Dear Amanda Palmer,

I’ve been trying to sort out my feelings all week about the kerfuffle over underground rockstar musician Amanda Palmer (AFP) and the wages she’s offering to pay musicians who join her on new tour (i.e., beer, hugs, high fives), a tour that was funded in no small part by a $1.2 million Kickstarter campaign. It’s a tough one for me to suss out, so I’m writing it out here…

It’s a tough one to suss out because I admire Amanda Palmer a lot. I admire her turn to Kickstarter — the community, the crowd, her fans. It’s a very different business model than the mainstream music biz; good for her, good for fans. I love her engagement with her fans on Twitter. I don’t love-love her music, admittedly, but I love her leaving a record label because of BS-body-shaming-sexism. I admire her unshaved armpits and stealth photography at the Oscars. I admire her honesty and her transparency. And yeah, I like her via liking Neil Gaiman (one of my favorite writers); when he married a wild woman like Amanda, I love them both a bit more for it. I admire their ability to be public figures (and public figures often geographically apart) on Twitter — even though sometimes it makes me feel squeamishly voyeuristic to watch their communications. I think about Kin and me as I say that, clearly. And I think about me as I state firmly that I love her “fuck you” attitude.

I digress. The point is: I like Amanda Fucking Palmer a whole heckuva lot. But I don’t like the pay-in-hugs thing. I’ve been thinking about it all week, AFP, and no no I don’t.

And let me clarify yet again, adding one more layer of myself onto this argument. I make art for a living. I write. I write because I’m good at it. I write because I love to write. I don’t make a lot of money doing so (I am no Neil Gaiman; of course, I don’t purport to be). But in making art for a living, I do know I’m optimizing that life for creativity, sanity, and happiness.

Mostly I’ve chosen that — happiness — over a paycheck.

I’m a professional writer. I’m not a professional musician. I quit playing music back in high school when band became marching band. I bet my little brother could’ve been a professional, orchestral musician — he plays viola. (And he was for a time in a bluegrass band, playing fiddel.) But again, I digress…

I read musician Amy Vaillancourt-Sals’ letter to Amanda Palmer, a letter that pushed back on the indie star’s promise to pay in beer and hugs. Go to Amy Vaillancourt-Sals' website, I tell you. There are photos of her in a field with a French Horn, for crying out loud. There’s a long list of her performances. She’s serious about music. (I debated capitalizing both “serious” and “music” in that sentence, for what it’s worth.) She runs a guild of sorts, Classical Revolution, that helps artists like her get gigs. There are, after all, student loans to pay off, bills to pay. There are deep cuts to city orchestras. And when was the last time you saw a French Horn player busking?

Since the AFP story blew up, there’ve been lots of folks weighing in. If you really love music, some arguments aimed at Vaillancourt-Sals go, you’ll play for free. If you truly know how hard it is right now to be a working musician — particularly an orchestral one — some arguments pointed to AFP go, you’ll pay.

Palmer did respond to all on her blog, with an open letter to Amy and to all the musicians who might volunteer. And that’s just it. you’re volunteering. You don’t have to play for free. Nobody’s making you go to try-outs to be in the AFP band or to be on stage and perform with her.

Oh and also, in some cities, Palmer is paying musicians.

In other words, it's complicated. “And sometimes there’s a grey area,” Palmer writes. Yup. More often than not, I’d contend. Almost all my decisions around money feel greyer than blacker or whiter. I have an incredibly hard time placing a price tag on my work; value, well, that's something else.

And yet, there is a market value attached to what creatives do. That’s just the reality of things, and since beers and hugs don’t pay rent, we are forced to figure this money thing ou and decide whether or not it's worth us to do a gig for nothing, for beer, for tips, for a trade, for a fee, for a favor. We have to learn the hustle of where to sell our art and how and what to do when it makes us feel icky. We have to learn to balance what we send out, what we take in, and what we make.

I remember being offered a “writing opportunity” for an education reform site once. When I asked how much the gig paid, the response was “nothing”; and when I balked, the response: “But Audrey, don’t you care about children?” I shit you not.

There are plenty of folks who expect us to work for free.

There are plenty of folks who turn their noses and don't see anything valuable in what we do, what we say, what we write, what we sing, what we make. There are plenty of folks (Chains of Distribution, Old Media, the usual suspects) who want to extract value from us, re-package it and sell it for their own profit. There are plenty of people who, if you're good -- and I'm good and AFP is good and Neil Gaiman is good and Amy Vaillancourt-Sals is good -- will support your work. (Um, right?)

There’s an ongoing decision-making process with much of the writing I do -- conscious or not: where will I publish it? Well, there’s a pretty substantial decision-making process before I write, I guess I should say: what am I working on? What contracts do I have to fulfill? What’s going to pay? What should I do first? When are my deadlines? Or sure, a lot of times I sit down and I write and I rant and I rave. And I post it on Hack Education, and I make nary a dime.

It is what it is. I’ve chosen this. I don’t want to write for a big name publication (record label? orchestra?). I’m independent. I freelance. I work for me.

I couldn’t audition to get on stage with Amanda Palmer. It’s been 24 years since I’ve touched the piano or flute. If there were a similar sort of invitation from her husband... That is, if Neil Gaiman said (for a performance at which he was getting paid to be the star, I should add) “Hey folks. Come on stage with me and let’s have a fun-filled night of beer and hugs and fantastic short stories…” … well, the analogy doesn’t really work, does it. I mean, I’d love to play some sort of Surrealist, exquisite corpse parlor game with Neil Gaiman (and Amanda Fucking Palmer), don’t get me wrong, where we’d sit and drink (beer even) and chat and laugh and talk about allusions to Old Man Badger and Batman and Brecht, where we’d jot something wickedly collaborative and silly and smart down on a napkin — maybe later we’d blog about it — and we’d all be better people for it, regardless if we sold a word of it.

I couldn’t audition to get on stage with Amanda Palmer or Neil Gaiman. I wouldn't. Not for free. I mean, I’d gladly support the two by attending a show, buying the books, listening to the reocords, contributing to the Kickstarter campaign. But if you ask me to audition, well, it suggets something else. An expectation. A performance. A contract.

I think Amanda Palmer should pay her musicians. There, I said it.

Dear Amanda Palmer:

I think that’s the right thing to do. I think you do it because you value their work. I think you do it because you value their art. I think you do it because it’s tough to be a working musician. I think you do it because you know there are a lot of times when we work for free or for less than what we deserve because our hearts are large and our love of our craft immense and our love of performing and community fathomless. You do it because of course we'd get up on stage with you for free -- that isn't the point. You pay your musicians because you know for all the punk rock we espouse, we have to negotiate and compromise a lot more than we ever want to. You do it because you can. I think you'll figure out a way.

Dear Audrey:

Remember: Optimze for happiness. The first little piggy went to market. Recognize your value. Maintain your integrity. And it's okay. You should be paid for doing what you love. You're good at it.

Yours in struggle,

~Audrey

Photo credits: Stacey