4: Amanda Palmer.

Today's entry is the happier offspring of yesterday's. One thing leads to another, it's the way things go.

When I first became enamored with Panic!, they were touring with a band I'd never heard of called The Dresden Dolls. They made a video together while on tour, a music video to the Dolls' song "Backstabber" from their new album. This is that video (warning, strong language - though I doubt anyone who's reading this cares):



I found it pretty amusing, but I was only getting half of the laughs because, at the time, I was only familiar with the personalities of the Panic! members. I knew nothing about these "fucking mimes", as Spencer called them. But I liked the song, so I decided to try out the album.

I absolutely loved Yes, Virginia..., and wound up listening to their older albums as well. I soon found myself learning how to play their songs, playing the piano for real for the first time in probably six or seven years. The music was inspiring, moving, but my main focus was still Panic!.

Then the whole story I recounted in the last blog happened. Right before Hannah came to visit me, the Dolls' new compilation album, No, Virginia... was released. I got it but didn't get a real chance to listen to it before she got here. The Dolls weren't really her thing, so listening to them together wasn't really an option.

She left, broke my heart, yada yada, you already know the story.

No, Virginia... was there.

I fell into a deep depression, but this music was there for me to cling to. Amanda's voice, her words, her sounds helped put the pieces of me back together. When I was at the lowest I'd ever been, this record saved me.

I soon found out that Amanda's solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer was scheduled to come out a couple months later, that August, right around my birthday. I got really excited. I stopped paying so much attention to Panic!, and somehow, Amanda became my new obsession.

No, it was more than that; Amanda became my hero.

Her music has moved me in ways that no one else's ever has. I think "Strength Through Music" is one of maybe three songs that has ever made me cry.

She was going on a tour that fall to support the album. Tickets went on pre-sale in September. I'd found out earlier that day that my new friend Tyler liked The Dresden Dolls, and I asked if he'd go to the show in Portland in December with me. It was on his birthday, but he planned on it. My mom pre-ordered the tickets and December 12th was constantly on my mind as it approached ever so slowly.

During this time I also made a new friend over the internet named Katie. She lives in Ireland and she told me she had just seen Amanda play in Dublin, and that she had met Amanda and gotten a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

I was in shock. I had no idea Amanda did signings and meet and greets after every single show. I was going to meet her! I was going to meet my hero! The anticipation for December grew even larger.

We went to the show. We got there very early, and were second in line behind two girls named Catilin and Ellery. We spent the next two hours or so talking to them and, of course, waiting. The doors finally opened.

There were opening acts.

Jason Webley is an amazing accordionist from Seattle and one of Amanda's best friends. He got us drunk in a very legal way and had us sing a drinking song. He was good, but I wanted Amanda.

The Builders and the Butchers are a local band. They were good, but I wanted Amanda.

Zoe Keating is a brilliant cellist. She was good, but I wanted Amanda.

Amanda was carried on to the stage in a veil, rising from the audience, rising from the dead.

I actually started crying. I was in the front row, and she was mere feet away from me. I had my new camera. I was supposed to be taking pictures, video. I tried, but I couldn't. She was right there. Why should I be watching her through a camera?

The show was magnificent. You should, in fact, try to find videos of her and the Danger Ensemble. It was easily the best concert I have ever been to (and lucky for Tyler, because it was his first concert - and on his birthday too!). Moving, like the music, but more interactive, more real. Incredible. There are simply no words that can accurately describe it.

I went to the merch table and bought a poster and The Virginia Companion (the sheet music from Yes, Virginia... and No, Virginia...). My intention was to ask her to sign them.

Then someone shouted, "THERE WILL NOT BE A SIGNING TONIGHT! THE VENUE IS CLOSING."

My heart broke again.

We left, dejected. I figured, "it's okay, I'll meet her next time."

I found out the next day over Facebook, from Caitlin, that Amanda came outside later and talked to everyone that got kicked out but had waited around anyway. I was filled with so much regret that we didn't stay. It ate at me for months.

But I got my chance.

Amanda opened me up to the world of Twitter (yet another thing I'll have to blog about... ironically). Her Twitter account is very active. She uses it to make announcements of all sorts, chatter, and, more originally, be a ninja.

Sometime in either May or June, she started announcing ninja ukulele gigs wherever she happened to be if she had some spare time. She'd go to a park or some other public place, and announce over Twitter that she'd be there. People could show up. They could donate money if they wanted to, but it wasn't necessary. The point was connecting with fans.

In July, she started tweeting that she was in Portland at a hotel. I was surprised that she was there at all, as she really had no reason to be from what I could tell, but excited that she was so close. On the night of July 8th, she tweeted that she was having a random get together in a strip club in Portland. I was 18, so technically, I could have gone, but I had no way of getting there because no one I knew that could have driven me from Woodland to Portland (over a half hour drive) wanted to go to a strip club. I was disappointed, but I knew I'd get my chance.

