now in cinemas everywhere: goddamn this has been one emo week (Patreon)

hello my loves

i am at home, listening to final mixes of the record.

this past couple weeks will be forever seared into my brain as a very particular collision-confluence of things.

being in LA, land of weird, and as the icing: american politics and my new "the personal is as political as fuck" piano + ukulele + strange sounds record doing a full on cinematic, hollywood-worthy tango.

cut to:

as i stood in a recording studio tracking vocals for the most powerfully personal and empowering song about reproductive rights i've ever written ("voicemail for jill", i haven't sent a demo yet, this one is going to just be on the record), christine blasey ford was stepping off the stand and kavanaugh was stepping on.

cut to:

as i finished overdubs for "drowning in the sound", kavanaugh was voted in. we just sat there, in the control room, trying not to scroll through the news too frequently, dumbstruck at what was happening.

fuck.

it's all happening at once.

for everybody.

my friend maria popova over at brainpickings has it right, and posted this. 

this.

this again.

and more this.

but what else could i believe?

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

i'm ok.

i have been taking good care of myself. but i woke up yesterday morning and started crying in bed. that's never happened. ever. 

i was just so sad about politics i started crying. i was like: wow, this is interesting. so i streamed a good crying session on twitter, i really did. don't watch unless you want to see me lose my shit a bit. but sometimes it's nice to lose your shit.

https://www.pscp.tv/w/1YqKDQodRXAGV 

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

cut to: kitchen interior.

the record sounds so, so fucking good.

you're going to be proud of it.

right now it's 11:30 pm. my ears are tired.

i was finally reunited with ash today, i cuddled the shit out of him for a few hours, and after i got him to sleep i came back to the kitchen table and listened to mix changes for three hours. i have written hundreds of notes to john.

this is our job.

this is precisely the time when artists go to work.

and.

i guess i'm grateful that i'm in the middle of a deep dive recording project right now. i feel like i'm doing something. 

even if this record is as personal as it gets, that actually does feel like the most powerful political statement i can make right now as a woman.

to tell the truth, shamelessly....which is essentially what this record is.

.....

cut to:

gratitude. a flowering field with telephone poles. a dark cloud. thunder.

i cannot thank all of you enough for sharing the shit out of the weinstein clip.

if you watched my periscope crying session, i address this, but i'll say it here...the press on this record has been kind of confounding.

some of the major music blogs and press outlets have picked it up (paper, spin, pitchfork, brooklyn vegan, etc). yahoo entertainment even tweeted about it, and so did sarah silverman, and radio FM 4 in austria just picked it up.

but since this is a patron-only post, i can really rail about this:

the feminist press has been literally fucking silent, which just baffles me. and infuriates me. i sent it to all of them. where's bust? and ms? and bustle? and elle and everyday feminism and teen vogue and femnisting and on and on? 

i couldn't believe it. not a one of them.

it's why i cried about that scene in titanic when the unsinkable molly brown is out in the rowboat after the ship starts sinking, and she's asking her fellow women why they aren't taking up the oars and rowing back to the boat to save their fellow human beings.

the special place in hell and all that.

if you want to know what you can do to help at the grassroots, there is something you can do.

i can't do it, it'd be too uncouth, but any of you on social media can go ahead and tweet/post/wave the video in the faces of any of those outlets and say HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? 

they may listen.

i'm sorry to be sexist - is it? - but it's heartbreaking that the only people who have covered this piece of massive feminist art made by a mass of powerful women is a bunch of DUDE MUSIC BLOGGERS. AHHHHHHHHHGGGG.

.......

cut to: 1920s printing press. ext: men in green visors being thrown off a cliff.

on a happier note, two of our own in this community ran actual pieces of their own: holly cara price wrote on medium and aimsel ponti wrote on her own blog "aimsel on the record" (and i gave them both interviews). 

y'all, if you blog, now's the time.

BLOG.

if you missed the video, it's here.

keep sharing it. 

whatever you're doing is working.

..........

cut to: interior: senate hearing. kate winslet comes up behind christine blasey ford and takes christine's arms, outstretching them as if they are on titantic's bow with wind in their hair. 

cut to kate and christine in dark waters - icicles on both of their eyebrows -  christine close to death on an ornate floating door, whispering: "there's a boat, kate...there's a boat..."

i got so depressed and "what do i do" last night after listening to mixes that i went over to jherek (suport his patreon) and mayumi's and mentioned that i'd cried about titanic on the internet and they were like let's just watch titanic and so we just watched titanic.

between me and mayumi we went through 9 kleenex. 

we came up with new metaphors for the entire movie. i'll assemble them all when i'm not so tired. rose is feminism. jack is democracy. putin is the iceberg. 

sometimes you gotta just cry at titanic.

my heart will go on.

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

cut to: 1969, a bonfire in the middle of woodstock festival, shivering hippies. 

i am going to be getting more and more politically active.

it feels like i have to. i am still an artist. i will try not to annoy you.

but FUCK.....it all feels so dark here in america.

we need to work harder. we need to vote harder. we need to band together harder.

i have a platform. i intend to use it. i hope you all help.

i'll start right here: IF YOU ARE IN THE US AND NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.... DO.

some of the cut-offs to register are SOON:

https://www.vote.org

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

cut to: kitchen interior, amanda writing patreon blog at 12:03 am, while baby sleeps in next room and occasionally coughs.

the other night, at the screening for the "mr. weinstein will see you now" video in LA, so many survivors of sexual violence shared their stories. it was harrowing, and powerful. alchemical.

my friend kim airs, who's a vocal advocate for sexual health and reproductive rights and sex positivity in general here in LA, got on stage and took the mic and talked about how so many men have been sexually assaulted as well and how hard it is for them to speak up and join this moment. 

as i stood in the improvised signing line at the end of one of the screenings, a guy who was probably about 6'7" and over 300 pounds - a HUGE, imposing dude - came up to me.

he told me that nobody thinks that a man his size would have ever been sexually assaulted.

then he wept in my arms.

and i wept.

and we wept together.

and my arms barely even reached all the way around him, he was so huge.

his pain was so huge.

that's what this all feels like.

i feel like even if i try to wrap my arms around it....i'm just not big enough.

i can't reach.

...........

roll credits.

fade to black.

x

a

------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------

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