A special PATRON-ONLY podcast. Erika Moen in "Candy & Broken Glass": art, hate & survival. (Patreon)

Hallo loves.

This is a long post...plus I expect you all to listen to this goddamn podcast.....like, I really want you to. It's a big, soulful, deep, powerful and perhaps even difficult one to listen to. So...take your time. Warning: it's very emotional.

Short version: because of its sensitive/personal content (read below for the full story), we are releasing this week's podcast with Erika Moen as a patron-only recording to Y'ALL and also to Erika's 1,500 patrons. You can listen using this post (it's embedded), or go to this private link on soundcloud, where you can stream/download it.

...........

and a reminder: every single episode (except this one) of the podcast is up HERE: https://amandapalmer.net/podcast/

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

Long version....

Greetings from Waiheke, New Zealand. 

I moved here just in time to go into stay-at-home lockdown...and I'm, y'know, making it work. The fact that it lasted a mere three days was humbling. This country is doing such an organized, mature and phenomenal job of dealing with the pandemic.

Meanwhile...my heart is going out over-time to my friends and community in the states. If you folks around the globe have missed the news, there's been historic low temperatures and power outages...and a lot of people I've seen on social media are dealing with freezing homes, freezing relatives, and poetic powerlessness on all levels. I darkly joked on twitter that AMERICAN POWER FAILURE would be a great album title. More than one person - who did not understand that I have a sense of poetic darkness - tried to point out to me that America was dealing with "actual power outages". It's hard to be an ironic poet on twitter sometimes.

I took this photo earlier today, in my favorite "looking into the middle distance future" pose.

It is not cold here. It's been in the 70s every day (that's about 20 celcius) . I'm really fucking grateful. Really. Deeply. 

Meanwhile....

I've spending a lot of time with Ash.

Here's him on the beach yesterday with two dead starfish and a star-shadow.

I'm cooking a lot, I'm unpacking the boxes I packed up in Hawkes Bay, I'm trying to stay on top of my work and texts and emails. I'm failing. It's a lot like the rest of the year. Failing better every day.

That being said, I feel like I'm finally getting one of my first breaths in months. 

Neil being back in the country means that I don't have to spend every-every second tracking the whereabouts of a spectacular five-year-old, and I even got to do something I've been wanting to do for a YEAR....which was to do a totally spontaneous ALL-PATRON livestream, which was spontaneously attended by 864 people (!), and it was AWESOME. 

I went in without a plan (my favorite) and had a blast. There was music, laughter, coffee, and a poem from one of our patrons, Peter, who recently lost his mom. And, as usual, mostly due to Peter's poem....tears. You can watch the archive/re-play, and I recommend it...if you want to feel some hard-core mainline community connection. 

AND NOW....I mentioned this special patron-only podcast on that stream, and to my $10+/webchat patrons last week....we are releasing this week's podcast as a special PATRON-ONLY recording.

Yes, Ma'am.

It is going out ONLY to my 13,900 patrons, and to Erika's 1,500 patrons.

It will not head out to the public in the foreseeable future.

This means that if you're been relying on apple, spotify, etc, you're going to have to bite the bullet and listen to this one through this embed or soundcloud - which we've linked below (and you can download direct)!

Sorry about that, but it was the only way.

HOW TO LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE:

Again, since this is a patron-only episode, it will NOT be appearing in the public podcast feeds. To listen, you can press play at the top of this patreon post, the audio is embedded (make sure you view this post in your browser or mobile app - not in an email app - to stream the audio).

OR head over to soundcloud, where you can listen to a private stream and download the episode to your device:

https://soundcloud.com/amandapalmer/erika-moen-candy-broken-glass/s-hONxG1aqK02

Here's a photo of me and Erika doing the talk, photographed by the engineer, Ryan Mauk.

We were in a recording studio called Digital One, in Portland, Oregon.

It was June 11, 2019.

Here we are, outside the studio. Don't look at my crotch.

You perv.

Yes.

My fly is down.

My fly is often down, especially when I wear these pants.

Don't read too much into it.

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

I'm not going to just repeat in this post what I already SAY in the introduction....so here is that part of the transcript (thanks, Alex). 

It'll explain all you need to know about why this is patron-only.

