities are frightening, to be honest. But there's one quintessential difference: my friend dyed her hair, I didn't. This may seem trivial, but this fact got her labeled as the "freak" of the school. There's not a single comment in her yearbook that doesn't refer to her being "weird," "unique," "independent," or outright, "a freak." While I was awkward because I was (am) chubby, refuse(d) to wax, pluck, shave or do anything to my eyebrows that anyone would actually like me to do, dress(ed) the way I damn well please, and continually wrote bad, angsty poetry and made violent doodles in the margins of my math notes (I still do, but scrawled across staff paper nowadays), I was shy and decently discreet about it all. Sure I got made fun of, but I will not be infamous as the school freak. And this, naturally, lead us to have rather different high school experiences, despite the countless similarities.

While we were sitting in my car outside the 24-hour supermarket at some ungodly hour of the morning, she told me how she hated all the attention she got and how everyone knew who she was. At the same time, I was attempting to point out the irony in the idea that I hated being invisible in high school (to the point of, yes, actually getting sat on) and would've liked attention. She said she would've given, well, some limb or another to be invisible. I actually walked away from the encounter feeling guilty for being as unnoticeable in high school as my friend wanted to be and not appreciating it.

Now, despite the fact that this is the 17th time we're driving around the traffic circle and you're fairly convinced by this point that I am, in fact, lost and don't know where we're going-- well, I'm going to get off here now and you'll see that we were a lot closer than you realized to the point the entire time. That is, later on I came to the conclusion that even if my friend had been the invisible one and I had been noticeable, we would've been no happier than we were originally. For one, that tends to be the trend in high school. Well, actually, let's examine this fact. Why is it the typical high school experience to be miserable and angsty? This trend is not bias in most ways-- it is not exclusive to any financial bracket, race, gender, religion, etc. However, we are discussing a specific age group.

One could chalk it up to "the grass is always greener on the other side" syndrome, but I don't think that quite explains it. I think my and my friend's high school experiences had very little to do with what actually happened to us in high school. Not that those things didn't fuel the fire, but they weren't the point of origin. I think it really all has to do with where we are in our development, and it seems like many of us get there around high school. We suddenly reach that stage where we start wondering who we are and how we're supposed to fit in and suddenly nothing that actually exists in our reality is how it's supposed to be. If we're noticed, we want to be invisible. If we're invisible, we want to be noticed. And if we landed somewhere in the middle, we'd damn well complain about that too! It's just this sudden rebellion of realizing that as human beings in the society we live in, someone is going to try to place us in a category and we want anything but a label or a category-- yet, at the same time, we want somewhere to belong. And somewhere along the line we realize that unless we're willing to accept the up's and down's of it and probably not find a kindred spirit for a long time, we'll have to resign and place ourselves in a category for the sake of companionship.

Neither my friend or I did that, and we both wound up alone for it.

Thing is, I think a lot of us never stop wrestling with that problem. We're good humanists, we need to question, but we start letting it get in the way of potential happiness. Who am I? Does anyone really know me? Do I really know me? Why am I so awkward? Why don't I fit in? Will I ever fit in? Do I want to fit in? Is there a place where I can belong without compromising myself? Will I ever find it? Do I have to create it? How do I go about creating it? Does anyone want me to for who I am? Do I have to change? Do I want to change? Should I even have to change? What if I change and people like the new me, but they probably wouldn't have liked the old me, does that mean the entire relationship is a hoax? Why did I want to change in the first place? Is there a real me? Is there one me? Why are there so many mes? Is one me less real than another me? Why can't there be a comprehensive me? Will anybody ever love me? Will it be genuine? Why doesn't anybody love me? Will I ever find love? Why should I have to wait so long? Are some people meant to be alone? Why are some people meant to be alone? Am I one of them? Will everyone just leave me in the end? Why is this my destiny? What did I do to end up with this kind of karma? Was I mass-murderer in a past life? Do I even believe in past lives, or karma, or destiny-- or love, while I'm at it? Will I ever learn to love myself? Am I capable of love or happiness? Why am I asking so many questions? Where do I come up with all these questions? Why did I start thinking about this in the first place?

