my conversation with tim minchin: "accidentally brave" {podcast} (Patreon)

{public post}

hello loves.

my love and heart is reaching out to you, whatever corner of the globe you may be on. so many of my friends are suffering right now. many are doing ok. but many are not. it is not a coincidence. so i just wanted to send you all my love. i'm slowing everything down and trying to just live in gratitude. 

it's hard. and easy. 

and i love you.

short story:  the new podcast episode with TIM MINCHIN is up. links below, and just go get it anywhere you can listen to a podcast....apple, spotify, pick yer poison. it's REALLY GOOD. i think tim is one of the best songwriters and thinkers of our time. 

we had a hilarious, soulful and sometimes painfully frank talk about how we make art, our struggle with our own insecurities, how we have to protect our love ones (and sometimes fail) when we write confessional songs. and we talked about...america. that part was creepy, given some things that tim said - this interview took place less than a month before covid really hit. 

AND....i'm going to plead with you especially to share this one on social media, pelase!, because i think some of you may have some tim minchin fans in your feeds who will want to hear this, but it won't reach them unless you point them there. 

THANK YOU.

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longer?

greetings from a remote coast in new zealand, where i've been graciously "adopted" by an incredible kind family for the few days before christmas, since i have no family of my own here in new zealand. ash is excited about christmas but also sad. he misses his father. he keeps trying understand covid and explain it to people. ("i don't WANT to wash my HANDS! IF I DON'T WASH THEM I WILL GET COVID AND I WANT TO GET COVID BECAUSE I WANT TO BE SIC B ECAUSE THE LAST TIME I GOT SICK ON THE BED WE GOT TO CHANGE THE SHEETS TOGETHER AND I LIKE CHANGING THE SHEETS TOGETHER AND I WANT COVIIIIIID!"...er, almost, ash, almost.) i'll try to write more soon about how it's all feeling. it's all feeling like a lot.

i have the end-of-the-year charity patreon post and wrap-up to get out, and i'll be trying to do that before the new year. you may have notived we've dropped off doing the monthly althing...we're going to kind of do one GIANT BANG post for the end of the year and we'll put all the financials in that one post for those of you who want to read it. 

then the podcast will keep rolling on, and i'm giving the team, and myself, a little breather. i'll wrote more about that soon when i have a moment.

i have been looking forward to publishing this "art of asking everything" episode with tim minchin immensely. 

he's an old songwriting hero of mine, even though i didn't discover his work until my mid-thirties. i remember seeing "prejudice" and "confessions" on youtube and going: "aha. my brother". 

if you've never seen tim perform "confessions".....please please go watch it right now: https://youtu.be/4bEGLbCNRqw

ever since this podcast came out, i've been mulling over something tim said at the very end. here it is, from the transcript (which is attached to this post).(and i left in the part at the top about the lyrics because it's funny :):

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Amanda at 76:21 (...talking bout songwriting process)

I actually do leave myself voice memos, I’ll sing songs into my phone, thinking, someday! And then... 

Tim 76:28 

And then you think, you never do, and then one day you do. I mean, most of the songs on my new record are voice memos and notes I've left, and not looked at for years, and gone back. I had this lyric written down, women in four wheel drive porsches always look miserable. I just went, that's hilarious. And it sat there for years, and I couldn't figure out, and every time I went to it, I heard it as a Latin thing. And I just went, I don't wanna write a fricking Latin thing, and now it's part of a pop song, and I really, really like it, and it took years. 

Amanda 76:58 

You lived in London for a while. You lived in LA for a while. You're back in Australia. And these are the three places that I've also lived, by the way. Do you see anything about America that you think Americans aren't quite seeing, that you can offer up? 

Tim 77:16 

The thing that they all have in common, that the world has in common, is that we don't revere our leaders anymore, we spend our whole time flippantly calling them evil on Twitter, and so who the hell would want to be a leader, given one of the things was that you got respected, and everyone says politicians get paid too much, I don't think they get paid anywhere near enough, and I think we attract the wrong type of people. It's no longer, and especially women, at a time in history where women are on the move, in corporations, and in the arts, and where at an incredible pace, we are moving towards equity, women are still not going into politics, because it's hateful. 

Because we hate them, and tell them we hate them, and tell them we hope they die. So there's this terrible dearth of talent in leadership. But that's a whole other conversation. The thing I think about America, which I know will sound condescending, and is simplistic, and of course, whenever you try and draw a rule to apply to 380 million people, you're gonna fail. 

But if there's anything that Americans have in common, apart from the ones who have emigrated, it's that deep down, despite everything, they do believe America is the greatest country in the world. They do believe it's special. And there's no doubt it is special, and it has been special, but it's actually probably more the latter, it probably has been special, because of various conditions, because Europe destroyed itself in the middle of the 20th century, because of all the immigration of all the different minds from all over the world, because, yes, of the American dream and the free market, great ideas, great things happen there, and there's no doubt they have military might. 

But I think until, as a culture, Americans realize that they are no longer the greatest country in the world, by any meaningful measure, that they are genuinely an empire on the brink of collapsing into despotism, until they say, oh, no, we're not the greatest country in the world, because we fail our poor on health and education, among other things, and because we revere greed, we revere individualism over collective enterprise, even my most liberal American friends, deep down, you go, well, America is not the greatest country in the world, they go, yeah, I mean, well, it is, but I mean, you can see them do this, yeah, but we said it every morning at school, we had it indoctrinated into us. 

