life outside covid...& some thoughts from me, my dad & a local NZ friend (Patreon)

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hi everyone.

greeetings from havelock north, aotearoa. quickies: a really great new podcast is coming soon...dr. BJ miller is going to blow you away with his articularte thoughts about death. also, there's an althing coming....and an open patron discussion about some financial choices we all need to make, regarding how i post & charge for stuff. wait for it, and please VOTE. ha ha. i mean...vote EVERYWHERE YOU CAN.

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

yesterday, a friend from LA told me a story of being on a remote beach in america with his girlfriend. 

he said he thought of ash when he saw a five-year-old with his family approach them, and they dutifully put their masks on, even though it made them sad. a few moments later, another five-year-old from an oncoming family bubble approached the first five-year old, only to be told "STAY AWAY! YOU ARE WAY TOO CLOSE!" by the other child. my friend told me that they were so heartbroken by seeing this scene play out between the children that they wished they'd just stayed home; it wasn't worth the heartbreak.

i almost cried hearing the story.

it's monday here, and i'm already tired. 

but amidst all the longterm homesickness, weirdness and the continual heartbreak, it does feel like there's a little whiff of hope in the air....i can smell it. it isn't just that the polls are showing biden holding a very steady lead (that's good, but we remember 2016), and it isn't just because early voting has started here and labour is already crushing it in the polls (again, polls....can lie).

it's because i feel a sense of general hopefulness stirring among my peers around the world. we have grit. it now feels to me that everyone has found, or is finding, new ways of being okay. i can see this in my converstions with my friends - especially the parents - back in the states and in the UK. the newspapers cannot tell you how people are. only people can tell you how they are.

it is hard, with the time change, to check in constantly with my friends and family back in teh states, but i make a point of trying to talk, with my VOICE, to one person in america or the UK every day. lockdown and the sudden single-motherhood thing knocked me on my ass so ahrd that for a few months, i was barely able to commujnicate with anyone outside me emergency circle - my staff, my close family, my very trusted friends. everything else had to fall away. it was just too much.

now, with the smoke and debris finally out of my immedaite yard and the sun breaking through the clouds a little, i'm finally starting to pick up the pieces, and i'm calling friends i haven't talked to - or even texted - in over 6-7 months. every phone call helps me peice together a mosaic of a new america that is....jesus, what is it? it doesn't even feel right to say "in recovery". it's still triage. yet it is becoming so clear...we are going to get through this no matter what happens.

my democratic vegan friends in california  who have barely left their apartment for 7 months now. my friends who have lost their housing, apartments, places in new york. my trump supporting cousins in california who - frighteningly - think that the mask rules are kinda silly. my friends who have moved to canada with their kids. my friends who are thinking about moving to portugal. my friends who have lost their art businesses. 

my friends who don't know what to think anymore, and are just exhausted by living.

all this....but still, i'm also filled with hope.

i am filled with hope because i see this country, aotearoa, new zealand, actually functioning. 

i live in a world with practically no covid. 

i almost never see a person in a mask.

way more importantly, neither does ash.

i don't know anyone here in the community who has lost anybody. this country locked down HARD AS FUCK, and EARLY. five million people....25 deaths. and ash is able to run around a playground with kids, slobbering and cuddling with whoever. i got to take him tot he theater over the weekend, there are bouncy castles and bubbles in the street.

there is a lot of touching and sharing with strangers and doing stuff that would normally just feel so ... normal, and now feels like such a privilege.

i spent a lot of moments this weekend at the fringe festival.

hundreds of people watching and making art, all together.

it is disorientingly shocking to think that this is happening HERE in this little corner of new zealand and not in new york. my brain is breaking.

from the fringe insta.

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

i am so aware this is possible because of....the government. 

and the people's willingness to participate in government.

by that, i don't just  mean VOTING.

i mean: when the country locked down, people took it seriously. there were meeps and complaints, sure. one wacky freedom-fighter even sued the NZ government over lockdown, and the court awarded him a technical win ...while also sanely saying, basically, that government did the right thing given the circumstances"

that's the thing about government. 

life IS...circumstances. it's never simple.

i think we've all gotten so used to government being a THEM thing ( "those politicians, doing their politician thing", instead of an US thing ("people who actually represent me, and people who look and live sort of like me, who know and care about my family and community!") that it's become hard to imagine a world where everybody really DOES trust the system, trust the government, and the rules that the government puts in place.

but i see it here, more than i ever have, and it gives me hope.

i went with my friend kya farquhar to VOTE the other day.

i can't vote. i have permission to stay here til 2022, but i'm not cool enough to vote here yet.

kya is my american friend who lives in havelock north and is the reason i came here. she has three daughters, and two of them, nyssa and izzy, came with her (and me, and ash) while she cast her vote. here in NZ you can register online to get this...

....which is a little thing called an easyvote card that makes it super-simple for the workers are the polls to identify you. SO COOL. bam boom. 

the big vote here - labour (jacinda ardern) versus national (judith collins) - is october 17th. it was supposed to be in september but it was pushed ahgead, because auckland - which houses a giant chunk of the entire  population - was in high covid lockdown. they pushed it so people COULD VOTE. 