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

Hi everyone. 

This is a very unusual, new, different, patron-only podcast release, which sort of goes against the initial concept of the podcast, which was to use the Patreon to fuel a big, badass, free, worldwide, giant, fancy podcast. But, shit happens, and shit changes, and if you know anything about me, you know that I never follow any rules, even my own rules that I set for myself.

So let me explain to you why this is happening, and also what I think it means, and why it’s really important that we’re putting this out as a patron-only podcast. And it’s kind of a long story, so hang in there, but we will get to the podcast itself.

And also, can I just say, it is really nice, I’m sitting in a closet in New Zealand, in my new AirBNB, and it’s really nice to just be recording an intro for the podcast that’s just for patrons, because I feel more like myself, and like I don’t have to be so fancy, which is actually kind of a horrible thing to realise, because it makes me feel like all the other intros that I’ve been recording for the podcast have been totally inauthentic, because why would I feel like I have to be someone else, or pretend I’m Terry Gross from NPR?! Whatever. But yeah, it’s just nice to feel like I’m just talking to you.

And also, since I’m talking to you, and since I know that you’re a patron listening to this, thank you for supporting me, and for making this possible, and we can get back to that lovefest a little later, but yes, thank you, and thank you.

So back in June of 2019, while I was on tour with There Will Be No Intermission in Portland, Oregon, I recorded this conversation with the comic artist and sex educator Erika Moen. And Portland, on the aside, was actually a really fruitful podcasting trip, because within a few days, I did my conversation with Storm Large, which came out towards the beginning of the podcast, and the one that I did with Madison Young that just came out, and it was a very podcast-y city.

And I had known about Erika for a lot longer than Storm and Madison, we were old Twitter pals, we were Kickstarter friends, and we had been cheerleaders of each other’s work. And not just the art and the music, but here was an artist after my own heart, who was self-publishing her non-commercially-viable comic books about sex and sexuality, to thousands of people; she wasn’t just selling ten copies of these comics, Erika was really successful, and she had built her own business. So we had, like a lot of my other guests, we had all of this stuff in common, and I was really excited to pick her brain.

So...we’re sitting in this lovely recording studio in Portland, Oregon, and we’re chatting and buzzing along, talking about our work, and internet hate, and cancellation. And things start to turn very dark. And because I didn’t quite understand at the time, and actually, now that I’m saying it, that’s not really true, because I had gotten together with Erika socially in the few days before the podcast, and I think she’d tried to communicate to me the gravity of just how dark things were in her life, and in her head, but suffice it to say, at the time this was recorded, Erika was in the middle of a very, very dark period. 

And me being me, I just kept encouraging her to talk, and go deeper, and go darker, because hey, this was also me in between two nights of a four-hour stage show at the Crystal Ballroom, where I’m poundy-piano-ing, and hey everyone, listen to my abortion and miscarriage stories, hoorah. And I’m watching what Erika is saying, and I’m like, yes, let’s go there! Let’s talk about it! 

So we go there, and you’ll hear. 

And it’s hard to listen to. 

And it’s great, and it’s cathartic.

Here is where the story starts to turn into a story. So a few weeks, or maybe months later, I don’t remember, Erika emails, and says, I wanna talk. And she gets in touch with me and Fannie, who’s the producer of this podcast, and she says basically, 'Hey, I don’t feel great about this podcast going into the world. I don’t even really remember what I said. I’m worried.'

To which I responded, 'Listen, the reason I love having total control over my podcast is nothing has to go out without your total approval, it doesn’t even need to go out at all, if you wanna listen back to it and edit anything out, no problem, work with Fannie, she’ll send you the recording.' 

And so, Erika listens to it, and she gets back to us, and she’s like, 'Ooh… yeah, maybe just take that part out, and that part.' And Fannie and I say, 'Cool, easy!'.

And then, you all know what happened to the podcast. History happened, and instead of putting the podcast out, tour got really heavy, and then my fall European kerfuffles happened, and the bushfires happened, and COVID happened, and my life collapsing happened, and becoming a single mother happened, and all in all the podcast was delayed for an entire fucking year.

And I know this is a long story, but stick with me. We’re about to get to the actual podcast. It’s just gonna take a second.

