tour comics, semi-patriotic acupuncture, HAMBURG NINJA GIG! + PRAGUE MARITAL ARTS! (Patreon)

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**EDIT/UPDATE!!!! THE SHINTAIDO IN PRAGUE IS SOLD OUT!!! damn that was fast! see you all there. i also FUCKED UP AND ADDED THE ESSEN PHOTO instead of the ANTWERP photo! the correct one is now below. oops. i'm tired...SEE YOU IN A SECOND, HAMBURG!! i'm on my way to the ninja gig at 2pm****

hey everybody - this will have to be a one-size-fits-all post from your handy local very tired musician. 

love from antwerp.

this post is fucking long, so, contents:

0 - introduction to long fucking post

1 -hamburg - free ninja gig tomorrow!

2. - a story: a trump-centric run-in with an opinionated chinese acupuncturist in belgium.

3 -an awesome comic inspired by tour

3a. i'm bisexual if you missed it.

4 -ANTWERP PATRON PHOTO & VIRTUAL SIGNING! and....being the media in a sexy bathroom

5 -hamburg guest list for tomorrow (YES!!! WE HAVE SOME FREE TICKETS!!)

6 -AN INVITE TO DO MARTIAL ARTS WITH ME IN PRAGUE!!!!

7 - and lastly: national voter registration day....

..........

fer starters:

here's the tour schedule for this week:

Tue Sep 24 – Germany – Hamburg – Laeiszhalle (LOTS OF TICKETS LEFT!)

We Sep 25 – Germany – Leipzig – Haus Auensee (LOTS OF TICKETS LEFT!)

Thu Sep 26 – Czech Republic – Prague – Hybernia (ALMOST SOLD OUT!)

Fri Sep 27 – Luxembourg  – Luxembourg – Conservatoire (WELL-SOLD, BUT FILLING)

Sat Sep 28 – France – Paris – Bataclan (ALMOST SOLD OUT!)

introduction to long fucking post:

UGGGHHHHHHH. the part of the tour where i start drinking three coffees a day and seeing zits explode all over my face has kicked in! HEY. it's that time.

i am too exhausted to be able to convey everything i need to convey.

i am about 5 posts behind....things have really bottlenecked for a lot of reasons.....and i apologize it;'s going to be a blur of posting for the next week while i try to catch up with one hand while playing 5 shows in a row with the other.

this one of the hardest legs of this tour. i tired to schedule this tour so i never did more than 3 in a row. we failed. a lot of things are failing. whatever. 

tour stamina is a thing. 

i hit the wall about 6 days ago and have not recovered. i am still killing it on stage, i'm a good human performer. but i'm not at full mast, my sleep is lagging, my voice is suffering, and.... it's requiring a lot of adjusting and humor. 

i've tried really hard, as usual, on this tour, to "keep up" on the admin/email/posting side, and i've failed :) posts don't go out, tickets get lost, plans and press go unanswered, friends get frustrated, the team gets winded. 

it is a failure that i have come to recognize as a classic mid-tour enemy to simply befriend. 

hello, zits. i know you. you arrive because there is not a shower with soap every night. sometimes there is soap. and sometimes there is a shower. but not always both. sometimes i collapse before getting to everything i promised. 

i used to be able to catch up in the cracks, just barely.....cracks like the two days i just had....but instead of putting together posts, i spent time with neil and ash. this is the cost of parenthood, and i pay it fucking happily, i gotta say.

cause you know what?? i got to go the toy museum this morning (thanks, julie! and sven!!) with my husband and my kid. we got a private tour. it was magical. i would post pictures but i'm too lazy. i'll try later. one thing at a time. i'll try to get them up on instagram tomorrow if there's a moment. (here's yet another prayer to patreon to fix their mobile uploading).

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

meanwhile, gabrielle is trying to help me in the post department (she just finished drafting a photo-post about the climate strike, which we will try to get out tomorrow). hayley is coming back to the office soon. she's had a rough run, as well. it rains, it pours.

1.

FIRST OF ALL AND MOST IMPORTANT - HAMBURG.... i apologize about the very late notice but i've been fucked and behind...THIS IS HAPPENING TOMORROW!

i'm doing yet another free gig for OPEN PIANO FOR REFUGEES!

the one in vienna was off the hook (here's a photo by Dr. Claudia Rapp)

.....and attended by 2,000 people. this one is probably going to be WAY smaller given the late announce and the non-weekend, but try to come!!! it should be intimate and special as fuck!

i managed to get the word out today on social media, so anything you can do, hamburg, to spread the word would be handy.....

here's the FB EVENT link!!! https://www.facebook.com/events/2447730438651712/

there's about 200 people RSVPd on there, go join, and share the link!!

if you want to tweet about it, it's posted on twitter here, just go RT the hell out of it tonight and tomorrow AM:

https://twitter.com/amandapalmer/status/1176149715156701186?s=20

SEE YOU THERE - please find each other!!!