America, I refer to it in my Fuck This song as having a Teflon self-esteem. We, as Western nations, but especially America, needs to look at itself and go, oh, we need fixing. Stop thinking if we double down on American values, it will get better. If you double down on the American dream, it'll keep going. 

Rampant growth capitalism and individualism.

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

this conversation happened on february 20th, the day of my show in sydney at the enmore theatre.

february 20th. 

Rampant growth capitalism and individualism.

febraury 20th.

Rampant growth capitalism and individualism.

inhale.

exhale.

we hugged.

(photos by michael mccomiskey)

i've now been away from america for fifteen months.

by far the longest i've ever been away from "home".

i've been in new zealand for over nine months.

those words from tim kept haunting me.

taking stock of my own country, and my feelings about my own country, has been one of the hardest things about this whole last year.

my feelings about america aren't what the used to be. i'm mourning, in a way, the kind of bold enthusiasm i used to have about my own country. sometimes, i just feel grief. there's a huge hopefulness in there. but also: grief.

holding that paradox is something i've gotten used to in the last nine months. not just with america, but also in my family life. grief and hopefulness all in the same breath.

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please go listen.

here's more about tim....

(photo by Damian Bennett)

Tim Minchin is an Australian composer/lyricist, musician, comedian, actor, writer, producer and director.

Tim toured the UK and Australia as a solo performer, attracting growing audiences and many awards. He also performed in Canada, the US, Europe, Scandinavia and New Zealand. By 2010, he was performing with symphony orchestras, and selling out some of the world’s most famous venues.

During a trip to LA, for a charity concert in April 2012, Tim successfully auditioned for the role of Atticus Fetch in Showtime’s David Duchovny vehicle, Californication. He played rockstar Atticus in 10 episodes of season six. 

Later that year, Tim was cast as Judas Iscariot in the spectacular arena production of Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar. Co-starring Ben Forster as Jesus and Melanie C as Mary, it toured the UK and Australia in 2012-13. There are some quotes on Tim’s performance in the Quotes/Reviews section. The show was released on a DVD which is available worldwide.

In 2015, he appeared as Northern Irish ex-convict, Smasher Sullivan, in The Secret River, an Australian drama mini-series adapted from Kate Grenville’s acclaimed novel and directed by Daina Reid for the ABC. He won the 2016 Logie Award for Most Outstanding Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Smasher.

In February 2016, Tim wrote and released Come Home (Cardinal Pell) in support of survivors of clerical abuse. The song continues to raise funds and was nominated for the 2017 APRA Song of the Year.

He worked on the stage musical adaptation of Groundhog Day, writing the music and lyrics, with Danny Rubin (who wrote the original screenplay) writing the book and Matthew Warchus directing. Following its hugely successful and acclaimed limited run at The Old Vic, London, in the summer of 2016, the show opened at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, April 2017, to more rave reviews and ran until September 17th, 2017. MTI are now licensing productions at regional theatres around the world.

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PODCATS DEETS:

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! BECAUSE PATRONAGE!

VOILA!

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WAIT - HOW DO I LISTEN?

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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BOOK CLUB?

well, tim hasn't written a book, BUT i did start a thread on the shadowbox forum for patrons to discuss this episode...here:

 https://forum.theshadowbox.net/t/why-hasnt-tim-minchin-written-a-book/6464

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CREDITS:

The Art of Asking Everything, Season 1, Episode 13
Tim Minchin: Accidentally Brave

find tim at:

@timminchin

www.timminchin.com

Our interview was recorded by Sean Carey at Church Street Studios in SYdney, Australia.

The theme song that you’re listening to right now is called Bottomfeeder, it’s from my 2012 crowdfunded album, Theatre Is Evil.

I would like to give a shout-out to Jherek Bischoff, who arranged the beautiful in-betweeny orchestral usic that you hear in this podcast, that’s mostly snippets from my latest album, There Will Be No Intermission, which you should listen to, if you like very, very sad songs about death, abortion, and other stuff. And you can go support Jherek on his Patreon, he’s really prolific, and his music is incredible.

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

I always need to thank everyone at Team AFP: Michael, Hayley, Jordan, Alex, you guys are golden.

And this whole thing would not be possible without my patrons, all 15,000 of you. Patronage means that I can release this podcast with no ads, no sponsorship, no branding, and especially no censorship. We are actually the media. This podcast is just made by me and my team. Special thanks to my higher tier patrons, Simon Oliver, Saint Alexander, Birdie Black, Ruth Ann Harnisch, Leela Cosgrove, and Robert W Perkins.

THANK YOU.

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THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

we've attached a pdf of the transcript of the podcast the patreon post. to view it, you can download it by visiting this patreon post on the web

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

because of you, as usual:

No ads.

No sponsors.

No censorship.

We.

Are.

The.

Media.

doin' our little part in the universe to phase out rampant capitalism and individualism.

i fucking love you all.

more soon.

x

a

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

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http://amandapalmer.net/things

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