THE COUCH OF TRUTH: EPISODE ONE "Suicide & Mental Health: Three Stories" {official Thing} (Patreon)

Hello my sweet loves.

I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL THING FOR YOU.

If you've been following along the big monthly State of Althings (here's the last one), you've been watching me struggle to get this project out for OVER TWO YEARS.

The TL;DR version - after  we just dropped the first episode of our “COUCH OF TRUTH” series, where I sat backstage before a show on the "There will Be No Intermission" tour and asked people to share stories that they thought the rest of the community might want to hear.

Most important....I want to thank all the people who sat on the Couch of Truth from the bottom of my heart. You didn't have to do it. It takes a special kind of bravery to sit down with a near-stranger and tell your darkest story while a camera rolls. 

I am so goddamn proud of all of you, and so honored and grateful to have been able to sit with you. I love you all so very much. What a world this is, eh?

And here we go. Episode one.

"Suicide & Mental Health: Three Stories"

The video is embedded at the top of this post, or you can click here for the YouTube link and click here for the Vimeo link.

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And before we go forward, and since it seems especially appropriate for this video.... if you are struggling, there are so many places you can reach out to talk to someone....anonymously.

Wikipedia (of all places) actually has a really great resource list, with a whole bunch of general and specialist crisis lines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

We love you.

You're not alone.

Not even a little.

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This is the first of a five-part series. 

I didn't feel comfortable with thinging every episode - but the budget was fat to get this all done, so i decided to thing it in two parts. We are putting out episode one now, and - with your blessing - we'll thing the next batch of four episodes ALL AT ONCE. Sound okay? Hit me in the comments, I'm listening. So is Alex, who's in the seat next to me in the patreon-thing-car and has taken over for Hayley to help me put these posts together. We're both reading.

Also, we love and care about you and know these episodes might bring up a lot of feelings. Don't be afraid to comment, in fact, please do comment, and please do read others' comments and answer. You have permission. You really do. Talk to each other. This is why we are doing this. Okay? Okay.

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AND NOW. THE FULL STORY.

I met Jenessa Joffe when we were both attending Wesleyan University together. She’s a filmmaker, and we actually wound up working together in 2008 on this video for “What’s The Use of Wond’rin’?”, the Rogers and Hammerstein song from Carousel that I recorded a very-heavily-tongue-firmly-in-cheek version for my first solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer.

Kim and Zoe Boekbinder (aka Vermillion Lies) popped in for the video shoot too, and a grand time was had by all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6pvw2m3ZvQ&ab_channel=AmandaPalmer

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Fast forward about ten years...

Toronto was one of the first stops on the There Will Be No Intermission tour, back in March 2019. We invited people to come backstage and be interviewed, by me, about….. well, anything. Confessions. Stories. Worries. 

Whatever they wanted to get off their chests.

We talked. We cried. We hugged.

It was a pretty emotional time.

Jenessa and I (and the team) have spent the last two years figuring out how all this footage should best be used, and in the end we settled on creating a mini web series made up of a short videos, each one dealing with a different THEME.

The first episode is.....

“SUICIDE & MENTAL HEALTH: THREE STORIES" 

(Again, click here to watch) 

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The remaining episodes yet to come are......

"MISCARRIAGE: WHERE IS THE HALLMARK CARD?"

“GRIEF: AND IT’S GOING TO HURT”

"ABORTION: THREE STORIES"

"HAVING A KID... OR NOT: TWO STORIES ABOUT BEING OKAY"

……

The Director's Statement from Jenessa Joffe.....

(Jenessa, directing her first in-person shoot since getting vaccinated)

Dear Patrons,

We don’t typically ask our rock stars to also be our confidants, our shoulder to cry on, our therapist, our self-help guru, our community builder, our friend. I can’t imagine any fan sitting down backstage with, say, a member of Mötley Crüe circa 1984 and expecting to get anything but a snort of coke and the chance to give a blowjob. Maybe times have changed, but also Amanda Palmer isn’t your typical rock star. So, when she mentioned that she would sometimes approach people in the audience of her shows and offer them a glass of wine and the chance to swap abortion stories, I was amazed. I just could not get over the image of someone waiting to see a performer they admire so much and then being presented with a surprise opportunity to have such an intimate conversation with them. 

I immediately wanted to film it.

