The Sinéad Tape, and two crowdfunds close to my heart..... (Patreon)

Hola my loves....

Greetings to a whole handful of new patrons, who I assume came here via the post I did about Sinéad, which made the rounds, and I'm fucking glad it did. I meant it, and it came straight out of my heart. I wrote it in a fever by the side of the road, and now of course I see all the typos and mistakes and repeated words. But I also love writing and publishing quickly, and I love writing without an editor, and I just love fucking writing. I love it.

So: new patrons, WELCOME!!! And you're all very, truly welcome here. This community is a kind one, and the conversations are good, and we take care of one another. I'm in and out at the moment - dealing with a lot of life clean-up, divorce, slow-=moving parts. The posts are often typo-riddled. I shoot from the hip, I post when I want, it doesn't always make sense...and that's the way we like it around here. See the bottom of the post for more ways to connect with the folks here. The patreon comments are kinda weird and clunky.

Housekeeping: I have a BEAUTIFUL cover song - made together with my friend Holly Miranda - dropping within the next few days, just for y'all, and we're working on the Althing newsletter (our monthly round-up) for the end of the month.

And....a propos.....greetings from a deep clean in my old apartment in Boston. It's reckoning and housekeeping season over here and I'm diving into the bowels of 2000-2010, cleaning boxes of yore. I've been wanting to do this since 2019, but....yeah. Let's not talk about it. 

I found this sock. Just one sock. I really don't wanna throw it away. What do I do with this one fucking sock? Tell me.

As fate would have it, this clean meant that I had handy access to my old tape collection, which I rarely do, and I found the  Sinéad tape I talked about in yesterday's post.

I loved reading all of your reflections...death spawns life, it spawns measuring, death leads us into yet more questions and answers about the living. If you missed the post, it's here on the patreon. But I also posted it to facebook, where things seem to travel fastest nowadays, and it's had almost 30,000 shares, which is astounding. If you wanna go share it, go share it. I take to the comments to defend my plugging of the patreon. Nothing new there. I think Sinéad woulda been proud of me.

I want to approach a Sinéad cover for next month...I already have brewing ideas brimming out of my broken heart....I think I know what to do. I love this patreon. I love this ability to work and make fast and haul my friends in. I just fucking love it. I know I say it all tghe time, but thank you for being here and supporting me. It's everything.

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MEANWHILE

I'm coming at you today with two very different crowdfunds that I've been meaning to plug; both coming from people who are very close to my heart. If you're able to pick one or the other of these to support this month, it would mean the absolute world both to me and to them.

Jason's is in the LAST DAY and HAS A DEADLINE, so get on it!!! It closes in 32 hours.

......

First...and this one has no deadline....

FIND SUSI NEWBORN A FOREVER HOME

I'm crossposting this from something I threw up on the socials a few weeks ago, in case you missed it. 

Y’all know me, I’m the queen of asking and I wrote a bestselling book about it and all that jazz. I get asked daily - still - to share people’s indiegogo, gofundme and kickstarter campaigns.

I say no to 99.9% of the requests, because I’m an artist, not a daily news source for the world’s crowdfunds. But every once in a blue moon I share one, and I make a personal appeal, if it means a lot to me.

This one means a lot to me.

My dear friend Susi Newborn - born in London to Argentinean parents and longtime Kiwi - is 73 years old and an explosively compassionate life-long activist for peace and nuclear disarmament.

Here’s a picture I took of Susi - the very day I met her - at a local protest on Waiheke to stop a developer from building a yacht marina that was threatening to destroy the local penguin habitat.

...and here's a beautiful drawing that Mary Moore did based on the photo.

She’s an iconic hero to many. 

She’s a hero to ME. 

She helped found the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior (and was the ONLY WOMAN on the crew) back in the 1970s, and she was there - and lost a comrade - the day it was bombed and destroyed by the French in 1985.