The next day, she tweeted that there would be a ninja uke gathering. I rushed to figure out plans. I ended up catching a ride with my friend Sam, who lives even further north in Washington, and loves Amanda just as much as I do. I brought my ukulele and the WKAP DVD for her to sign. Tyler and Andrew were already in Portland and went there as well.

They got there early and were able to grab a good spot near Amanda when she showed up.

We, however, got there late. Sam's friends didn't know their way around Portland and we got very, very lost. But we made it.

I showed up in the middle of Amanda playing "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" on her ukulele. There was a pretty large crowd sitting around her. I stood there looking for Andrew and Tyler, and was shocked to see them sitting right next to her. I snuck behind her and sat down next to them. She was sitting just a couple feet away from me. It was pretty surreal, but I didn't cry, not like the first time. I think I had better prepared myself, somehow.

She finished the song and had apparently noticed me sitting down behind her. She turned around and said "hi." Somehow, I said "hi" back. She told me I had a nice ukulele. I thanked her. And she went back to playing.

The whole thing was really great. She played a lot of songs, there was a lot of chatting, she read from the (not yet released) Who Killed Amanda Palmer book (stories by Neil Gaiman, pictures by many, many people). Jason Webley showed up. They played "Elephant, Elephant" together on top of an elephant statue in the park. Jason played his own "Last Song". Just as he was about to leave, I caught him and asked him to sign my ukulele. Instead of actually signing it, he just drew a little picture of himself. Adorable, actually. I also asked Amanda to sign it really quickly. My previously awesome ukulele was now a million times more awesome.

Jason left. Amanda stood around and went, slowly but surely, through the crowd of people, giving hugs, signing, talking and taking pictures. She got to me.

I calmly, somehow, told her that she's my hero and that No, Virginia... brought me out of a major depression. She said that was interesting, that she'd never heard anyone say that before because that was such an odd record (it was all B-sides and leftover recordings from Yes). I had Tyler ask her to sign my DVD (I felt weird having her sign two things) and she talked to Andrew as well. She gave us hugs and took pictures. I think one of the strangest parts for me was when she laid her head down on my shoulder. It was so affectionate and... I don't really know how to describe it.

See, here's the thing about Amanda: she's not like most other artists. She really cares about her fans and wants to connect with them, regardless of how famous she gets. There aren't many musicians left that will do that; there are too many people at the show to have a meet and greet, signings only happen once in a blue moon, hugs, what are those? I think that's a huge part of what's drawn me to her so much - she's just so real.

My obsession with Panic! was an entirely different thing. They were real people, sure, but they felt like fictional characters. They were very far away, disconnected, out of reach, and I think that's part of why the whole fanfiction thing was okay with me. I didn't feel like they were real. I could slash them just like I could slash any anime character.

That's not to say I couldn't write fanfiction about Amanda, but it would be a very different thing. It would most likely be a WKAP story. They actually encourage that sort of thing - there's a website, http://wekilledamandapalmer.com that takes submissions of pictures and stories inspired by WKAP. I've actually gotten a picture up there and Andrew has as well. Andrew, Tyler and I (as well as a couple other friends here and there) started our own Who Killed project, at http://whokilled.deviantart.com.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that Amanda Palmer has changed my life drastically. Her music and art has inspired me like no other. She's changed me for the better. She's made me try new things I may not have tried before. It's because of her I started playing piano again. It's because of her I took up the ukulele.

And it's because of her that my heart is no longer broken.

3: Panic! At the Disco.

This is part one of a small series. I have to start here to explain how I got to the next couple of posts.

In 2006, my taste in music was fairly limited - most of what I was listening to was the same stuff I was listening to in 2003. I didn't listen to any music that was on the radio. Popular music? What was that?

A couple of my friends were listening to this band, Panic! At the Disco. I didn't know what their music sounded like, but their name made me automatically assume they were ridiculous and not worth my time. (They actually were kind of ridiculous, I found out later, but not in the ways you would expect.)

Rachel, one of my best friends who liked the band, told me about their stage show. The lead singer was very suggestive with the lead guitarist. There was even a scene where they acted like they were going to kiss, but faked out on the audience. This, naturally, got the fangirls screaming. It also had me intrigued. Potentially gay boys are an easy way to get me into any fandom.

If you're wondering where my head is, it's difficult to explain. I'm one of many, many girls who find the idea of homosexual relationships between men exciting. I don't really know what, specifically, about it catches my attention, but this is besides the point. I had to investigate.

So I started watching live videos of the band. I started listening to their music.