This conversation happened at a small gathering in Los Angeles while Amanda was in town for work. We’re friends from college and I was happy to see her after a long time. Back in college, just like now, Amanda was always expressing herself and making her art. Some people loved it, others didn’t. I remember her walking naked down the halls of Eclectic, a co-ed punk fraternity house where we both lived, and some asshole yelling at her to put her clothes back on. It wasn’t the first time. 

Another time she did a performance art piece that involved destroying cassette tapes of her early piano practice sessions, again naked, in silhouette behind a strung-up sheet. I was a fan.

Seeing Amanda find a community of people that love and support her work warms my heart. I’m thrilled for my friend that she gets to make her music and art for a living, on her own terms. Her journey and spirit continue to inspire me.

And it’s thanks to this wonderful community Amanda’s built that I got to join the circus too! (For the second time, no less. Check out this music video I directed for AFP back in 2008.) I texted Amanda later that night after the party that I couldn’t stop thinking about filming her impromptu conversations with fans. She texted back that she may be able to fund the project thanks to her Patreon.

Cut to Toronto, March 2019. 

We’d decided to film backstage at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on the second night of Amanda’s worldwide tour for her new album, There Will Be No Intermission. I’d recruited a group of participants ahead of time, and we invited them to chat with Amanda about abortion (and other heart-wrenching topics) that dovetailed with the themes of the album. 

The only problem was I couldn’t actually attend the shoot. I was 6 months pregnant and getting married and it was my husband’s birthday. I hired the most amazing field producer, Lora Campbell, a Toronto local, to take my place and directed the shoot remotely. These were pre-pandemic times before people did such things! 

As an advocate for marginalized filmmakers I am very proud that we were able to hire an all women or gender non-binary film crew that included people of color and LGBTQ+ folx.

We tried to recreate some conversations like the ones Amanda has in the audience before her shows, albeit backstage in a dressing room, while sound check was going on - on a couch - and without wine. (Maybe we should have had wine?) Although the environment was more controlled, the stories that spilled out were just as raw. 

The title of each episode is basically a trigger warning.

We got initial edits done on the videos by the time I went into labor. Then I didn’t hear from Amanda for a while. She was on tour and I didn’t push - I was a first time mom with a preemie.  9 months later, my baby doing great, I was ready to get back to work. Then, the pandemic hit. With no safe seeming options for childcare, I stopped working to take care of my baby and the project languished. 

Amanda was marooned in New Zealand and wrapped up with other things anyway.

Finally, a million years later, fully vaxxed and with childcare two mornings a week, I started to push. And here we are - our little documentary series, THE COUCH OF TRUTH WITH AMANDA PALMER, is  born!

Part of me wants to say that we should let Amanda Fucking Palmer just be a fucking rock star. We shouldn’t expect her to listen to our problems and come up with life wisdom and knowledge bombs to drop on us (outside of her music, of course). Just leave her be to trash some hotel rooms or sleep with a tour bus full of groupies, goddammit. If she was a dude would we expect anything more? (Okay maybe, hopefully, in this day and age we would.) The fact is, with her book and her podcast and the community she’s built using Patreon and social media, Amanda has chosen a different path. Good. Also, we’re not worthy! Anyway, I hope you’re as grateful as I am that Amanda Palmer is such a well-rounded, balanced, inclusive, sage of a rock star. And if she isn’t all the time, well that’s good too.

All that is to say, I hope you enjoy this series on multiple levels, whether from a place of Amanda fandom, as a member of this beautiful community she’s built, or as someone who has also struggled with the issues discussed in these videos. I’m so grateful to the interview participants for baring their souls on camera, in front of their favorite rock star no less! It kind of sounds like one of those dreams where you show up to school naked. But it really happened. We’ve got the videos to prove it. 

Also, Amanda Palmer has never been shy to show up to school naked. Maybe, at least metaphorically, we shouldn’t be either.

- Jenessa Joffe

Twitter: @jenessajoffe

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And here's a bunch of behind the scenes photos from the filming...

the whole crew, as photographed from me on the couch....

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Since all of the people featured in this series are from this community - and most (if not all) are right here on this Patreon - I figured it was also a nice idea to pass the mic over to them, let them introduce themselves to you, and give you a little Where Are They Now? insight, and let them shine a light on a charity that's close to them.