So a few weeks ago, we emailed Erika, my whole podcast team, and we said, we’re finally ready to put out this motherfucking episode! After almost two years! Get us your book links, get us your photos, we’re gonna start putting the socials together!

And I get a message from Erika, and she says, 'I wanna talk.' 

And I know what’s coming. 

So three days ago, I call her. I’m at a coffee shop in New Zealand, she’s at home in Portland. And she says, ‘Amanda, I’ve finally got my new book coming out in a month, and I’m so scared to put this episode out.’ And she doesn’t need to tell me why, but if you’re wondering why, you’ll hear about it in the podcast, but Erika has full-time trolls who exist to make her life hell, and I have the same sorts of people. There are accounts on Twitter that exist only to call Amanda Palmer a trans-exclusionary feminist, and a racist, and Erika has the same sorts of people, who just wanna get her cancelled, and don’t want her to be able to publish, and will stop at nothing to make her life hard. And she just did not want to stir the mud in her currently-sort-of-clearish internet pond. 

And if anyone gets that, oh my God, do I get it. Because there are times when you just don’t have the bandwidth, even if something is only 2% risky. 

And putting out a podcast with me is risky, because there are people out there who hate me and wanna cancel me, just like there are people out there who hate and wanna cancel Erika.

So I say to Erika, ‘Listen, on a scale from 1 to 10, how many people are trolling you right now?’ 

And she says, ‘It’s not that bad right now, and that’s why I just wanna be careful.’ 

And I say, 'Listen, if anybody understands that, it’s me. So we could do a couple things. We could just not put this podcast out. We could never put it out, we could put it in the can and put it out in two years after your book has come out, and people have cooled down on you.'

Or, and I’m thinking aloud as I’m talking in the coffee shop, we could just put this podcast out only to our patrons. I have 14,000 patrons. Erika has 1,500 patrons. That’s a big audience. That would not be nothing. And also, these are the human beings who need to hear this conversation, and who we want to listen to this conversation. So we can still put it out, and I don’t have to say anything about it on social media. 

And Erika says, ‘Oh my God, I hadn’t even thought of that.’ And Erika says, ‘My body literally just relaxed, realising that that’s an option.’

And I was like, of course that’s an option! We can do anything we fucking want!

And so, that’s what we’re doing. 

This episode, at least with this intro, for the vast foreseeable future, is just for our patrons. 

Not because we’re trying to be exclusive, but because we don’t have the bandwidth to put it out into the shark arena of the wider internet right now. And I would hope that you guys understand that.

And I also wanna take a second and tell you how fucking powerful this is, and how Patreon itself, and you being patrons, makes this moment, and a moment like this, possible. Because in the old days, we didn’t have these options. We could sell content, through iTunes, or through whatever, through a publisher, sell it, and charge for it. But that’s still a very public act, and you’re out there flogging your wares for the general public. 

Or, you put shit out for free, and you’re just totally naked and vulnerable on social media, where a single person, or a handful, a teeny handful of bad actors, can just undermine your work, and your moment, and your book coming out, and your album coming out. I’ve been there, she’s been there.

So for the 16,000-plus of you who are currently supporting both of us: thank you. This exists, and our ability to put this out, and reach our people through a portal, is important, and exists because you’re here, and we’re so grateful.

And I will speak for Erika, I know she is grateful, we are so grateful to have the kinds of communities that stick with us, and fund our work, and our lives, as we make stuff, and as we learn, and as we grow, and as we figure out what we want to create. 

Thank you. This is fucking awesome.

And this is why our communities are so precious, because we can release this into our republic of kindness, knowing that many of you have experienced these dark moments, and these traumas, too, and you have been there, and you will share them back with us, and we will converse.

And I also wanna tell you that Erika wanted me to share something with you. And that shortly after this conversation was recorded, she went into treatment, and she enrolled in an intensive outpatient program, and she spent a month doing that, and then she went into a six-month dialectical behaviour therapy program, where she learned how to cope with distress, and to regulate her moods. And she wants you to know that she is doing a lot better now.

And this is important, because yesterday I had a call with my whole podcast team, and someone suggested that we maybe rip it up and start again, and do a new, fresh episode with Erika, that we put out after her book, now that she’s in a totally new and different place, and I was like, no! No, no! This shit that we went through in this episode is gold! 

