My heart is a spinning rainbow beachball, and the KT Tunstall podcast {official Thing} (Patreon)

{public post}

“One of my major pursuits in life is reaching the Land of I Don’t Give a Fuck of What You Think of Me. I’m going to do what I need to do and this is what I need to do it." 

- KT, in the podcast.

Hallo Loves.

Greetings from Waiheke Island, near Auckland...where I just, really, officially ended the Global There Will Be No Intermission tour with one final patron party after the (amazing, jesus christ) show in Auckland itself. 

I want to take a moment to just recognize how insane the world is right now. You all are...everywhere. I have many patrons in America, the UK, all over Europe, Australia, Asia, South Africa....and the whole world is reeling right now. I know. I see it. I feel it. I'm in it. I haven't been home in over 15 months. I haven't seen my family, my sisters, my old heart-friends in longer than my heart can contain or make sense of. 

It's so much. I want you to know that I'm trying to slow down and feel it all, and along with my awareness and gratitude that I'm in one of the only places where you can have a party for hundreds of people or go to a theater with thousands of people or bop over to a coffeeshop and sit with no masks and little worry of catching or transmitting COVID, along with all that, I'm feeling the pain of my friends (especially in New York, in the states, in London, and in Melbourne) in a way I've never felt before. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to help. I know that there must be something I can do. I am getting ready to slow down and ready for a long haul, because I know this winter is going to be....very hard, for so many.

While many Winter, I'll be in summer. 

Things are not going according to Plan.

I think I am going to have to change how I approach, well, everything.

Reading the comments on the blog the other day was an especially important wake-up call. I don't take this blog, this community of thousands, for granted, ever. When you speak, I listen. There is something that needs to be done, I am just not sure exactly how to do it. And I'm also very aware that I'm tired.

I've had too many people write me texts saying "you look tired. are you ok?" to care any more. 

I AM TIRED. I've been trying to do my normal-ass already-weird be-an-internet-rockstar podcast run-a-staff-and-office in NYC in-a-pandemic job while trying to raise a child on my own in a country I've never lived in. It's a LOT dude. And yet I'm so much luckier than so many parents I know. I have it easy in many, many ways. Sometimes I wonder if the thing that's making me the most tired is the confusion and exhaustion around how I'm supposed to feel about all this.

I just don't know how to feel anymore. My heart is a spinning rainbow beachball.

You can spin a rainbow. After all.

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

I also know enough to know that that is OK. These moments happen. They've happened before. They'll keep happening.

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You might notice that I am capitalizing. It's because I don't know anything anymore. I'm wiping my mental slate clean and rolling up my sleeves for a lot of reckoning. Before I fully head into There Will Be Some Reckoning mode, however...there are a bunch of things I want to make sure I get out the door. All the photos from the recent shows and parties, the Official Thinging of the Hawke's Bay show live stream, which already seems like ancient history...and then....

...then and then I'll be going into a brand-new, alien gear that I've never tried before. I don't even know what to say except...I'm lost, I'm excited, and I wouldn't be able to do any of it without the safety net of this patreon, which makes dreaming and shifting tacks possible in a way that working with The System doesn't allow, at least not easily.

I have the feeling that I'll be writing a lot. I am feeling the yearning. Maybe music, maybe words. Maybe both. Sometimes I'm good at writing words and putting them to music. But I'm ready, at the moment, to empty out the well and clean it, there's a lot of fucking gunk at the bottom of my soul.

I think I need to spend at least a few weeks right now with Ash, talking to my friends, letting the muck settle. I know enough to know that I don't know what to do next, and that I have a very bad habit of filling up space because I abhor a vacuum. I think it's time to welcome the vacuum for a moment. 

Nothing's a coincidence. And The fact that this week's podcast is with one of the most inspiring musicians I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know is no coincidence.

It's as if KT is showing up, from the past, from the hotel room in London, knowing everything that was about to happen to my life: plot lost, homeland far, relationships everywhere on fragile ice-pause due to time and distance and pain, a global pandemic, a little child to care for, a whole new world to figure out....and she grabs me and says: don't forget. 

Don't forget what you're capable of.

We also talked about KT's father passing away (we just go right into death at the top, why not?), our shared love of Tom Lehrer's songwriting, how to deal with being narcissistically hungry, our pet peeves as stage performers....and KT's recent hearing loss and how it changed her life for the better.

This was one of my favorite quotes from our long, long yarn. KT:

“The most important subject is just to love yourself completely and thoroughly in every dark corner. If you really think about that, as a reality, if every single person was able to do that we would have no problems on Earth. They would go away because we wouldn't just love our own babies, we would love the babies of everything. We would love plant babies, animal babies, bacteria babies.  If we have love for ourselves, we have love for everything else.”

Oh, KT. My sister.

That I get to meet and connect with people like her....it's the best.

This is what I wrote up for the website.