I met Susi while I was living (and flailing) on Waiheke Island in 2021, and she became a close friend and true “auntie” to Ash while we were going through some of our loneliest and scariest moments during the pandemic. She helped ground me while I was solo mothering. At the same time, Susi was dealing with two huge health issues: ongoing recovery from breast cancer and an open heart surgery. It was scary.

During this time, she was my zen mentor as she laughed and sighed through these hospital ordeals…and she still had time to eat and drink with me, share her stories about life and adventure, and build legos and play games with Ash.

This lady means the world to me. Her heart, her fire.

She even inspired a song that I started writing while in New Zealand for the new Dresden Dolls record…one about the Kintsugi Heart: the heart that just keeps on surviving after being pulled out and put back in and gold-glued together so many times. The resilience that comes with wear and tear. So much loss. She knows it more than anyone.

I just love her so, so much.

Now the ask.

Susi’s been one of the victims of the brutal real estate crunch on Waiheke Island and she was just evicted from her rental.

She wants to buy a house and retire in peace so she can focus on her health and her family.

I told her I would help her, and I told her the community here might give her a hand.

If there’s anyone on earth who’s put in the karma hours and deserves a safe haven in her waning years, it’s this woman. She still participates actively in local politics and activism, even from her hospital bed when she’s in chemo. I man: this woman just does not give up the good fight.

She’s a model human and inspiration to so many people, she’s honestly helped save the world, and she lives a real humble activist existence. She’s gold. (And If you want to read her published memoir, it’s called “A Bonfire in my Mouth: Life, Passion and the Rainbow Warrior”).

Please share the story, please give her a small or large donation if you can, and thank you.

Her goal is $150,000. She's stalled at about $20k.

I donated $1k.

Let’s go.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/susi-newborn-help-lay-a-warrior-to-rest

Here's Susi in her own words:

Kia ora

I am extending a huge ask to the international community of like-minded souls, to those that care about our planet, our children’s future, to those who treasure our whales and all our fellow creatures, to those who work steadfastly in order that our oceans may be free of nuclear dumping, our air free of the proliferation of nuclear missiles, those for whom bathing in the rays of sunlight through the branches of a tree nearly one thousand years old immediately connects them with the divine; and those for whom the divisions between the haves and the have nots are unconscionable and immoral. It is you I am addressing.

Since the age of five, I have answered a calling, a feeling deep within the core of my being, to be of service. This has led me to a life of inspired and unrelenting activism, to my being called on over and over again to bear witness, to right the wrongs, to answer the call, to take up the mantel of non-violent direct action, to risk my life so that another may live. Over and over and over again. For much of this work, I received no financial reward. Nor did I expect to, if I am honest.

This life of service has meant that I am immensely rich in social capital, but have very little financial stability; and now that I am growing older, I am facing a number of serious health challenges. It is ironic that I have been the subject of a number of documentaries, winning awards at international film festivals, that people equate this ‘fame’ with wealth. It could not be further from the truth.

I am immensely proud of my contribution to the founding years of the largest environmental organisation in the world. I am deeply humbled by the fact that a rainbow coloured boat, borne of mine – and others – imagination, and the graft of many volunteers, kickstarted a movement to save the most magnificent of all beings.

I know there is something in the world that is creating a giant cancerous tumour, that is tearing us apart, that is commodifying the air we breathe and the water we drink. I also know that this tumour is interspersed with flowers and song birds and the salty waters of the tears we shed.

It is time now for me to rest, and rather than be at the beck and call of unscrupulous landlords who make promises but never keep their word, I am looking for somewhere to call my forever home.

This is why I am calling on you, my tribe, my community of heart, to help me purchase a home, a place where I may live out my final years in the knowledge that I will not have to tear up roots and move, yet again and yet again and yet again.

Māori have a saying: ahakoa he iti he pounamu. This means that although it is small, it is greenstone – that something small, given from the heart, is precious.

Please help in whatever small way you can to lay this ailing warrior to rest! No matter how small, whatever you can give, my heart will forever sing my gratitude!