There have been nights I've been content and comfortable to have a bed all to myself to spread out in and simply rest. There have been nights when I feel like sleeping alone is the loneliest thing in the world and I would gladly give up what tiny extra space I have in a bed that's been too short for me for years to have someone warm and loving laying beside me. There have been nights where I've laid beside someone and felt content with my heart overflowing, cherishing every little bit of that moment. And there have been times when I've laid beside the same person feeling awkward, out of place, overbearingly hot, restless and a deep pain in my heart caused by that person but that will not ease if I get up and go back to my own bed.

When I'm surrounded by people sometimes I suffocate, and all I want to do is be alone. But when I'm alone, I weep and only want them to come back. And I tell myself, this time, this time I'll remember and be grateful to have them even when I feel suffocated. Will I? Eh, it's a toss up. Sometimes I do remember, and in those moments I smile. But there's bound to be a time I slip up and get annoyed and forget to be thankful... and when they're all gone again, that's what I'll remember-- the slip up, not all the times I did it right.

There is no easy solution, if we have all of one, we crave the other. And once we get it, our desires shift right back to what we just had. I myself have a firm belief that life is all about balance-- the yin and yang-- and moderation. The only satisfactory answer I've ever gotten to "why do bad things happen to good people?" (and the verse) is that we would not appreciate one if we didn't have the other. It's true. Birthdays are special because they only come once a year, flowers are sweet because they are occasional (even if the reason we got them is for no occasion at all), and that fancy dinner tastes so good because most of us can only afford to do it once a year, if that. Birthdays, flowers, fancy meals everyday would lose their luster quite quickly and we'd suddenly find ourselves longing for the times when he/she bought us the hand-picked daffodils instead of the expensive two-dozen roses we get once a week because someone, somewhere is capable of clicking a button and whipping out a piece of plastic they keep in their wallet.

Maybe that's the real reason why we hate being unhappy-- it's so abundant. When I am happy, which hasn't been for a while now, I don't long for unhappiness-- but I do appreciate it. Without it, that good moment wouldn't gleam quite as much. I also have come to appreciate the idea that some great art is born of our unhappy times. However, for me, as an artist, the sustained misery has stunted my art, which depresses me in itself and suddenly we're in a grand downward spiral. I have come to resent the idea that we have to be miserable and depressed and starving to be great artists. It's wrong. Some great art is born out of unhappy times-- but the best of it is not.

I'm not you, Amanda and I never will be. Nor will I ever be your close friend (well, I won't write it off completely-- I've lived just long enough to know that more freakish things have happened and are probably happening to me right now). But, unless I start working my butt off now to make something nicer come out of my keyboard than does now when I punch it (not that I actually punch my keyboard, I'd never hurt an instrument... or at least, I wouldn't again. I am ashamed: I was in forth grade and I just go so frustrated... oh that poor flute. Two of the keys popped off during my next lesson. Thank God it was a rental...) I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to get to meet you and get to know you and discuss the philosophy of fireflies. Nor will I ever be that fan who knows every little detail about your life that I could possibly dig up and have memorized your date and time of birth, your astrological chart (and how compatible it is with mine), your favorite food, the names of your pets, or what's the first song you ever sang in a talent show. I'm never going to be that fan (I honestly just don't have the inclination). And when I see you perform in a few days, I won't know all the lyrics. And it's not for lack of love of the songs, I just don't read the lyrics to a song over and over again until I have it memorized. I play it. Again. And again. And if through osmosis (or something similar) I manage to memorize the words, fantastic! In 30 years, I'll know all the words to the songs I know now, but by then you'll have new ones.

