BRAIN/THING DUMP, & AFP COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD. what ya got? (Patreon)

HALLO LOVES.

It's been an odd week of going in and out of lockdown. There are lots of new patrons here...probably some from the spontaneous all-patron webcast going to socials the other day, probably some wanting to hear the patron-only erika moen podcast, and maybe some new people from clubhouse (more on that below).

If you're new, WELCOME! WELCOME TO MY PATREON! WELCOME TO THIS BEAUTIFUL COMMUNITY! and WELCOME TO MY MESS OF A LIFE! BUT IT IS CLEANING DAY!!!!!!!!!!!

(don't ever forget one of the best blog posts of all time).

So....HI. I AM STILL IN NEW ZEALAND and I am living in my fifth new rental home in a year and I have a lot of fuck ton of catching up to do. With my life, my projects, finances, my team, my friends, my email inbox, MY MORTAL SOUL. 

I also wanted to paste in a little story written by on of our long-time community members/patrons, Jack. He just got our of the hospital after being in there with COVID for 40 days, and on a ventilator. I've known Jack for ages and was worried about him. I'm so glad he made it out...and I asked him to write up a little about his experience...it's way down below. Wait for it. ADMIN FIRST.

CLEAN ALL THE THINGS.

................. 

There's a list of niggling things that have been niggling, and I figured I would just PUT THEM ALL IN ONE POST, but also, because I love the community-powered engine that you beautiful and bad-ass lot are in your own way...I was like, WHY NOT A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD OF RANDOM THINGS every once in a while.

You've all proven you're really good at taking care of one another and helping one another.

So I'll dump all my random shares and to-dos and things down below...and then you can share back whatever you want...to me, the team, and the whole community here.

And let's SEE WHAT HAPPENS?

It can really be the wild west. You can share links to art you're working on, the little online shop you've started, a gofundme that your aunt is struggling with, I mean....anything like that. AS LONG AS IT'S THE TYPE OF THING YOU'D SEE ON AN ACTUAL COMMUNITY BOARD IN A CORKBOARD in a COFFEE SHOP! Don't clog the feed with random political existential musings, music you like, or screams of existential despair. We have a place for those on the forum! (Go browse around, or start a thread!!!)

Try to follow this rule:

-have a skill/need a skill

-have a THING/need a THING

-offerings to start sub-groups in the forum (german speakers? writers? survivors of abusive parents? knitters? fans of weezer? etc. what a bunch of fun ideas....)

-actual links to websites of your wares, art, crowdfundings or "work”, whatever that is!

Just remember, the comments section here is pretty clonky, so if you want real traction, let's try to also use THIS THREAD of the shadowbox, which just mirrors the idea of this post! And you can even cross-post and give a summary of what you've posted on the shadowbox!

HERE'S THE SHADOWBOX THREAD!!!

https://forum.theshadowbox.net/t/all-patron-community-bulletin-board/6998

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meanwhile.....HERE'S WHAT I GOT RIGHT NOW. CLEAN THINGS.

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HOW IS EVERYBODY IN THE STATES DOING IN THE COLD, AND DOES ANYBODY NEED HELP?

I saw this weather map the other day and almost lost my shit.

For those of you in Europe/Etc....this is FARNEHEIT.

ONE DEGREE IN FARENHEIT - which you can see in this map of Texas - is MINUS SEVENTEEN CELCIUS.

This is historic, unprecedented (sorry), and if you've been following the news; fucking catastrophic. 

I KNOW WE HAVE A TON OF PATRONS IN TEXAS/US COLD-LAND...IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO?

HIT US:

HERE'S A THREAD ON THE SHADOWBOX.

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I WANNA PLUG "ACTING STRANGER"

SEATTLE AREA...! If you want to meet up with a random stranger a make a little piece of beautiful theater, your chance at randomness is here.

This is such a beautiful site, I found out about it today on Clubhouse (more on that below)....

STRANGERS! MEETING! KIND OF ACTING! POETICALLY! Go get lost in the videos.

http://actingstranger.com/

If anyone in Seattle winnds up doing this, tell me, ping its creator Andrew Schneider on twitter and tell him I sent you. I hope at least a few of you do this. It's magical:

he's @helloandrewjs and his website is here: http://www.andrewjs.com/about/

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GODDAMIT BEN HOPKINS IS ON PATREON AFTER ME BUGGING THEM FOR LIKE TWO WHOLE YEARS TO DO IT.