With affection, Susi

If you DON'T KNOW about the Rainbow Warrior, it was a Greenpeace ship in Auckland that was on its way to protect against a French nuclear test in the island of Moruroa.... and then the French foreign intelligence agency bombed the ship, killing a photographer on board. It caused a huge scandal, the French defence minister resigned, and two agents pled guilty to manslaughter.

https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/about/our-history/bombing-of-the-rainbow-warrior/

If you want to know more about it, a documentary has just been made which was recently screened in New Zealand:

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/rainbow-warrior-murder-in-the-pacific/episodes/s1-e1

And is also available to watch on the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0dvdm52/murder-in-the-pacific

And this ship was BOUGHT AND NAMED BY SUSI.

What we're saying is that she is a real life, bonafide fucking LEGEND.

She really deserves the help.

Here's the link again to the gofundme page:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/susi-newborn-help-lay-a-warrior-to-rest

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And now for something completely different...!!! And smaller. :)

JASON WEBLEY IS TAKING HIS FLOATING RIVER CIRCUS ON TOUR!!!! THIS TIME ON THE MISSISSPPI.

My friend, soul-sister, and Ash's godfather, Jason Webley has spent the last few years focusing his creative energies on FLOTSAM!, his floating river circus…..

Now he's crowdfunding to take the boat on a tour of the Mississippi this summer!:

From the kickstarter:

We'll be traveling 650 river miles and doing 33 shows across five states. The route takes us through a few big cities, but mostly we'll be performing in the small towns in between. Our tour starts on August 4th and finishes on September 10th. You can see our full schedule here: www.rivercircus.com

......

I backed it at $50. I’m gonna get a stick with my goddamnnname carved in it floated up (down?) river.

……

Sometimes I take for granted that people just KNOW about Jason Webley, about our connection, and about our history of working together... and then I remember that there are some (relative) newcomers to Amandaland. So, a quick history lesson...

I've covered Jason's song Icarus a TON OF TIMES throughout the years, sometimes solo....

And sometimes playing it together with Jason...

And then in 2010 we released our first official collaboration project - "Evelyn Evelyn" the album by two conjoined twins who look... slightly familiar...

You can find that album here on Bandcamp:

https://evelynevelyn.bandcamp.com/album/evelyn-evelyn

And we had great fun bringing those performances to life...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAsQhNgQc-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNILvKQO8zI

While we were touring Evelyn Evelyn, we also wrote a stupid but very beautiful little song called Electric Blanket...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNILvKQO8zI

And then a few years later (thanks to this very Patreon!) we recorded Electric Blanket, and it got a gorgeous little video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ARMZfdJHZU

….and put it out as a limited edition 10" single, backed with another collaborative song "House of Eternal Return"

And... one more final Amanda-and-Jason rabbithole for you to dive down: JIB!!

This was one of the first projects put out on Patreon, back in 2016 - we worked together on some sketches of songs for a musical called "JIB, or: The Child Who Went Forth To Learn What Fear Was", made by our theater friend (and grand theft orchestra drummer) Michael McQuilken.

You can hear all the songs here:

https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/album/sketches-for-the-musical-jib

And... that's your brief history of Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley.

......

In conclusion...

I LOVE JASON WEBLEY....and I LOVE SUSI NEWBORN.....and I know you all love helping.

Choose one, choose either.

Just please consider helping one or the other of these two excellent causes. I know they'll be so grateful if you did.

x

a

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

1. if you are a patron and new to my work, don’t forget your patronage allows you access to ALL of my patreon releases to date. HERE is the link to download my latest big solo record, “There Will Be No Intermission”, and HERE is a link to download the PDF of the art/essay book that goes with it.

2. if you’re a patron reading this post via an email notification, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol. that's always nice for me to see, so i know who's reading.

3. see All the Things (over 150 of them) i've made so far on patreon:

http://amandapalmer.net/things

4. JOIN THE SHADOWBOX COMMUNITY FORUM, find your people, and discuss everything: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/

5. 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/

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