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

2. A STORY. 

meanwhile.....

i did what amanda loves to do when she finally gets three hours to herself on a rare off day.

after sauntering through chinatown in antwerp after a nice rice-paper roll catch-up with jack, my trusted confidant and foreign tour correspondent (how did i ever live without one?), i saw a sign for a second-story lo-fi acupuncture joint. o yes.

i walked up the rickety stairs. there were no signs about walk-in service, no price charts or ads that you see on many asian walk-in-style massage joints, but the door was open. there was a sweet chinese man behind a counter, counting some herbs and on his phone at the same time.

"english"? i said

"yes" he said. "what want?"

"do you do walk-ins, like, can i get a treatment right now?"

"NOW?"

"yes, now. if it's okay."

"what wrong?"

"my neck. i am a singer, just visiting. i sing."

"OH SINGER?"

"yes."

"from where??"

"america."

"where in america??"

"new york,"

and at this moment, a moment i have come to love as a person who can now officially identify as a person who comes from new york, he got what i have come to understand is the universal-new-york-eye-twinkle. everybody around the world has new york ideas. new york state of mind. it's like saying you come from disney world. 

"SINGER FROM NEW YORK!" 

he looked at his appointment book, which seems jammed packed with appointments even though there wasn't a soul in the whole joint, 

"i see you now. you have cash??"

"i have cash."

i did not ask how much. literally three minutes later i was standing aside table on the next floor up, taking off whatever clothes were necessary.

he looked at me and shook his head.

"MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. hahahahaha."

"oh, i know. i am so sorry about that."

"HAHAHAHA. MAKE AMERICA GREAT."

"i mean, yeah. it's embarrassing."

"trump, he business man,"

"yes", i agreed, "business man. not president."

i got on the table, facedown, and he stuck 10 needles in my neck, and continued talking.

"america VERY great. once. world war two. normandy beach. SO MANY AMERICAN DIE. american very great. now...america not so great." he shook his head.

i wanted to cry.

"i know, i know." i said "....it's true. america not so great now.

"obama good!!"

"yes, yes!!" i said, suddenly cheered and relieved, as he stuck another 5 needles in my back. "we liked him better."

"clinton good, maybe okay. bush not so good. reagan great!!"

"errrr...well...."

"you think biden??? or you think warren??" he jiggled the needles in my neck and i winced. 

"I THINK WARREN OUCH." 

"warren, woman". i couldn't see him, but i could feel him shaking his head. "america never have woman."

did he mean that america hadn't YET had a woman president? or that america NEVER WOULD HAVE a woman president? it was hard to tell.

"yes, warren is a woman, but i think america is probably ready for an OW woman."

"MPHHHH" he said. "OKAY. you stay here maybe half hour, i be back."

and i stayed there, with all the needles in my back for half an hour, and a half hour later, he came back in the room, with a belly laugh, saying:

"MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!"

..........

he gave me some chinese minty honey syrup for my voice.

he said

"GOOD LUCK FOR SHOW SINGER FROM NEW YORK!! MAKE AMERICA GREAT! HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

and i said 

"I WILL!!!! I WILL!!!!!"

i meant it.

i really loved him.

...........

3. Vera Keitmeier made this amazing comic in ESSEN:

....and this inspired me to think that if you guys are okay with me hiring TOUR CORRESPONDENTS, maybe next time i tour i need a resident tour COMICS ARTIST.

ALSO I WANT TO DO A REAL RECORDING OF THIS SONG. so many people have asked, so now... "schrei nach liebe" needs to be a thing. maybe one in german and one in english with a good translation. is there one out there?

 and if you think i'm kidding on either counts....look at my fucking face.....

3a. see it?

by the way

happy BISEXUAL AWARENESS DAY.

i am aware that i am bi. i have been since i was 15. it's a weird thing to be. half the time, they think you're being non-committal. but maybe....EXACTLY!!!! NON-COMMITTAL AS LIFESTYLE, BITCHES. i commit to nothing except what i want right now goddamit. that makes me pan-everything. no problem. take me as i am.

