When I first heard about this book being released I was beside my self with excitment.
I have been a fan of Amanda Palmer for years and have adored everything she's released. I have followed her through controversy and even had a friend try to spot together enough to afford one of her parties on kickstarter [poor folk can't easily pull together $5000]
I always listened to her songs, loved her lyrics and felt that there was a connection.
A solidarity in our understanding even though we have never met. There there was an understanding among the ideals of dealing with depression, being medicated, self harm and even as far as body image struggles.
I felt a sense of being not so alone when I was physically completely alone in my struggles.
I was excited to read this book hoping for insight into her song writing, the stories and experiences that created the words that made me feel like they were written FOR me. As I'm sure so many other people around the globe have felt.
The book opened with the Amanda Palmer I know - blasting into the face of the norm and screaming for a tampon in a bathroom.
I enjoyed her fearless nature and always suspected it came from a place of hardship where she had been force to overcome.
And I read on....
The initial point of the book is talking about love and about asking for what you need - that the universe will provide. All you have to do is ask for help and accept the help that is offered.
Great, that can be summed up in pretty much less than 100 words.
But I read on and was even more excited when I flipped quickly through and saw certain song lyrics had been included...she MUST discuss them...right?
As I read I started to see something.
She was not, in fact, from a broken or abusive home as I had felt she may be.
No, quite the opposite from my understanding while reading. I was starting to become worried.
I read on.
Here's where it actually started to fall apart.
Pg.93
"You probably don't know who Edward Ka-Spel is. Edward Ka-Spel is the singer of my favorite band, the Legendary Pink Dots"
There was something about this tiny bit of wording that made me close the book and just stare out the window of the public transit. Wait. Did she just talk down at me? Assuming I must be some moron kid who isnt' involved in music? A bit of rewording could've changed how insulted I felt..like "Ever heard of Edward Ka-Spel?" and then going from there.
Maybe I was being sensitive.
I read on.
There's a lot of blah blah blah about Neil Gaiman [who is an author I quite enjoy but care very little to know about].
How fortunate she must be to have NEVER been alone in the entire span of her life -unless it was her choosing. To ALWAYS have another person to fall back on, to lean on, to ASK for a embrace when needed. Someone to cry with and share with.
She has NEVER experienced what being alone is really like - but maybe I'm judging too harshly.
I read on.
Pg.124
"...my relationship with my body is pretty healthy. I've never been massively overweight or underweight. I've never had an eating disorder or any kind of body dis-morphia. I'm pretty comfortable with myself."
I'm about to throw this book right into the fucking traffic and be done with it.
Who the fuck IS this person?!
I have that mini paragraph floating through my head as I walk through the mall doing early xmas shopping. Looking at all the images in the stores, the size 0-6 only places and can't help but realize that I have never been able to fit in any of them.
Realizing that being 100% comfortable in my skin has never been an option. That living with a mother who suffers from severe anorexia has left me a self hating mess in the ideal that "fat" people are "lazy, worthless" and undeserving of love.
So you hide and you eat more.
It's the one thing that makes you feel normal - that you can do that doesn't make you weird.
Being full also makes you feel a sense of being almost "hugged" from the inside. You're still alone - but at least you're kinda normal - even if you do eat your lunch in the washroom stall at school.
Or if you feel embarrassed grocery shopping because you always believe people are judging you and thinking "she doesn't need to be eating that!"
But no, no...not Amanda Palmer.
Nope. Never felt physically judged.....
She's losing me.
I read on...reluctantly. I just want this over.
Pg.280-281
[regarding a fan named Yana]
"...I'd spent time with her, true, but I'd never walked around with her in public where people stared. I noticed the way people looked at her & her four-foot-six stature as she moved through the world. I wondered what it must feel like to have the gaze of the world fixated on you because of the shape of your body. Inescapable."
"I thought about all the shit this girl had had to go through in her life, the ten operations, the stretched bones, the medications, the people staring in the park, the bosses and coworkers....
...You and I have one giant thing in common, Yana, and I just noticed it. Have I ever told you about my marriage problems? Or how I refused to take money from Neil until Anthony got sick and I had to cancel this years tour?" [I'm going to give you some reference background. Firstly, Yana is a fan that Amanda got to know early in her career who followed her from show to show. In this situation, Yana is in a fucking emotional breakdown over losing her job because of her obvious physical limitations and how she's refusing to accept welfare because she considers herself an educated and capable person]
This ENRAGED me.
Ever know that person who has to fucking one up everyone all the goddamn time?
That's Amanda Palmer.
She's the friend that you dont' really want to go to because they'll always hit you back with "that's great, but listen to this thing that happened to me...."
All of her "I love everyone" ideal that she's shared in this book and with the media is as transparent as fuck.
How can you even equate a fucking issue about taking money from your rich husband to a girl who's done nothing but spent her life suffering and surviving and trying. Who is strong and will to keep pushing?
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?
I bit the inside of my mouth and make the decision that I should just put this away before I get angrier with the person she's turning out to be.
That my disappointment was gaining on the situation and even though it's just a book written by someone who doesn't know [nor doesn't care] about me; I started to really feel alone.
I started to realize that all the lyrics are fiction.
That I'm actually not relatable to anyone.
I read on.
It's 1am.
It's almost over.
I feel pretty shitty actually and think that all the reviews that I read by "fans" claiming this was a "positive life changing" book and rated it a 5-star were written by people who just looked at the pictures.
Did any of them actually read this?
Pg.282
"...I had a hard time look at at it without remembering that each bag, according to the doctor, cost $10,000. It always made me think about my friends without health insurance, and how hard I'd fought my parents when, just getting out of college and broke, I hadn't wanted to pay for my own. The battle lasted months. They wound up offering to pay half of it. I resented it but paid for the other half. God, I was so cavalier when I was 22...."
That's it.
I need to burn and rip this book apart.
Let me understand this; your mommy and daddy were still paying your fucking health care when you were 22?!?!!? When I was 22, I had moved across the country with a duffel bag on a fucking greyhound alone to pursue my dream. I wasn't sponging off my parent [notice that's not plural?]
The majority of this book is simply her talking about how great she is.
What an amazing trailblazer she is.
What a feminist she is.
What she really is is insecure.
She tries to make you feel empathy for her by talking about her supposed "heartache" over situations that she has created in the media.
Yeah, writing a poem about the Boston Marathon is in poor taste - especially when the wound is that fresh.
Yeah, you made over a million dollars on a kickstarter. People are going to be skeptical about the money - especially when you dont' pay "volunteer" musicians. What did you think the media was going to do with that?
And she keeps wondering why people are seeing an issue with her utilizing the kickstarter platform. Well, she is correct in her statement that everyone has the right to use it.
True.
But normally it's reserved for people who don't have another option to reach out and ask for help.
She COULD have a label...if she wanted. She's CHOOSING not to.
Those other artists aren't making that choice to be independent in most cases.
Regardless, all this aside; I finished it.
I sat it on the floor and kicked it hard under the bed.
It will stay there.
It will collect dust there.
I put away her CD's, her LPs and all the things I have purchased over the years.
I even deleted her from my itunes. Including even Eveyln Evelyn.
The connection is gone.
I'm breaking up with you Amanda Palmer.
We're just from different worlds & you can't relate to mine.