Anyhow, despite my nasty habit of derailing, my point is that I don't really know you, I'll never really know you and like you said-- no one really knows anyone else. Only you really know what you want, Amanda.

You say you're not sure whether you want to be alone or have someone in bed there with you. Though it may be paradoxal, perhaps in that moment you wanted both but had neither. It's certainly possible to be alone with someone else, or have your alone time and still have someone laying with you during other nights. What's my point? I guess my point is just a question: Do you really want solitude, or do you just want it because you can't have it? All the same, do you really want someone in bed next to you or are we all just jaded by what society has set up for us (despite the constant attempts at rebellion)?

As far as the solitude goes, how much of it do you really want? While you groan at the idea of only being off for four days, perhaps it the moderation that makes it so desirable, that will always leave you coming back for more, that will always let you appreciate the time alone when you have it?

Wikipedia has something interesting, in my opinion, to say about solitude.
Solitude (also seclusion, isolation) means lack of contact with other people. It may stem from deliberate choice, contagious disease, disfiguring features or repulsive personal habits, or circumstances of employment or situation (see castaway).

Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think or rest without being disturbed.

Long-term solitude is often seen as undesirable, causing loneliness or reclusion, resulting from inability to establish relationships. However, for some people solitude is not depressing. Still others (e.g. monks) regard long-term solitude as a means of spiritual enlightenment.


I don't know you, and I certainly recognize that there are plenty of people out there who can't get enough time alone and would be thrilled to just hibernate by themselves for months... years on end. And no, I don't know you, but there's a dichotomy in your questions, in the entire entry, that leaves me to believe that that is not you. You love touring, but it's become polluted and become a burden. You long for solitude, but too much of that would pollute itself as well, I suspect.

I must be coming off as so pompous right now, and it really was not my intention. This is in no way meant to be a "be thankful for what you have because it might not be there tomorrow rant." (Lord, I am sorry if it sounds preachy or presumptious.) It was just supposed to be... something to think about that might, in some small minute way be a comfort because I know you are on tour right now and you have so many pages out of your date book that haven't been ripped out... you know you won't have your solitude for quite a while, you're exhausted, your voice is taking a beating along with the rest of your mental and physical state and it all only piles on top of each other. I've never been on tour and I have no real reason to believe I ever will be. I don't know how you feel, I can only begin to imagine what it must be like.

I wish we, as your fans, could do something to help. I guess the irony is, we're the ones buying the tickets and the albums and keeping you on the road, but it'd be worst still if we just abandoned you in hopes of giving you some time off.

Your tour now is what it is, but we love you and Brian for the very real people you are and would more than understand the need for some time off after all this is said and done. Though, I do know musicians and I know you'd only stay away for so long. But, honestly Amanda, after my whole uppity rant on solitude, my real focus is that you do what you need to do. We'll understand, we'll still be here. We don't love you guys because you work yourself half to death touring. And while there is no way to express how much we appreciate the fact that you make such valiant efforts to keep in touch with your fans, it only adds to the love.

(Now, this is just my experience.) The love comes from... well, the music obviously has a lot to do with it. The music is why I admire and adore you and Brian. If I actually got within ten feet of either of you I imagine I'd just wind up suddenly studying the anatomy of my shoes and pray that you didn't spy me and all my awkward glory. After all, then I might be forced to say something and chances are it would be blundered sentence that ever came out of my mouth assuming what came out of my mouth even resembled any words at all. (Edit: Actually, I got within two feet of you at the Fuck the Back Row! show and I was much worse than I even predicted... I take comfort in the fact that you probably won't remember me acting like a petrified idiot.) Now, if it were only admiration and adoration, I would probably attempt to speak. But when it's admiration, adoration and respect, I being to wonder what kind of gall I have even being the same room as you or Brian, polluting your precious air.