I just became their 16th patron. I'm so excited.

https://www.patreon.com/benhopkinsbenhopkins

You may all remember Ben from the band PWR BTTM. Ben got explosively "cancelled" about four years ago, and is finally back and making music, and finding their community again. Ben is a really, really powerful performer and songwriter, and I think they're gonna thrive on patreon. If you were wondering what happened to Ben and PWR BTTM, well.....the bitch is back. 

I was an ear to Ben during a lot of dark moments during that cancelation, and I'm really glad...well, I'm really glad Ben is still alive. 

And not just alive, but thriving and Making Good Art again. Ben's music is hard to describe but it's BIG, HONEST, BEAUTIFUL and really relatable. It's VERY FUNNY and VERY SAD at the same time. Their new record, "I held my breath for a really long time once", is incredible, and if you don't believe me, just listen to THE INTERNET SONG. I really, truly love this song.

Then Ben wrote 100 songs in 100 days and called it "One Hundred Days Of Hurting My Own Feelings". It's here on bandcamp.

If there was ever a person/artist for patreon....it's BEN.

I've been trying to talk Ben onto the patreon bandwagon for fucking ever. After Ben signed back up with a label and watched it go south (surprise!)....I finally succeeded. I think a lot of you would love to support and watch the ride that Ben's about take on Patreon...the glitter, the humor, the sheer humanity of it will be a THING TO BEHOLD. So go and support them if you're looking for a new musician/artist to get behind. Here's the link again.

Merci.

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

I WANNA SHARE AN UPDATE ABOUT NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA OF PUSSY RIOT, WHO NEEDS OUR HELP.

A few days ago I got an email from Nadya, who you hopefully remember from the podcast we did together a few months ago.....

There is a wave of repressions happening lately....many, including Pussy Riotor Masha Alekhina, are facing jail time. They've put together a simple instructions how to support via socials.

If you want to help, give it a shot. I've just blasted the video out on my own twitter feed , if you wanna just go RT that.

 “RAGE” artwork / credit: Ksti Hu

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN RUSSIA RIGHT NOW:

We all shall put as much pressure on Putin as humanly possible to make sure that he releases all political prisoners. “RAGE” is a part of the campaign for the immediate release of Alexey Navalny, Pussy Riot's Masha Alekhina and dozens of others.

Pussy Riot's Masha Alekhina is currently under a house arrest for posting on social media about protests in support of Navalny and participating in protests in Moscow, she faces 2 years in jail. On the 28th of January, the court ordered Masha Alekhina to stay under a house arrest until the 23rd of March, alongside with other Navalny's supporters who were left under a house arrest, Navalny's brother Oleg Navalny (who already served 3,5 years in jail for a politically motivated case earlier), and amazing female political leaders Lubov Sobol and Anastasia Vasilyeva.

Imagine that Trump stayed in the office for the 2nd time and he jailed AOC and her supporters. What's happening in Russia is outrageous and unacceptable. Putin must go. He's just a one insane, sad, lonely and corrupted man who's dangerous for society.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN PUSSY RIOT'S CAMPAIGN FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN RUSSIA:

1. POST A 10-SEC CAMPAIGN CLIP (get clips HERE) OR THIS CAMPAIGN PICTURE

2. USE HASHTAGS: #FreeNavalny #FreePussyRiot #FreePoliticalPrisoners #БЕСИТ

3. ATTACH A LINK TO THE FULL "RAGE" VIDEO: https://youtu.be/ZUiU8QamHi0

4. WRITE IN YOUR OWN WORDS:

I stand with Pussy Riot. Russia will be free.

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN PUSSY RIOT'S CAMPAIGN.

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I WANNA TALK ABOUT CLUBHOUSE.

If you don't know what it is, read here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/business/clubhouse.html

It's basically "social radio".

It's an ALL-AUDIO app, with rooms for conversation, and NO TEXT AT ALL.

I'm obsessed. 

In the last two days, I've been lurking there, and have joined conversations with the DJ Deadmau5 about pain, cancelation and patreon, and today I talked withthe rapper  Lupe Fiasco about a lot of the same topics. 

