A follow-up rant. (& last nights photo) (Patreon)

Good morning loves.

I’m holed up trying to recover my ragged voice; our sound was shot last night and I blew it. I will see a ton of you in a few hours at the museum. Here’s our patron aftershow photo from last night…taken by Michael McComiskey.

The show was phenomenal. Tonight is sold out and we will do it all again. I’m already exhausted.

AND…the world keeps worlding.

Here is a follow-up rant I just posted to socials, so feel free to go to Facebook or Insta and comment and share in public if you feel moved.

Michael took this shot last night seconds after The Dolls got off stage at the Mohawk in Austin, TX; this graffiti was right behind where we played our hearts out for nearly 3 hours.

Then I crawled home to bed and saw the headlines about the deaths in Moscow and posted an as-usual-off-the-cuff-expletive-riddled-amanda-rant (and cross posted it here). Some of the comments - not here on the Patreon, but on the socials - left me aghast.

When you’re a musician on tour playing rock shows and you see 100+ people die for going to a rock show, you don’t prioritize where it is, or what nationality those people are.

Russian, Japanese, African, Italian, Mexican, Ukrainian, Israeli, Balinese, Palestinian, Chinese, Egyptian, Canadian. All you know is that a ton of people went to a rock show and got shot and killed, and it pierces and explodes your musician heart.

Same thing with being a parent, a mother. When you see kids die of shootings, starvation, wars, accidents…you see a dead child. Not a nationality. Not a political idea. You just see and feel a dead kid, and a grief-stricken parent. You have a kid and you understand kid. When you’re a musician, you see an audience.

You see music next to death. You are horrified.

People in my comments said things like: how can you feel compassion for these dead Russians after what’s happened in Ukraine?

I had coffee with my friend Peg this morning and she said she was equally horrified by comments under Kate Middleton’s cancer announcement saying “No sympathy for colonizers”.

All over the world, this binary insanity is disintegrating the hearts of humans. What has happened to us?

It is possible to hold many hurts and ideas in our heads at once.

We are smart. We have the capacity for complex feelings and ideas. You can condemn one thing and feel compassion simultaneously.

You can think Russia’s war on Ukraine is abhorrent AND mourn the death of Russians who got shot at a rock show.

You can think Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is abhorrent AND feel compassion for Israelis who are raped.

You can think colonialism is abhorrent AND feel compassion for Kate Middleton and her cancer situation.

You are capable of complex compassion.

You can contain multitudes.

You can.

♥️

I’ll add this to the patreon post, because it’s less dangerous to say it: I will die on this hill. If saying this over and over gets me canceled, then cancel me.

This is a hill worth dying on, in my humble opinion.

Xxx see yall Austinites at around 2-5pm, info a few posts back.

X

A