And then I found the fanfiction.

I'd never really been a member of a fan community that obsessed over real people. It was all very new to me. At first I felt a little bit ashamed - people would ask me, "you're slashing REAL people?!" and I felt bad but I continued to do it anyway. The guilty feelings went away slowly as I read more and more and even wrote some of my own.

I became obsessed past the slash; I got interested in who these guys really were, why they wrote the music they did, what made them tick. I watched and read interviews, saved pictures, listened, listened, listened, obsessed. It was a strange fandom to be a part of, and it was full of interesting people who had a lot of the same interests and feelings as me. I made some new friends and re-kindled relationships with old friends.

I posted fanfiction and fanart of the band on my deviantART account (ShiversTheNinja.deviantart.com, if you're wondering) and made some new friends there as well. One particular friend and hit it off fast and couldn't seem to stop talking. Next thing you knew, we were constantly chatting on AIM and I used AIM to text her while she wasn't home.

This is where it starts to get a little bit difficult to talk about, but I'll continue anyway. I'm straying a bit from the original subject of this post, but Panic! was really what brought us together and kept us together.

Her name was Hannah, and she was the first person I ever fell in love with. She lived on the opposite side of the country, in Connecticut. My feelings for her gave me the ability (and a couple of times, forced me) to come out as bisexual to several people who had not previously known this about me. Eventually, I was able to tell her my feelings and she replied with enthusiasm that she felt the same way. We started making plans for her to come visit me so we could see Panic (they had dropped the exclamation point at the time) in concert together in Portland that June.

Also heavily involved in this whole thing was my good friend Elise. She completed a triangle between the three of us; we all liked the same things, we had good conversations, we were all friends. She also gave me the confidence to ask Hannah out.

So for months and months, there were chats, inside jokes. Things developed outside of the Panic fandom that were personal to us, but still connected. I was happier than I'd ever been before. Things seemed to be going so well.

Then she came to visit, and things got weird. She stayed for a whole month. We had some fun, but neither of us was agressive enough to make a move (I still hadn't had my first kiss) and nothing ever happened except for occasional hugs. I didn't even say "I love you" in person to her until we were at the airport and she was actually leaving. All I got was a muffled response.

Why? Because over the course of that month, she realized that she was still in love with her ex-girlfriend. After leaving, she avoided the internet (and me) for three weeks before finally sending me a message to tell me that it wasn't going to work out.

So, my first love, and my first heartbreak. That was probably the hardest summer I've ever had. But it brought me into the subject of my next post... which will, well, be covered in my next post.

My interest in Panic faded as activity from the band slowed and the fandom became quiet. I still paid some attention to what was going on, but I stopped reading fanfiction.

Earlier this year, I heard the news that the band split. Ryan Ross and Jon Walker were leaving the band to form their own new band. It wasn't that much of a surprise - they hadn't been talking to the other two, visibly at least, for months. So they left, and Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith were left alone to continue Panic! (they re-instituted the exclamation mark) and take on the tour with blink-182.

I was upset. I cried. It was difficult. But the new music gave me hope. I liked it better than any of their previous material. It wasn't as original as their first album, nor was it as unoriginal as their second album. It was somewhere in between, and it was perfect for me.

The third album still hasn't come out yet - they're working on new songs for it. They've released one single and a clip of a demo of another song. I will wait, patiently for the new album. And even though the obsession is gone, I'll still be very excited when it comes out. When I enter a fandom, I'm in it for good, even if the fixation isn't there. I will always care.

2: Paper stars.

I've enjoyed origami since I was young. Folding paper and making neat little figures always amused me.

When I was 12, a classmate introduced me to origami "lucky stars". You take a strip of paper, fold it into a pentagon and puff it up, like so:

(Lucky star instructions by carriephlyons.deviantart.com)

I thought these were the coolest origami I'd ever seen. Most of the origami I'd done was two-dimensional, flat, and, well... kind of boring. These were not only 3D, they were cute! I had my mom take me to the import store so I could buy a canister of strips to fold them out of.

I have no idea what happened to all those stars I folded when I was 12. There were probably about 100. I don't really know how many strips were in that can. But after that little fit of folding fun, I dropped the whole idea and forgot about it.

Until two years ago.

I started papercrafting (yet another post will be made for that) and I found that at times I wanted to make things out of paper but I wasn't in the mood for glue or cutting out complicated pieces. I just wanted something simple that didn't take a lot of thinking.

I remembered those origami stars.

I, once again, bought strips for making them. I folded every single one. I got better and better at it as time went on. Unfortunately, there wasn't much time for that; I went through all the strips very quickly.

Then I found out you could print lucky star strips. Print them?! What nonsense, I thought!

How wrong was I?