Like I said, I'm not the fan who's going to memorize your astrological chart, but I've certainly been more interested in you and Brian as people than I have in any other musicians. Usually, my appreciation of musicians goes no further than their music. (For me, knowing the full names of the band members is a fairly noteworthy accomplishment.) But there's something about you and Brian that made me stop and take notice...

I don't know you, but I feel like I could. And this is a pretty unique feeling. Not only are you two real people (not just "rockstars"), but you're our kind of people. I feel like I could know you from school. Which, I know, sounds like an odd statement, but, well... I go to Bennington College. Most people smile and nod when I tell them this, I then tell them it's in Vermont and the make some reference to skiing. Clearly, we've made a connection! Especially since I've never been skiing... Anyhow, the truth is, I don't know how to describe Bennington, other than it seems like it's own planet much of the time. The entire school is composed of those of us who didn't fit in anywhere in high school, we were the losers, the geeks and the freaks. We were repressed in grade school and now we come to this tiny (600 or so undergraduates) campus in the middle of nowhere, Vermont and... we blossom. Suddenly, we have a niche-- and practically everyone fits into it (those that don't know it pretty soon thereafter and high tail it out of the crazy vortex that is Bennington College). On any given day you're bound to run into at least one of each of the following:

(1) Someone naked.
(2) A boy wearing a dress (or skirt).
(3) A girl wearing a suit.
(4) Someone unintentionally androgynous.
(5) Someone intentionally androgynous.
(6) Someone doing performance art on Commons lawn.
(7) Someone inventing a new food in the dining hall.
(8) Someone wearing bunny ears.
(9) Someone wearing a fake body part of some kind.
(10) Someone taking photographs.
(11) Someone making a video (usually with lots of odd props).
(12) Someone wearing something they obviously put together from kitchen supplies.
(13) Someone playing guitar, banjo or violin outside.
(14) Someone high on [some substance].
(15) Someone high on life.

The list goes on, but hopefully this small complication illustrates what the environment is like. Everyone goes to the beat of their own drum; clothing is mismatched, created, unique or optional; both sexuality and gender are nonconstrictive and optional; and the creation of art is not a pastime but a way of life. Seeing the Brigade, I am reminded of Bennington and begin to wonder if such kindred spirits exist outside of that tiny campus. I feel like I should know the Dresden Dolls and their fans from school, that we all should've gone to school together... maybe we did.

In fact, the funny part I guess, is I do know the Dresden Dolls from Bennington. In September of 2004, my freshman year, the Dresden Dolls came and performed in the cramped downstairs café of Bennington College. Members of the campus activities board (CAB) made makeshift photocopy posters with this picture on them advertising the once in a lifetime performance that I essentially missed. We'd been on campus maybe a week and like mollusks we attached ourselves to the closest person. I wanted to check out the band in the downcaf, but the girl I was hanging out with at the time wasn't up for it. "I heard they're good..."

At some point during the evening we were walking by the downcaf and I made a sprint in that direction. It's a small performing venue (they're finally building a new one) but it was PACKED. I'm not claustrophobic, but I never liked sardines, so I stood outside I listened for a few moments. The windows were dirty or clouded or something (they still are) but one was open and I peered in only to catch a view of what I've since come to realize was the back of Brian's head. My friend was trying to pull me away. "Come on, just five minutes?" I doubt she gave me two before she grabbed my arm and literally dragged me away from the downcaf whimpering and whining. But, two or so minutes was enough. Whoever told me was right-- you were good. Very good. And all I needed was a little taste. (She and I, by the way, don't really hang out anymore.)

(By the way, this is also where I plug that you should come back to Bennington because we do have a new and bigger performing venue now and we love you. A LOT.) [/plug]

Anyhow, silly story aside, there is something about Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione that enchants people. And while the music is amazing (not a word I use lightly), it's Amanda and Brian that we want, love, know and respect. Do what you have to Amanda, to be content, to be yourself. We love you, we'll gladly wait, and when you need us we'll be there to support you.