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

4. ANTWERP.... i didn't post up a post-show virtual signing for antwerp....so if you were there, please leave your thoughts here on this post. it was an incredible show in an especially incredible venue....de roma wins this tour hands down for sound, vibe and hospitality. they lose points for promising to make the bathrooms gender-neutral and failing to do so.

but jack and i broke ranks and gabrielle took this photo of us anyway:

and i posted the below on social media:

from the desk of WE ARE THE MEDIA: this is me and australian writer/journalist jack nicholls, the “foreign tour correspondent” that i was inspired to hire with patreon money after a few major newspapers in the US and UK declined to review the tour....or the album. and some of them even refused to preview the tour, which i found somewhat devastating, particularly since these were newspapers that i considered supporters of the feminist cause.

if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

or just be ‘em.

you can call it buying the media: i can call it making the media ourselves.

you can call it “fixing” the media...i can call it, well, fixing the media.

jack, one of the best young living writers i know, is traveling this entire leg of the european tour and going to all the shows and ninja / activist events, taking notes, doing research on local politics, conducting casual interviews with the community, and working on writing a 2-3 part essay that covers all aspects of what’s happening.

AND since all good journalists need a photographer, i allocated patreon money to hire an equally-on-fire photo-journalist (+ feminist-writer-blogger) gabrielle motola to come along and capture images.

the final reportage piece they assemble together will be an official “thing” (or two, or three?) on the patreon and boom, everybody wins: a great journalist and photographer get well-paid work that the mainstream media can’t afford to give them (or won’t give them for....other reasons), and the art and community gets represented by trusted allies instead of weirdly-intentioned reporters who don’t actually get it.

and in all seriousness: i have nothing against the mainstream rags. zero hard feelings, and please, i beg of you, come cover this movement and this moment when you get the resources or the journalists available. i know it’s hard being an outlet right now with allocations for covering the arts dwindling into effing nothing.

all respect.

but for now, we are all over this.

we have the people, we have the funds, we have the reach, we therefore have the power.

we are the media.

by the way: we have continued requesting gender neutral bathrooms across europe and almost all of the venues have accommodated, and everything has been safe, respectful, and working great. thank you everyone for being an amazing, inclusive, beautiful working-together community. it takes a village to build a better future.

SPEAKING OF THE VILLAGE, here's the CORRECT group photo from ANTWERP!!!! 

(sorry bout that)

WHEEEEEE.

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

i cannot say too much about how mind-opening this be-the-media-stunt/act/movement has been, and how excited i am to wrest control away from the usual-suspect-confused media-makers who do not always....er......do the right thing. 

a new kind of crowd-power. i was sort of scared. now i am loving it. i love you. i love jack and gabrielle. 

we are getting more and more excited about what we might be able to do. 

i love everything possible.

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

5. PATRON TICKETS FOR HAMBURG!!!!

i'm in hamburg tomorrow, tues, the 24th!

IF YOU WANT FREE TICKETS TO THE HAMBURG SHOW TOMORROW AT LAEISZHALLE!!

WE HAVE ABOUT 20 TO GIVE AWAY!!! PLEASE COMMENT "I WANT TICKETS TO HAMBURG" SO I CAN FIND YOU EASILY, INCLUDE YOUR FULL NAME AND WHETHER YOU WANT A SINGLE TICKET OR A PAIR. YOUR TICKETS WILL BE AT THE BOX OFFICE. 

I CAN CONFIRM BY AROUND 4 PM tomorrow ..... BUT IF YOU'RE ONE OF THE FIRST 20 PEOPLE ASKING, YOU'RE GOING TO BE OKAY.

if you can afford tickets, please buy them, and please encourage people to get tickets for the show, there are a fuck ton, this hall seats 2,000 people!!!

public on sale is HERE: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/

6. PRAGUE....THIS IS THE WEIRDEST ONE!!!

WANT TO COME DO MARTIAL ARTS PRACTICE IN PRAGUE this thursday before the show at hybernia??? 

YEAH YOU DO!!!!!!! 

this will be great if even only 10-15 brave people can make it out. 

this is a special invitation from my ameican-living-in-czech-friend, david franklin. he's been a marital arts teacher and artist for decades and he's a real gem of a human being.

i am 90% sure i can make it too so i will see you there!!! 

DON"T BE AFRAID: THIS WILL BE REALLY FUN.

/////////////////////

SPECIAL EVENT

Pre-concert Shintaido practice 5:00 - 6:00pm!!!!

before Amanda Palmer's concert at Hybernia in Prague, September 26, 2019

open to everyone, beginners welcome

at Studio Bailemos, Prague

Come and join our pre-concert Shintaido practice and experience a unique and energizing form of Japanese movement training. This training is for EVERYONE, INCLUDING COMPLETE BEGINNERS!

