It’s a feast for fans of Leia Weathington, as she rolls solo for today’s show. Up on the menu? British Ninjas hiding in the theaters to shush the overly social, and how she hopes they come to the US soon so she won’t have to go to jail for kicking a hole in someone’s chest. Followed up with a large-portioned discussion on Amanda Palmer’s decision to ask for volunteer musicians after getting 1.2 million dollars in a kickstarter campaign to make a new album and go on tour. The main course is a discussion about trigger warnings, their purpose, their worth, and why Leia won’t use them, even though she understands all too well why someone would ask they be implemented.
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Amanda Palmer has gone on record somewhere that she viewed Kickstarter as more of a way to sell the record than as a way to raise money, which is fairly interesting if not necessarily the nature of Kickstarter.
That being said, her not paying her musicians is gross.
I’ve never been overly fond of Amanda Palmer but this just does it for me. I’d argue that Kickstarter isn’t donations as much as it’s crowd-sourcing the role of the producer. Now, if I’m a producer on a project that I’m financing, even if it’s not a whole lot, I’d really appreciate knowing what my money and other people’s money has gone towards. I’m talking break-downs, which should not be that hard to do even if you’re an artist. It’s about a transaction, accountability and professionalism. Even people who work in art know exactly that if you get money from somewhere, you are accountable on how you spend that money and it’s not hugely demanding for you to keep an account of of it. You don’t even have to necessarily give exact numbers, just give estimates. Even that goes a long way.
As for the whole “this is a way to pre-sell an album”… That goes back to the Louis CK thing – give the extra profits to people who helped you out in the process, for example the tour musicians. There’s no way that you didn’t make a dime off a million dollars because all the money went towards the album and the goodies you sent to the people who donated. If that is what happened – show me the numbers.
Re: trigger warnings. I completely understand not wanting to spoil a certain kind of story. I also understand you can’t trigger warn for everything and people with triggers know this. There’s also a thing with your show in particular that there are a lot of variables due to the frequent guests. This is why I never got around to sending an email to Cort when he asked for constructive criticism.. I know some people who dislike certain aspects of the show but they are honestly mostly to do with guests, not you guys. So they choose either to not listen to you on those days or listen only when the description of the show sounds good or whatever. You can’t be responsible for everything some of your guests say or an opinion they express, and you guys are generally pretty good with calling others out (Byron …….) when they step out of line with regards to things like that.
Anyway, really good show today, guys.
Turns out there’s a break-down of where the money is going on her website: http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/where-all-this-kickstarter-money-is-going-by-amanda/
So I’ll admit that part of my rant is now officially moot.
Still, I’m amazed at how, if the original goal was 100,000 and then she got 12 times what she asked for, there’s not enough money in the bank to help those who help her. If everybody from designers to managers is getting paid, why not these guest musicians? I understand as more money comes in, the project probably gets bigger, stuff gets added because there’s more money to do this and that and the other. But how do you then forget to budget the guest musicians, assuming you want to have some? It’s just bad management.
On the topic of working artists not paying other artists, here is a pretty handy flow chart: http://shouldiworkforfree.com/
This is ALWAYS relevant.
An Anecdote regarding putting calories on the menu. It has helped me a lot. More then once I stepped down my menu order when I saw how many calories something has. What company has the lowest calories food is often a perception from marketing. SO a places like subway people will order food with more calories because the perception that Subway is healthy.
People are horrible and knowing how many calories something is so having it in their face seems to be a good thing.
As for ‘Ninja Ushers’ I would like to see the theaters just have an usher standing to the side, and toss out people who use their phone. Be visible before the movie starts, walk around telling people when the lights go dim, you’re phones goes away or they will be removed.
Put a sign at the ticket booth “We will toss your ass out and not give you a refund if you use your phone in the theater.”
You’re a Doctor on call? then don’t go to the damn movie.
Here is that article I mentioned toward the end of the podcast.
http://therumpus.net/2012/08/the-illusion-of-safetythe-safety-of-illusion/
Check it out. It’s a better articulation than my halting, braying attempt to explain my position on Trigger Warnings.
In response to musicians playing for free with the promise of beer or a free t-shirt… Guess what, she isn’t going to get a ton of good players. I would consider doing it. I miss playing with a group. I’m not that good at all and are rusty but from someone that wants to get back in that would be an oppertunity to make contacts on the music community to find a group to join. Also I would drink all the free beer!!!! It’s fun playing drunk!
Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’d be the drunk bitch who pukes in her french horn halfway through.
I’m a viola player, they would know it was me…. We are the black sheep of the orchestra.
Leia, just wanted to say your a good addition to the podcast. (I’m not kissing up…. Just not sure you’ve been told that yet)
At a small theater I go to, I’ve seen the projectionist come out of the booth to remove people texting during a movie. She is my hero.
I think people who ask for “trigger warnings” are people to expect the world to adapt to their own life experience. I think it’s unfair to expect everyone to warn them about possible emotional triggers. While Leia’s response to the e-mail she received is completely reasonable, I don’t think the e-mail was.
A personal example: Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation (AEA) is an emotional trigger for me. I expect people who know me, and know that AEA is a trigger for me, to warn me about triggers in movies, films, or any other media they may consume. But I don’t think its fair for me to ask Marc Maron to warn me if he or his guest makes an AEA joke on a podcast. Maron doesn’t know me. Even on the cortandfaboy show, I have heard David Caradine jokes, and I don’t complain, because I realize that if I had not had the particular experience I’ve had, I would probably find them funny. But because of my experience, I find those kinds of jokes upsetting. I don’t expect Cort and Bobby to warn me about it. They don’t know me. I just turn it off, and hope that tomorrow’s show doesn’t bring it up. I don’t expect the entire world to know that AEA can’t be funny to me, and I don’t think its reasonable to expect complete strangers to warn me about it.
I think if it is your own issue then you have all the right in the world to discuss it however you want. If they can’t laugh, fuck ‘em right?
Although I do feel sad for people that have things like that happen and it brings up a whole onslaught of emotions. That must be rough. And rape is definitely NOT FUNNY!
And don’t worry, you guys still have plenty of cheap laughs! JK
Rape isn’t funny but rape jokes can be funny for some people when some people do it. I say that as a rape survivor who finds Jimmy Carr hilarious. I like him especially of the rape jokes because it’s nice to be able to laugh about something horrible, and there’s a huge amount of healing I can attribute to laughter.
Not everyone is going to react the same way I do, and people get to have their own reactions to things. But the thing about triggers is they can be oddly specific, and I don’t know if it’s even possible to warn about every possible trigger out there.
Things that are funny are subjective and therefore open to interpretation. To arbitrarily say something isn’t funny just means it isn’t funny to you. Low hanging fruit or not that fruit is still attached to the funny tree.
To be clear, I’m not advocating rape or the damage is causes but when someone like Louis C.K. says he hates deer so much he would blow someone with AIDS that has a bloody dick to get AIDS and then fuck the deer to make it die from AIDS. I personally find that humorous.
In closing I disagree with you trying to erase your past in hopes that you don’t offend anyone. I’ve listened for probably 10 or more years (I’ve lost count) to the Cort and Fatboy show and loved every minute of it.
On triggers:
I can’t speak for people that have such a strong reaction to subjects because I’m an emotionless robot who manages to somehow offend everyone, but as a Tumblr user who treats it like Facebook I am very familiar with the idea and can also say that those trigger warnings do nothing to stop me from reading it and talking about it without warnings. Regularly I’m bombarded with accusations about how insensitive I am for not hiding what I’m saying or — if the social justice bloggers are especially irritable — that I should be ashamed for eating meat or being a man, etc.
So while I may not be the ideal person to take advice from, trigger warnings are truly nothing more than holding up a black censor bar over nudity and about as effective. Whether one warns their readers or not, the people who would be seriously offended by reading it will still be offended, and will make it no secret.
On a side note, I personally still find the Voltron sketches hilarious (mostly because Bobby was suffering), but your average listener isn’t the dregs of society anymore and hasn’t been for at least two years, so I understand not wanting to be reminded or attacked for when the two of you had to appeal to those sort of trash um sorry I meant to my family.
About Taco bell: I think it was 2 years ago I looked this up, in response to the whole “taco bell meat is hardly meat.” and it’s true. A lot of it is like vegetable substitute. That’s… not a terrible thing. Honestly, I think there are some problems with just the quantity of meat we meet, so it’s kinda cool that they’re using less.
I’m going to push the documentary “Fat Head,” here again, which talks about how fast food isn’t as bad if you understand your body, and put in the work to maintain your health despite the calorie content.