I invited Jherek Bischoff and Ben onto the platform because I think they'll love it as artists. When I was in a welcome room for Ben, one of his heroes, Ryan from Guster, came in to say hi and welcome him. It's an incredibly warm and human platform.

Today, I got to connect with a ton of performing artists I know (or didn't know yet) from NYC/USA (the room was started by Vallejo Ganter, who used to run the performance space ps122 in NYC) who are working on art in covid-times and sharing ideas...that's where I heard and learned about "Acting Stranger" (see above).

Is anybody else (besides damian :) on it? I think it's worth it's own post, but before I do that post, I'm gonna throw out to the community that I think this is a huge converstion, and if anybody else is on the app, I wanna hear from you. 

There's a lot of issues with it (privacy, QAnon, racism), and I'm trying to tread carefully...so if anyone has intel, experiences, advice, whatever....hit me. I started a thread about clubhouse on the forum (https://forum.theshadowbox.net/t/clubhouse-tell-me-yer-thots/7002) but then found one already existed!!! so use that one!: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/t/the-clubhouse-app-please-share-invites-experiences-here/6750

(sorry, leela, eli and damian!! but i read all your comments!)

I think it might be worth making an INVITE CHAIN for patrons....so hold the phone. We know how to do it and we're working on a possible system.

I think you'd all love it, and I'd like to get you all an invitation.

TALKA TO ME.

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Last but not least, here's what Jack wrote about his 40 days in COVID-hospitalness. I just googled and remembered that Jack once was nice enough to be interviewed about being a patron, here. Thanks for that Jack, I owed you.

The ‘Rona

By Jack Abramowitz

You never met anyone more paranoid about catching the ‘rona than I was.

No, seriously. I never left the house, except perhaps for the occasional visit to the Starbucks drive-through.

I got it anyway. The missus brought it home from work.

“It’s just a cold,” she said.

“How do you know that?” I asked. “They’re both viruses. If you can catch a cold, you can catch the ‘rona.”

Her “cold” put me in the hospital for five and a half weeks. (She recuperated at home over the course of a week and went back to work.)

I was on high-flow oxygen for a week or two. (The exact timing of things kind of blurs together.) High-flow oxygen is the step before intubation. I didn’t know that at the time, which is good because I would have freaked. The thought of being intubated terrifies me.

“Why?” the doctor asked.

“It looks very uncomfortable,” I replied. “You can’t talk, you can’t eat….”

“It’s no big deal,” he informed me. “We put you in a medically-induced coma.”

“That doesn’t make it any more attractive,” I informed him right back.

The worst thing about the experience, other than the inability to breathe unaided and the general fear of death – you know what? Let’s start that sentence again.

The worst thing about the experience is the inability to breathe unaided and the general fear of death. The most frustrating thing is that the ‘rona affects everyone differently so you have no idea what to expect. They gave me Remdesivir. “That’ll fix you right up,” my friends told me. It didn’t. They gave me plasma with antibodies. “You’ll be good after that,” my friends said. I wasn’t.

So day after day, I sat there with tubes up my nose, moving from bed to chair and chair to bed, watching the same four TV stations and eating the same half-dozen meals. (“How’s the food?” everyone wanted to know. The taste was fine but there’s not a lot of variety.) Roommates came and went but visitors weren’t allowed. I grew shaggy like a mountain man because I was on blood thinners so no one would give me a pair of scissors to trim my beard. Eventually, a kindly nurse took pity on me and smuggled me in a pair of suture cutters. My daily routine included working on my laptop (just like at home) plus X-rays, blood work, IV steroids and other fun new activities to break up the monotony.

After 40 days, they sprung me to finish recuperating at home. I’m now on home oxygen, plus I’m so atrophied that any activity whatsoever leaves me winded. Bed to chair, chair to bed….

The ‘rona is a harsh mistress. 

The best we can do is sit back and enjoy The Ride. 

Except for the part about enjoying it because, take it from me, the ‘rona sucks.

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

Oh man.....WE LOVE YOU JACK.

I'm so glad you're okay.

And thank you for sharing.

Lots of love to everybody out there. 

Let's keep talking.

Use the shadowbox, hit me in the comments here, I'm reading...and I love you.

xx

a