There is a road to the land of No Fucks Given, and this episode’s guest, award-winning songwriter KT Tunstall, has found that road. And she, like me, has found that the Road to the Land of No Fucks is also the Road to the Land of Many Fucks…and, well, it gets really profound, trust me. KT has recently lost part of her hearing, and also just lost her dad. We swear a lot, and we go deep fast, sharing our experiences of loss and how it catapults us into growth.

One of the first things I learned about KT is that she was GAME.

When I found out we were both in Edinburgh at the same time, I reached out to her. I never met her but I had an inkling she'd be game to get weird. Sure enough, she showed up randomly at my Edinburgh ninja gig to just joyfully play for the people. 

I wrote about it here....

https://www.patreon.com/posts/edinburgh-ninja-28620426

photo by @valentinab616 on instagram

I love people who just fucking love playing music.

I really do. I loved watching KT PLAY MUSIC. She loves it.

photo by @seb_the_human_boy on instagram

photo by tiziana cimmino‎

I think you guys are gonna love our conversation.

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LISTEN TO THE PODCAST and SHARE it, please!:

audio for all of the podcast episodes are embedded on my website, including today's episode:

http://amandapalmer.net/podcast

OR....

go here, select the podcast venue of your choice (i.e. apple podcasts), and click on the most recent episode.

https://linktr.ee/AskingEverything

FREE! VOILA!

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

WAIT, I AM CONFUSED....

i know it isn't super simple. there is not JUST ONE LINK. this handy linktree has a round-up of how to tune into the podcast on some of the most popular players. we will have the audio embedded on each episode post on my website: http://amandapalmer.net/podcast

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There isn't going to be a follow-up chat or webcast this week, mama's taking the week off.

I'll be back soon, and I owe the $10 folks a webcast....we're long overdue.

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SHOW NOTES:
The Art of Asking Everything, Season 1, Episode 9
KT Tunstall: The Land of I Don’t Give A Fuck

Description:

Amanda Palmer presents an intimate conversation with KT Tunstall, recorded October 15, 2019 in London.

KT Tunstall is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. Her award winning debut album, Eye to the Telescope was released in 2004. Her latest album, WAX, was released in 2018. In total, she has released 6 albums which have all been met with critical and commercial success. KT has toured the world and has performed on talk shows in the US and Europe.

She also composes music for film and television including the movie Bad Moms.

We talked about hidden rooms in your inner world, our shared love of Tom Lehrer, being narcissistically hungry, our pet peeves as performers, KT’s hearing loss and how it changed her life for the better.

@KTTunstall

www.kttunstall.com

you can also support KT on patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/KTTunstall

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PODCAST CREDITS:

This has been The Art of Asking Everything podcast. I am Amanda Fucking Palmer. Giver of all the fucks and no fucks, simultaneously. Thank you so much to my guest, and co-no-fuck-giver-all-fuck-giver, KT Tunstall.

For everything KT go to KTTunstall.com.

For all the music you heard in this episode, you can go to the new and improved amandapalmer.net/podcast

Many millions of thanks go to my incredible team all over the globe:

Hayley Rosenblum who makes all things possible -- she is the ghost in the machine in our Patreon and also makes sure everything else gets done -- words, pictures, live chats -- she is basically always backstage helping me out with stuff, and general internet love, and hands. I could not do this without her. Thank you Hayley.

My assistant Michael McComiskey who makes sure all the trains run on time and that I am able to do all the things, schedules, emails, thank you so much Michael.

Thanks to my #MerchQueen Alex Knight who is also helping us out lately to transcribe all of these conversations so they are accessible to people who cannot listen. Thank you Alex.

And thanks always to my manager in Sydney, Jordan Verzar who brings it all together, and makes sure everyone gets paid.

Last but not least, this whole podcast would not be possible, period, without my patrons. At current count, I’ve got about 15,000 Patrons and they all give a couple of bucks per month to make it possible for this podcast to have no ads, no sponsors, no censorship, no bullshit, we are just the media, doing what we do, without a boss. So thank you. And special thanks are due to my high level patrons, Simon Oliver, Saint Alexander, Birdie Black, Ruth Ann Harnisch, and Leela Cosgrove, thank you guys for giving so much money to help us make what we make.

Everyone else listening, if you’re not part of the Patreon, please go become a supporting member. You can do it for a dollar a month. And you’ll also get to hang out with the community and unlock posts, and other little side chats, and all sorts of beautiful things that I post up to the Patreon every couple of days. The podcast comes out every Tuesday. I try to do some sort of extras with my guests when possible. You can also follow my social media or the podcast page for more information.

And I just want to thank you for tuning in and spending time listening to these conversations with people like KT who have so much wisdom to impart.

If you’ve been rating and reviewing the podcast, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Signing off, this is Amanda Fucking Palmer. Keep on asking everything.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

we've attached a pdf of the transcript of the episode to the bottom of this patreon post (it's a hyperlink at the very bottom of the post with a little paper clip attachment symbol next to it)

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THANK YOU TO ALL YOU PATRONS, FOR SUPPORTING THIS PODCAST.

because of you: No ads. No sponsors. No censorship.

we.

are.

the media.

x

a

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

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