Because to listen to us sitting in that moment, when she was in such agony, the same kind of agony that I have been in again and again, and to know that she made it out the other side, is honestly, I think, way more powerful.

....

ABOUT ERIKA:

Erika Moen is a freelance cartoonist born June 25, 1983 and graduated with an Illustrated Storytelling self-designed degree from Pitzer College in 2006. She lives in Portland, Oregon where she has been a member of Helioscope Studio since 2008.

Having created comics for well over a decade, her work has been published by Oni, Dark Horse, Image, Villard and Scholastic, among many others.

In addition to creating comics, she also regularly teaches classes and guest lectures on the subject in high schools and colleges around the country. She has been happily married to Matthew Nolan since October 2008.

and in addition, here's a fun addition for this patron-only episode:

A LITTLE RUN-DOWN OF ERIKA'S ART/WORK:

-written & formatted by kelly welles* and AFP-

*patrons, if you missed the news, i've hired on kelly welles to help with editorial, fact-checking, writing, and research for the podcast. she's from the UK and i met her through her work on the guilty feminist podcast....she's been an amazing, smart and hilarious new member of team AFP, and you can follow here on twitter here, she's a great follow over there.

This is Kelly.

.......

And this is Erika Moen, as drawn by...Erika Moen

Back in 2003, little twenty-year old Erika began publishing a cartoon web journal.

*HITS PAUSE*

It should be noted here that the version of the ‘web’ we’re referring to here isn’t the one you’re looking at and reading now. 

If you’re under 25, you probably know that the internet hasn’t always existed in its current form, but you might not understand what that meant on a practical level.

In 2003, ‘going on the internet’ was a very purposeful action. 

There was no "social media" as we know it. Facebook existed but was only available to students at about fifty colleges. Email was clunky and awkward. LArge files could not be shared easily. Chat was a novelty. Trolls were still a half-formed, vague concept that sprayed hate across message boards and making people feel bad in an entirely new way. It took half an hour for pictures to load. We said ROFL a lot.

*PRESSES PLAY*

For Erika though, and other introverted arty types, the internet brought with it an unprecedented opportunity: to put your art out there, to people who might feel it, without having to negotiate with the traditional gatekeepers of pop culture. 

This was roundabout the time The Dresden Dolls made our first website (it was so COOL! we had a WEBSITE!!!!), started the first iteration of The Shadowbox (our amazing community forum), and tried to make spaces on the internet for people trying to find like-minded weirdos. There was no easy way to do that back then. Art helped people find an umbrella to huddle with wet, weird others. I blogged a lot and loved the censor-free, commerical-free thrill I got from just....writing what was on my mind. A lot was always on my mind. 

The internet, and my blog, helped me to feel way less alone.

And Erika’s web journal, like my early blog over on dresdendolls.com, was a chronicle of her life. In those early days, the confusions of love, the pressures that a burgeoning but immature creativity enact on the emotions and the nightmarish unspoken world of SEX were the subject of her work. 

Being entirely relatable to a whole bunch of similarly bewildered millennials, it quickly gained a cult following and is currently available in a two part volume named ‘Dar!’.
https://www.ohjoysextoy.com/ebooks-shop/

This reminds me so much of my early blog.

I was just, like: how honest am I allowed to be before someone throws me off the internet?

The answer: as honest as I wanted. There was nobody to tell what I could and could not publish on my blog. There were no "honesty" police. It was thrilling.

And Erika followed the same path.

We know now that art and free expression on the internet comes at....a cost. It's energetically and emotionally EXPENSIVE to just spill your soul, whether it's on a blog or in a memoir comic.

Now. Our personal journeys across the frolicking spectrum of queerness are messy enough under the eye of our friends and families, let alone an audience presented to the story without, ahem, context. 

For instance, meeting a guy and finding him attractive when you’re an out and proud self-defined lesbian on the internet is considered by some to an act of war. (Ani Difranco - and if you missed it, she's on patreon, go go go - went through that battlefield, as well, as she was, like me, an out and proud bisexual who shacked up with a dude.)