THE GOVERNMENT REALLY WANTS TO MAKE VOTING EASY FOR PEOPLE. imagine.

watching kya voting made me a little weepy.

voting here is so...easy, civilized, and simple. her kids were allowed to hang out with her as she went through the process. the polling stations are open for TWO WHOLE WEEKS before the official voting date. so far, in this country of 5 million, around ONE MILLION people have already cast an early vote. 

here were some covid rules at the voting booth....

and because this town is so small....i mean, SO SMALL....it turns out my last landlord's partner was a volunteer int he lobby of the little civic center where kya voted.

this is pip:

there are two big national referendums here: one around legalizing cannabis, and one regarding euthanasia.

there is also a system here that makes SO MUCH SENSE compared to american government: THE PARTY VOTE.

you don't have to just vote for a CANDIDATE. you can vote for a PARTY AS WELL.

imagine, america, if you could cast a vote for joe biden (because, well, you have to in order to get The Orange Man out of office) BUT you could also vote for a general PARTY, a party you believed in more deeply that just, say, the part of joe biden.

like the green party. or the sunrise party.

HOW AMAZING WOULD THAT BE?

well....here, they can do that.

and if you're in aotearoa new zealand and haven't voted yet....here are some words from my new local pal jamie macphail about the party vote, and how it works.

he was chatting to me about this stuff and i asked if he would put it in writing so i could pass it along to the blog....for my kiwis, especially the younger ones:

As we inch toward the election and the polls begin to show a wider spread of votes, I have a growing sense of unease.

Like America, we have a core of conservative voters, don’t think redneck, just think folk who aren’t that keen to see reform and change, who like to see leaders being ‘strong’, and who believe that somehow welfare is of less importance than economic prosperity. Folk who see ‘liberal’ as somewhat tie-dyed weakness and still maintain that the trickledown economic model will benefit everyone.

Labour have slipped under the 50% mark. National float around the middle 30’s. Chloe {Swarbrick} has a major battle on in Central Auckland, and the Greens aren’t flourishing in the polls.

It’s only going to take a small swing, on current polling, for a National/Act Government to be a reality.

It means that strategic voting has never been so important. Labour will need a partner to win this election and run this country. That partner must be the Greens, there really is no other option.

I live in a very blue electorate, sadly. My vote for my labour candidate will have no effect on the result, but that’s where my vote will go. Traditionally I’m a ‘two ticks’ voter. I can’t afford to be, this time.

I have to party vote Green because I want a Labour led government.

Please look carefully at how you vote.

......

and on that note....

my dad, jack palmer, and i have been chatting politics lately, and i asked him to do me a similar favor and write something for you all. 

i miss my dad. i miss my whole family. 

it's getting so weird, being away from all of them for so long. here's me and jack after ash was born...at my house in woodstock around the time we made our record together:

being able to share this piece, from him, with you, makes me feel a little less miss-y.

anyway....this is what he wanted to share:

Lost in the oceans of ink – or pixels – currently on offer seeking to explain the actions of Augustus Trumpus is this simple notion. Rather than the five-dimensional chess game his sycophants would have us believe he’s playing, the self-annointed stable genius operates within one and only one aspect: What immediate action will result in my maximum personal aggrandizement? In short, purely transactional and self-serving.

No need for tedious planning or strategems. No cause for wimpy concern for impact on others. Certainly no reason to consider consistency with past actions or pronouncements. Or respect for rule of law. Most appallingly and hazardously, not the slightest rationale for any respect whatsoever for facts and objective truth.

As a result, his reaction – and always a reaction as opposed to initiative – to any threat is familiar, at least to primatologists. When large gorillas are challenged, a typical reaction is to jump up and down, vocalize intimidatingly and throw handfuls of dust in the air. Attention-getting no doubt, but hardly the basis for anything likely to result in a productive outcome

This must stop. 

And, viewed from a few weeks out, when the conclusiveness of the election – not to mention its constitutionally mandated consequences – is a matter of hot debate, when the health of the general population is of so little import as to be used blatantly as a campaign tactic, it must be brought to such a stop so obviously and so completely that the current occupant of 1600, his spawn, enablers, toadies and hangers on of all sort are left with no option but to slink off to their well-earned oblivion.

The late, great Lou Reed put it exactly right, as usual, when he penned this call to action in the last year of Reagan’s second term:

This is no time for celebration

this is no time for shaking hands

This is no time for backslapping

this is no time for marching bands

This is no time for optimism

this is no time for endless thought

This is no time for my country right or wrong

remember what that brought

There is no time

there is no time

There is no time

there is no time

This is no time to count your blessings

this is no time for private gain

This is no time to put up or shut up

it won't come back this way again

This is no time to swallow anger

this is no time to ignore hate

This is no time to be acting frivolous

because the time is getting late

This is no time to ignore warnings

this is no time to clear the plate

Let's not be sorry after the fact

and let the past become our fate

This is no time for celebration

this is no time for saluting flags

This is no time for inner searchings

the future is at hand

This is no time for phony rhetoric

this is no time for political speech

This is a time for action

because the future's within reach

This is the time

this is the time

This is the time....

because there is no time

Vote. 

It matters. This time more than ever before.

-Jack Palmer

..........

what he said.

and RIP lou reed.

and

i love you all so much.

hang in there.

and.

VOTE.

VOTE.

VOTE.

afp

p.s. oooh....heads up, i'm about to start a CAMEO!!! all the money is going to go to support the actblue for the biden/harris campaign. wait for it. it'll be expensive, but hopefully earn a shitton of dough as the election draws nigh.

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

IF YOU'RE IN THE USA.....DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER TO VOTE IN THE NOVEMBER 2020 ELECTION. DO NOT BE CONFUSED!!! help is there: you can register to vote, find your local voter registration deadlines, update your voter registration, check that your registration is still on the books, find your polling place and other important election information HERE at http://headcount.org

..........

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