RELAPSE OR RECOVERY?

It has been so long since I have able to write on a topic of my choice I thought I might come up empty today. Turns out that once I started thinking about it, I had LOTS of ideas. Who knew that so many things were stirring around up there itching to come out? In fact, I have one post that I probably should break up into 3 posts, just so that your eyeballs don't fall out or glaze over. I can get just a bit long-winded. In fact, while I was in The Think Tank it occurred to me that non-profits are all about being human change agents. It stands to reason that a lot of the things that work in successfully running a non-profit would also work in successfully running a life. In other words, if you are wanting to be the source of your own change, some of the techniques in this book would work on you. It actually could be a self-help book. Weird. But totally cool.

So, let's get down to the first of what is likely to be a three-parter. I have been wanting to talk about this for weeks now. I am just not sure where to begin. I have so many new followers AND this is a topic that is relatively new for me, so I am really jazzed about it. More so than I might be if it were old hat. Marshall Mathers did a 13 minute interview on 60 minutes. I will probably end this piece with that. And pick up tomorrow's with my breakdown on the interview. Maybe. I never understood UNTIL NOW why there was a breakdown about what the President said after he gave a speech. It always ticked me off. I would mutter things like, "Do they think we are stupid? We just heard him say that."

Well... I totally get it now. They have to give their interpretation of what was said. And what was not said. Sometimes that is more important than what WAS said. The thing is that I didn't major in political science, and it only makes me mad to listen to it all the time, so... I miss the little details that are actually really important. I could start listening, but that would super stress me out, and then I would be like that old lady in the commercial who has fallen and can't get up. I would be banging away on the emergency button for a rescue, and cursing like a maniac. I can't see that ending well.

My apologies to anyone who find this little bit of stuff a rehash. I have been researching Marshall Mathers on Wikipedia (btw, I love wikipedia), have yet to see 8 Mile (but I really want to), found out he wrote an autobiography (and now I must own it!), and have been doing the best that I can to piece together the person with the music and the facts. Oh, and I watched a ton of old videos until I finally figured out the whole Slim Shady, Eminem, Marshall Mathers deal. That about drove me nuts until it sank in. Lira sent me a hint of a comment on this (thinking that I knew something about it) and Phoenix sent an extended comment trying to break it down. Misery pointed me toward some songs to further confuse me. Ha! Seriously, it is confusing. For those of you not in the know, this is how I finally pieced it together in my head....

Marshall Mathers is living on 8 Mile in Detroit. Things are sucking. Always have. However, he now has a wife and daughter to support and the only thing he is really good at is hip hop. He gets words. There are natural born writers and cultivated writers. He is the former. He hears something that most of us don't. He hears the break in the syllable and goes for the impure rhyme that makes most impossible to rhyme words possible. The thing is that he keeps knocking on the door and no one wants to let him in. It pisses him off. It happens again and again. He knocks on the door until they force him to punch through the floor. And he comes up angry. And they like it. Anger works. Slim Shady is born. It is a show. It is theatre. But you can't be angry all the time. So, what comes after? Apology. And Eminem is born. Who arbitrates? The only real person there, of course. Marshall Mathers. I finally got it when I watched one of his videos from The Eminem Show. (He even called one of his records The Eminem Show.) I think he did that because people weren't getting it ~ that it was all a show ~ that he wasn't Eminem, that he wasn't Slim Shady. He had to write a song saying "I am Marshall Mathers." People still don't get it. Eminem doesn't exist. All that anger that he wrote wasn't real. It was part of the show. The same way a playwright would do a play or a writer would a book. If there is a villain in the cast, it doesn't mean that the author embodies that character. It is fiction. Moving on...


The Fame Game destroyed his personal life. He has now admitted to various addictions. He did use his music as a platform to hurl some viciousness around at specific people. He really let his ex-wife have it. He and Mariah Carey went back forth numerous times. No, the man is not perfect. He has done an excellent job at keeping his kids out of the media. It is darn near impossible to find current pics of his kids. The most common google search for my blog is "what do Eminem's daughters look like now" or some variation on that. It has been like that for months. I was curious so I googled it myself. There are no pics out there. Good for you, Marshall, on keeping your kids out of the press. You chose this life; they did not. And shame on you people who have no business checking out celebrity kids. They are KIDS. Get over it.

You can thank or blame Misery for my interest in Marshall Mathers. She posted NOT AFRAID on her blog. Since I post so much youtube footage, I feel obliged to watch other people's footage. Honestly, I expected to hate it. Hip hop is so not my thing. I watched it three times. He followed that up with I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE with Rihanna on the hook. That is a disturbing song, but nothing about abuse should be pretty. Next up was NO LOVE. I hated it on myspace. I am a member of Eminem's website, but I honestly do not see the point, because that is one more site I cannot figure out. So, I knew it was coming (NO LOVE, I mean). I listened to it on myspace. Hated it. Hated it. Hated it. Too fast. Couldn't understand anything. When the video came out, it featured childhood bullying. Okay. I'm back in. I went to lyrics.com. The thing was that it wasn't about childhood bullying.


I wrote a blog about this on a Saturday. I didn't come out and say this part, because it has been on simmer, but I think that MM got dragged into making a video about bullying because it is a hot topic. This song is about the Record Machine trying to bully MM. Probably someone specific at the label. That person knows who they are. MM couldn't make that video, so he went with this one. The best things about this song are the WORDS. MM shows how wicked smart he is in this song. I did say that in my blog. Never before have I had to look up a word in the dictionary to understand what a SONG meant (or a line in a song). Kudos to you, Marshall Mathers. I said it in that blog, but I will say it again. You are a better writer than I am and I majored in English. On the one hand, that depresses the crap out of me. On the other hand, it really makes me admire you. Not sure which hand is typing right now.

This album was going to be Relapse 2, but you changed in mid-stream and decided on RECOVERY instead. It shows. All of your previous albums are tied somewhat to a central theme. If you look at this one you can see the break where you flipped the switch. It is like you were walking down a street doing the Relapse theme and you just couldn't take it anymore and decided you wanted to turn a corner. Except you couldn't quite make the full turn. So, where you are now is at a crossroads. You have one foot on one side of the corner and one on the other side. Your next record will tell the tale. Will it be relapse or recovery?

Aren't you dying to watch that 60 Minutes Interview now?




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