All day I’ve been wondering what is inside of me?

Day 20 – A song you listen to when you’re angry.

Heads up: I don’t ONLY listen to this song when I’m angry. But it is good angry music.

I had the privilege of meeting Amanda Palmer this year. She came to Melbourne Uni to talk to us queer kids about… well, anything and everything. I was disappointed after seeing a clip of her on Good News Week laughing at the concept of ‘disabled feminists’ and nearly didn’t go to see her. But I found for the most part that she was really with it – for somebody who is ‘straight’ in the conventional sense, she was really in tune with issues concerning the queer community, gender, self-representation, etc. She’s notably one of the only female ‘celebrities’ who doesn’t shave her legs/underarms, a fact which has been widely noticed and commented upon. Although I dislike the fact that this has to be a point of notice (oh to dream of a world where women NOT altering their bodies in this way was perfectly acceptable and normal), I also dig her for being brave enough to publicly diverge from feminine norms and be completely at ease with it. At the same time, she often performs in excessively feminine outfits; lace garters and corsets and caked on make-up. She’s a conessieur of the hyper-feminine, one artist who successfully makes a parody out of femininity; turns it into a performance. With her drawn-on eyebrows and gothic make-up she also hints at the grotesque feminine, just enough to make you wonder at ‘why’ we find excessive femininity ‘grotesque’ in the first place. I thought all of this was by-the-by until I heard her in a two-hour long grill session at uni, after which I realised that she takes gender seriously… and then makes a parody out of it.    

Anyway, back to the music. I first saw Amanda Palmer at the corner hotel when her album “Who killed Amanda Palmer” had just come out. The performance was gothic and stagey and full of dark humour. I distinctly remember her hat’s-off tribute to Regina Spektor when she played Apres Moi, and the amount of effort the dramatists working with her went to considering we only paid 30 bucks to go see her. Since then the Who Killed Amanda Palmer album has become one of the often-played cd’s in my collection. Oftentimes I go back and listen to “Dirty Business” and “Girl Anachronism” from the Dresden Dolls early albums when I’m feeling riled up, angry or energetic. There’s something nice about just expressing well-articulated rage. No screamo for me. This song is about as articulately mad as I get. Then it all just goes into a blur.

 

 My friend has problems with winter and autumn.
They give him prescriptions, they shine bright lights on him.
They say it’s genetic, they say he can’t help it, they say you can catch it – but sometimes you’re born with it.
My friend has plight, he gets shakes in the night & they say that there’s no way that they could have caught it in time takes its toll on him.
It is traditional.
It is inherited.
Predisposition-
All day I’ve been wondering what is inside of me, who can I blame for it?
I say it runs in the family

This family that carries me to such great lengths to open my legs up to anyone who’ll have me. It runs in the family, I come by it honestly, do what you want cos who knows it might fill me up
me up x8
fill me up
me up x7

My friend’s depressed she’s a wreck, she’s a mess.
They’ve done all sorts of tests & they guess it has something to do with her grandmother’s grandfather’s grandmother civil-war soldiers who probably infected her.
My friend has maladies, rickets, and allergies that she dates back to the 17th century.
Somehow she manages in her misery.
Strips in the city and shares all her best tricks with me, well, I’m well, well, I mean I’m in hell, Well,I still have my health at least thats what they tell me.
If wellness is this what in hells name is sickness?
But business is business and business runs in the family.

We tend to bruise easily.
Bad in the blood.
I’m telling you cos I just want you to know me – know me & my family.
We’re wonderful folks, but don’t get to close to me cos you might knock me up
me up x8
knock me up
me up x7

Mary have mercy now look what I’ve done but don’t blame me because I can’t help where I come from and
running is something that we’ve always done well & mostly I can’t even tell what I’m running from.
Run from their pity, from responsibility.
Run from the country & run from the city-
I can run from the law, I can run from myself.
I can run from my life, I can run into debt.
I can run from it all, I can run til I’m gone.
I can run for the office & run for my cause.
I can run using every last ounce of energy.
I cannot, I cannot, I cannot run from my family.

They’re hiding inside of me.
Corpses on ice. Come in if you like but
just don’t tell my family.
They’ll never forgive me.
They’d say that I’m crazy.
But they would say anything if it would shut me up……Shut me up…..Shut me up
me up x8
Shut me up
me up x7

Boum

“But suddenly, at the edge of her mind, Religion appeared, poor little talkative Christianity, and she knew that all its divine words from ‘Let there be light’ to ‘It is finished’ only amounted to ‘boum.’” – E.M Forster, A Passage to India.

I suppose love was there once. In amongst the politics and the prejudices and the rules of admission. Love had pride of place once, actually—in the middle the mantelpiece, in the centre of the table, at the head of the bed. But love didn’t quite answer all of the questions, you see. Love was quiet, unassuming. In the end it headed into a corner to wait silently until it was noticed. I think love was eventually swept under the carpet.

It’s still there waiting, actually. There’s a few people who know where it’s hiding. They drag it out every now and then, put it on parade, throw it a party, put some of it to good use. Those who aren’t quite sure where it went try to recreate it—paint a portrait, make a sculpture. They grind it into a powder and put it on their faces, in their hair. They sprinkle it on their skin, they ingest it.

I heard that love can be found in a book, in black ink on white pages. Yes, love lies dormant in print. Edited, compiled, reworded, translated. But love has never mixed very well with black and white. It’s too colorful, takes some getting used to. If love was a fruit, it might be an apple (versatile: green, yellow, a hundred shades of red). But the black print says the apple was loves downfall. The man says it was the woman.

Ah, the woman. She is the virgin or the whore; Mary or Delilah. She is sexless or sex; the white veil or black heart. But I am blue in the cold and pink in the heat. I brown under the sun and when I’m sick I am green. Who can tie me up in a neat little box now? My paper is torn and my string unravelled.

(I’m afraid I’ve lost the end, and I can’t quite remember where it began.)

Oh! That’s right. It began with the man. The man on a Monday, in a suburb not a few blocks from here. The man who promises to take all my pain away with some hefty books, a few hard talks and a mustard seed of faith. He’s always there—in the street, near the cafe’s. Felt bible in hand, bony skull as hard-set as the thoughts inside; “do you know where you’re going?”

The man’s at the podium, shaking hands, weilding words. On Wednesday he’s a black suit, a white shirt (you know the one I mean). He fits into the squares like words fit into verses. On friday it’s the gym; pumping iron, sweat like drops of blood. Strength of muscle and bone, peppered with arrogance, salted with power.

But there’s only one man, you say to me. One man, one love. Yes, against remarkable odds. Love exists only in only one culture’s history. One man who came at one time to one place. For those already dead? For those across the world who could not know it? To those of another race, another tongue, to those of anotherGod?

Oh, I’ve tried to argue. But you are a file-o-fax of every inadequate Sunday School answer I’ve ever heard. Your without choice and without room for grey. You are a veritable cathedral of right. There are no chinks in the armour. Your boundaries are established and your cases closed.

And you only tell me I’m not quite right in the head. I am not quite right; my hair is too short and clothes too tight and the devil’s face is too close to my pillow. I use words that don’t exist in your dictionary and my eyes cannot see right from wrong. Oh, I can’t make it easy for you. I am outside the parameters. I am outside your mythical garden and your nuclear family. Outside your binaries, and generally out of order.

I suppose love existed once. But it was not in that mythical garden or that black and white text. It was not without colour or choice or valid opinion. It was not without women or gays or Muslims or atheists. And it did not come from the father.