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Adam

Since the filming, Adam has been staying safe, staying happy, and working on a full length instrumental album that will hopefully hit the internet this year.

Adam wants to highlight Canada Suicide Prevention Service: https://www.crisisservicescanada.ca/en/ 

He is also happy to talk to anyone who wants to after watching this episode. You can reach him at ae.morrsn@gmail.com, and he encourages anyone who wants to to reach out.

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Zac

Like most people, my life has changed so much since we sat down together on the couch. When the pandemic hit, I was in the middle of my master’s degree and numerous advocacy campaigns to improve healthcare for trans folks. With support from my friends and partner I was able to keep doing this work and eventually started my PhD in social work. I’m studying how to improve eating disorder health care for trans folks. It has not been the easiest of times for anyone. My partner and I have suffered two pregnancy losses in the last year, as well as so many other losses. But we weren't alone. Every week I would see my students and the people I support in my mental health practice struggling and I wished there was more I could do. Strangely enough, I had become thankful for my chronic health conditions that had taught me so many lessons about poverty, grief, and isolation before the pandemic. I hope that we can use some of the lessons we have gained from this pandemic to maintain the accessibility gains that were made, but I also hope that we won’t forget the people who became more isolated and who were not seen as deserving of assistance, especially by our governments.

Everyone I know right now is tired. I think everyone is trying to do their best, even if that’s just surviving. There are so many amazing healthcare workers out there doing so much to help people. I know throughout this pandemic there has been a small focus on the impact on people’s mental health. Eating disorder healthcare in Canada has been underfunded for years. Throughout the pandemic, waitlists for eating disorder support has tripled. Sheena’s Place is a non-profit in Toronto that provides free support groups for people struggling with disordered eating. It’s a charity close to my heart and runs completely on donations.  https://sheenasplace.org/

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Martine

2020/2021 have been hard but that's not a surprise.  Mental health is a constant struggle and it knocked me on my ass recently.  I'm slowly climbing back up...  It's just a ride.

I want to highlight the charity The 519, a Toronto hub for queer community and services, at https://www.the519.org. My partner and I also run a small reptile business from home, at https://lampropeltis.ca/ and my social handle is @youlittlewonder on everything.

I'm including a photo of Arya, my samoyed and the happiest dog ever. Look at that face... that dog face gives hope to the world.

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Again, I am so proud of all these people for telling their truths, for sharing these stories with me, with us, with the world. 

And I’m especially proud that this Patreon exists, so that we CAN MAKE THINGS LIKE THIS. 

We would never be able to do this sort of thing without Patreon. We’d never be able to get a corporate sponsor like Dove or Victoria’s Secret to give us the cash to pay for cameras, filmmakers, make-up artists, microphones, editors, and everything else that’s needed to make these videos. Nor would we want to. 

But because of the Patreon, and because of this community - because of YOU - we can.

So thank you for being a patron and helping light the dark.

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ONE MORE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!

Here's the link again for the first episode.....

https://youtu.be/6681m0cH8mc 

and keep your eyes on your inbox for the second drop heading your way very soon.

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THE CREDITS

Cast:

Amanda Palmer

Adam

Martine

Zac

Director / Producer:

Jenessa Joffe

Field Producer:

Lora Campbell

Director of Photography:

Nyssa Gluck

Camera Operators:

Chantal Garcia

Danielle Thorn

Location Sound:

Bridget Tang

Hair / Make-Up Artist:

Sahar Junejo

Production Assistants:

Lindsay Duncan

Sarah JM Kolberg

Editors:

Cindy Long

Caddie Hastings

Matt Marhefka

Penda Diakité

Re-Recording Mixer:

Greg Townley

Still Photography:

Allan Amato

Kyle Cassidy

Lindsay Duncan

Kahn & Selesnick

Stephanie Zakas

Special Thanks:

Jordan Verzar

Hayley Rosenblum

Michael McComiskey

Alex Knight

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LOVE LOVE AND LOVE

AFP

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

1. if you are a patron and new to my work, don’t forget your patronage allows you access to ALL of my patreon releases to date. HERE is the link to download my latest big solo record, “There Will Be No Intermission”, and HERE is a link to download the PDF of the art/essay book that goes with it.

2. if you’re a patron reading this post via an email notification, 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.

3. see All the Things (over 150 of them) i've made so far on patreon:

http://amandapalmer.net/things

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

5. 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/

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