I bought scrapbook paper and cut it down so I could run it through the printer and get the template on the paper. Then I cut that down so that I had lots of strips made out of scrapbook paper in various patterns. I spent a lot of time in December 2007 folding stars. I bought a large plastic lidded container at the Dollar Tree specifically for storing the stars.

While at my grandma's house, I hit 1,000 stars.

(That's actually a picture of some of my stars, in case you were wondering.)

Even though I'd hit 1,000, I still kept going. Everyone asked me the same thing: what are you going to do with those stars? I really didn't know. I thought maybe I'd give them to friends, maybe I'd leave them in random places for people to find. I did a little bit of both for a while. My friend Ashley suggested I hang them from my ceiling, and I ended up with about 100 up there. But they still weren't really going anywhere... until recently.

Another hobby (and another entry) that I have is making jewelry out of polymer clay. I've had the fortunate opportunity a few times to sell it online. Each time I sell jewelry, I package it with some stars, like so:

I think this is going to be the final resting place for a lot of my stars. It's a good compromise; they're not getting thrown in the trash, they're being given to friends and valued customers as an extra little surprise. They don't feel like such a waste of time anymore.

Except for this beauty, which I made last week:

Yeah, do you see my hand there? This thing is over a foot wide. It's hanging from my ceiling, right in front of my window. I made it by taping together a lot of pieces of printer paper, end to end. I think I used 16, but if I did it again, I'd probably use 18 to make sure it was strong enough to actually puff it up more properly. I had to use tape in several places to hold it together. But I think it was worth it. Every time I look at it, it makes me smile. It feels like the culmination of my star-making habit.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm going to stop; I'll probably be making paper stars for a long time.

1: Music.

Music is, as with many other people, one of the driving forces in my life. I've always been fascinated by it, since I was young. Dancing, singing, enjoying the sounds.

I don't think music really began to take over my life, however, until my dad bought me my first CD: Spice by the Spice Girls.

Yes, that's right. Spice was the first album I ever owned. I was six years old, and the Spice Girls were at the top of the charts. I had no idea who they were when he bought me the CD; I didn't know they were world-famous, I didn't even really grasp the concept of bands and radio.

All I knew was that I really, really liked what I was hearing. Somewhere along the line of being obsessed with this album, I realized that everyone else was listening to it, too. I spent a lot of time trying to speak in a British accent with my best friend on the swings at recess, thinking I must be the coolest person alive.

I've since moved on from the Spice Girls. I think most people have. A lot of things have changed for me over the years and shaped the kinds of music I listen to.

For a long time, I listened to a lot of different musicians without any real fixation or obsession. Eventually, I moved away from mainstream music, but I would still stick with one album or genre for a while then drop it after a couple months. I never really cared too much about the people behind the music.

Then came Panic! At the Disco.

I was actually a bit late in listening to them, in comparison to the rest of the world. By the time they hit the charts, I hadn't been listening to the radio for at least three years. A couple of my friends talked about them from time to time, but I didn't really bother to check out the music. Then my good friend Rachel told me about their stage show and I knew I would have to get in on some of that action.

I'll make a post detailing my obsession and experiences related to Panic! another time. It's a long, long story.

Panic! eventually lead me to another band. They were touring with a band at the time called The Dresden Dolls. I'd never heard of them. They made a video together where they tried to kill each other, and I thought it was hilarious. It was set to the Dolls' song "Backstabber". I liked the song enough and decided to check out their latest album, Yes, Virginia....


The Dolls are yet another thing that warrant their own separate post.

Another way music consumed my life is through instruments. When I was seven years old, I started taking piano lessons so I could play my great grandmother's piano, which I had inherited. I attempted to learn guitar and failed. Earlier this year, I took up playing the ukulele (there's another thing to post about).

I think I'd have to say that, in short, music has changed my life in so many ways. I don't know if it works like that for most people. Sure, people can be emotionally moved by music, or it can make them dance. But it gave me that and more: connections, friends, experiences. There are a lot of things that would never have happened to me if it weren't for music.

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Introduction

Hi! I'm Sam, and this is my first blog.

Well, that's inaccurate; I've had blogs on various journal websites before, but they never really served a purpose or lasted.

I intend for this one to last, at the very least, for me.

The purpose: to get out all my random thoughts, rants, and share my interests and loves with all of you.

I hope to continue updating for a long time. We can only hope I have that much to say.

If you don't know much about me yet, don't worry, you will. This blog will be a slowly developing chronicle of who I am, what I do and what I like. I think it will help not only to get my ramblings out, but to help those who want to know me better get that chance.

Those of you that I know over YouTube, Twitter and deviantART... my followers, watchers, listeners. I hope you've all followed me here. I want to know you, and I want you to know me.

Let's be friends. :D