But as with all great unions, nothing would keep Erika and Matt apart. 

After finishing college, taking a real world job and surviving the inevitable emotional collapse that brings, Erika regrouped and starting hanging out at Periscope Studios, a collective of artists in downtown Portland. 

 She married Matt, was offered a position at Periscope and all of a sudden was "living the dream".

Having contributed to books by Alternative Comics (Flight Volume 1), Prism (Unsafe For All Ages) and Last Gasp (Best Erotic Comics 2008)...she finally started collaborating with Marvel’s Jeff Parker on Bucko; a murder mystery that makes sudden violent death looking appealing given what the protagonist has to deal with in the first chapter.

Then, around 2011, ‘Dar!’ had outgrown its usefulness and, between projects, Erika and Matt began work on ‘Oh Joy, Sex Toy!’, a whole new web comic. 

Then they decided to make a book from it. 

How?

GUESS.

Kickstarter, of course.

Raising $69K worth of pre-orders on Kickstarter (and I am pretty sure I was a backer and cheerleader for the project, though my memory has holes) they produced a book  that discusses everything from the fear of smear examinations to how to operate your own genitals.

It’s an absolutely glorious piece of work, I own it, and if you didn't back it, it's available to buy via Erika’s site www.ohjoysextoy.com.  Buy it for your favorite teen. Or forty-year-old clueless lover. Also: Erika and Matt are always looking for guest cartoonists to cover a broad range of topics, so if any of you want to pitch them some comic ideas, go for it! https://www.ohjoysextoy.com/submissions.

THEN....ERIKA JOINED PATREON.

Yes, you know what I'm gonna say. 

Back her. 

http://patreon.com/erikamoen

It’s here on patreon that Erika found her groove, and these days she’s still producing guilt- and shame-free comics that have built up an army of supporters. 

Finally, Erika’s upcoming project is the graphic novel Let's Talk About It, coming out from Random House Graphic on March 9, 2021. 

You can pre-order using this link: https://www.erikamoen.com/LetsTalk

Sneak peek below:

Does it look awesome, or no?

So:

PLEASE PRE-ORDER ERIKA'S NEW BOOK! 

ORDER 3 COPIES!

ORDER IT FOR EVERY TEENAGER YOU KNOW FOR CHRISTMAS!!!

YAY AND HOORAY.

.......

In closing...

Once you’ve listened to this talk with Erika, you’ll understand that despite the fulfillment of her dreams, her life and art hasn't been....trouble free. 

That is - once again - why this episode of The Art of Asking Everything is patron-only. 

In addition to my post here sharing this episode with you, Erika will also share it with her patrons. This is just us, sharing with our peoples.

Secure and compassionate spaces on the internet are few and far between to find now. And I’m so proud that Erika and I can join forces and make a space like this. WE ALL MADE THIS.

And again, after this episode, I hope you join forces with us, and Erika's patreon. I really, really hope you do.

She needs people like you.

.....

SHOW DETAILS/CREDITS:

The Art of Asking Everything
Erika Moen: Candy & Broken Glass (a patron-only episode)

Erika's Twitter:
@ErikaMoen 

Instagram:
@fuckyeaherikamoen 

Web:
https://www.erikamoen.com

The new book, "Let's Talk About It":
https://www.erikamoen.com/LetsTalk

Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/erikamoen

Comic Lab interview:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/special-guest-41750788

.....

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, if you ain't there already. (it's a hyperlink at the very bottom of the post with a little paper clip attachment symbol next to it....you'll see it).

......

CREDITS

Thank you, obviously, to Erika....for the talk, for the winding road, for getting to NOW.

The engineer for this interview was Ryan Mauk and was recorded at Digital One studios in Portland, OR, on June 11, 2019.

The podcast was produced by the amazing FannieCo.

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

Many, many thanks to my incredible team: Hayley and Michael in NYC, Jordan in Sydney, Alex and Kelly in the UK, and Fannie, who's in Pennsylvania.

......

LOTS OF LOVE from my new desk, which I'm still unpacking.

Hang in there, everybody.

x

a

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

1. if you’re a patron, 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.

2. see All the Things (over 100 of them) i've made so far on patreon:

http://amandapalmer.net/things

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

4. 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/

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