Performance artist, filmmaker, video producer (Dresden Dolls’ “Girl Anachronism,” “Coin-Operated Boy,” Michael Pope’s “Neovoxer”), and Shintaido instructor David Franklin has an invitation for you:

• Come to a Shintaido class at Studio Bailemos dance studio in Prague's Holešovice district before the concert
• After the practice, come to the concert! The dance studio is not far from the concert venue (15 - 18 minutes by public transport, 10 minutes by car). Do you want to experience a fantastic way to get psyched and energized before the concert? This is it!

Never heard of Shintaido? It’s an amazing, modern, dynamic, artistic form of holistic body movement training from Japan that combines theater and movement training with martial arts conditioning methods. It’s wild. It’s unrestrained. It’s open-minded and open-bodied. If you like Palmer’s music, you will find it to be in a similar vein. [www.shintaido.cz]

Details and schedule:

Arrive at 4:50 pm at Stuido Bailemos, Na Maninách 1149/32 170 00  Praha 7 – Holešovice (How to get there by public transport)

• Shintaido will be 5:00 − 6:00 pm
• The concert is at Hybernia Theater, Nám. Republiky 3/4 Prague and starts at 8:00 pm sharp. The organizers recommend arriving at the venue by 7:15 - 7:30.

There are a very limited number of spaces, so book your Shintaido class now! 

All you need to bring is some workout clothes and a towel if you’ll want to shower after the class. The ticket price of 200 CZK / 8 EUR includes Shintaido practice at Studio Bailemos on Thursday Sept 26, plus it includes an extra Shintaido on Thursday October 3 at KC Zahrada Cultura Center, Malenická 1784/2, 148 00 Praha 11-Chodov!

BOOK A SPACE  HERE!!!!

http://shintaido.weebly.com/before-amanda-palmers-concert.html

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

7. okay my loves. one last thing....

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

HA HA HA HA HA HA

NO FOR FUCKING REAL

TOMORROW IS NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION DAY!!!!!

AMERICA - PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, MAKE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE AND THAT EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND LOVE AND DONT LOVE IS REGISTERED. 

your planet is depending on you.

where i am right now, in belgium, as in many countries, VOTING IS MANDATORY. VOTING HAPPENS ON SUNDAYS. VOTING DAY IS NATIONAL HOLIDAY.

this is not true in america. and it's like that for a lot of terrible reasons. there are a lot of people out there who DO NOT WANT YOU TO VOTE. PLEASE. PLEASE. REGISTER. VOTE. 

get the word out on social media. bother THAT ONE FRIEND WHO YOU KNOW ISN'T REGISTERED. LITERALLY ASK PEOPLE. let's do this.

find out more here

https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/about/

,,,,,,,,

I LOVE YOU ALLLLLLL

PLEASE HELP ME GET THROUGH THIS WEEK ALIVE

THANKS

x

a

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

1. if you’re a patron, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol.

2. see All the Things i've made so far on patreon: http://amandapalmer.net/patreon-things

3. join the official AFP-patron facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/afpland

4. new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/

5. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net

Tue Sep 24 – Germany – Hamburg – Laeiszhalle

We Sep 25 – Germany – Leipzig – Haus Auensee

Thu Sep 26 – Czech Republic – Prague – Hybernia (ALMOST SOLD OUT)

Fri Sep 27 – Luxembourg  – Luxembourg – Conservatoire

Sat Sep 28 – France – Paris – Bataclan

Fri Oct 11 – Denmark – Copenhagen – Bremen Teater

Sat Oct 12 – Sweden – Stockholm – Södra Teatern (SOLD OUT)

Wed Oct 16 – UK – Bexhill – De La Warr Pavilion

Sat Oct 19 – UK – Cardiff – St David's Hall

Sun Oct 20 – UK – Cambridge – Corn Exchange

Wed Oct 23 – Ireland – Cork – Opera House

Thu Oct 24 – Ireland – Dublin – National Concert Hall

Sat Oct 26 – Ireland – Belfast – Ulster Hall

Sun Oct 27 – Ireland – Limerick – Univeristy Hall

Frin Nov 1 – UK – Dunfermline – Carnegie Hall 

Sat Nov 2 – UK – Glasgow – City Halls

Sun Nov 3 – UK – Manchester – Albert Hall

Mon Nov 4 – UK – York – Opera House

Thu Nov 7 – UK – Newcastle – Tyne Theatre

Sun Nov 24 – Portugal – Braga – Theatro Circo

Thu Dec 5 – UK – London – Union Chapel (SOLD OUT)

Fri Dec 6 – UK – London – Union Chapel (SOLD OUT)

Fri Dec 13th - UK - London - Union Chapel (SOLD OUT)

Sat Dec 14th - UK - London - Union Chapel (ALMOST SOLD OUT)

https://nointermission.amandapalmer.net