The average young artist following her advice is going to fail and because they have no Plan B, will face financial ruin.

I think that's bullshit. Couch surfing and eating ramen for five years or ten years even isn't going to ruin you. I temped for ten years because it allowed me to NOT work for as much as four or five months out of the year. That is how I learned to write and establish my writing career. And I didn't take a full time job until I had child.

My objection is that there's nothing wrong with having a plan B

There is something wrong with it if it prevents you from the creative work you want to do. Day jobs will eat your life and after ten years you'll look up with nothing to show for it except that you paid the rent.

I think that not only is there nothing wrong with her strategy (and I do think it's a strategy, not an ethos), I think it's accurate to say "If you value security more than doing the work you will probably fail to do the work."

There's a reason why bohemia moves around. Because you need to find a place cheap enough to live where part time work will support you to do the creative work that you want. And after the artists move in and it gets gentrified, they're priced out of Williamsbug and head to...wherever the new place is. (Hoboken?)

I think she's right; Plan B is inimical to doing creative work. It's not impossible to do creative work with a day job or a backup plan. But it can be a very large obstacle to it.

I don't need to argue the point any further. I think the grievances against Amanda Palmer are ridiculous.

Well, I care not about the plan B thing (and Morrissey is a whole 'nother bundle of problematic, which Jilli's heard me go off about a million times, but much like I can still watch Polanski movies, I'm still listening to my Smiths albums), but for an artist who cultivated a relationship with her fanbase to the point that she was having them feed her while she was on tour, the way she lashed out at those who were calling her out on what they sincerely felt was ableist was pretty appalling. She was aggro. It was tacky.

But, then, I've never much liked her music, so it's not like I give up anything NOT listening to it.

Most Bohemians are pretty young, aren't they? What do you recommend for the creative sort who's getting a little creaky and whose health is not well served by a life of ramen?

I temped for ten years because it allowed me to NOT work for as much as four or five months out of the year.

David, temping IS a Plan B. You had marketable skills you used to feed & house yourself.

There is something wrong with it if it prevents you from the creative work you want to do.

And I think that's bullshit. You don't get extra moral credit for eating ramen and sleeping on the floor so you can pursue your art. It's a choice, it doesn't mean the couch-surfer is a better person than the bureaucrat. Or even a better artist.

I also think this is getting sticky about class issues, because there are plenty of people for whom paying the rent is just barely achievable, and they shouldn't be looked down upon because they aren't doing it to fund their Great Art.

If I got mad every time some artist used my experience as an ableist metaphor, that's what I would do all day. Speaking tangentially about things that could eat your life.

This is sort of an irresolvable argument-- and it absolutely has to do with class in a big way.

I am not sure the no plan B is the best advice for everyone-- it is good advice for people who are scared. I also think it is bad advice to tell a theatre artist in their early twenties to take a "real" job and wait for a few years before moving to NY, because if you don't do it while you are young, you don't do it.

I think her phrasing of the plan B thing is problematic, and I have HUGE issues when the person preaching it always had a family safety net to make sure their bills were paid, they had food to eat, and that if there was a medical emergency, it was taken care of. She is blind to her own privilege about this.

I say this as someone who likes a fair bit of her music and thinks she puts on a cracking stage performance. But her insistence that having a plan B is crippling to one's art AND that if you ask for things you'll be successful is frustrating. Not to mention the "asking" part is starting to veer close to The Secret nonsense: think good things, and nothing bad will happen! You'll get what you want!

I believe that asking for help is vital. I also know that not everyone gets the help they ask for, and that being young, attractive, outspoken, and married to someone who has a huge fanbase can go a LONG way toward achieving one's goals.

I also think this is getting sticky about class issues, because there are plenty of people for whom paying the rent is just barely achievable, and they shouldn't be looked down upon because they aren't doing it to fund their Great Art.

This. This is one of my big, BIG issues with it.

HUGE issues when the person preaching it always had a family safety net to make sure their bills were paid, they had food to eat, and that if there was a medical emergency, it was taken care of. She is blind to her own privilege about this.

I did not know this, because I do not know her well. I was assuming her plan B was Neil Gaiman!

I actually just realized I am actually on Plan C. Plan B was to be a high school theatre teacher, like ChiKat!

This. This is one of my big, BIG issues with it.

Of the people you knew 'round these parts in the music scene, are there any who wouldn't have been better off with a Plan B?

I mean, yeah, some of them wound up big, but they also wound up, well, dead later.