AN ADDENDUM: MARSHALL MATHERS, I AM TALKING TO YOU!

Obviously, this is bugging me or I wouldn't be writing this. This is an addendum to this blog that I wrote earlier today (COULD YOU BE THIS HONEST?). It was actually a follow-up to this blog from the day before (I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE). I am only posting the links so that you can catch up if you are reading this and thinking, "What in the world is she blathering on about now?" It should bring you up to speed.

I felt pretty good about my first blog, I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE, until someone more knowledgeable than I on the person of Eminem pointed out some things. I was impressed that he had taken time off from the business (it was actually five years, not three), went through rehab for himself, and not for anyone else, and came out a stronger person for it. And I said that he was honest about how abuse can go down. It's ugly. And he really manned up in that video. In other words, he had intimate knowledge of the subject matter and he still threw it out there. However, the way he did it was in such a way that it was very clearly saying that it was NOT OKAY. He was also saying that too many people can't break free from abusive relationships no matter how bad it gets. Or at least that is what the video was saying. And that is THE TRUTH. I like honesty. Give me honesty over bullcrap any day of the week. So, what I said in that blog was ABOUT THAT SONG. The only other reference points I had for Eminem were his songs NOT AFRAID, which is also off the new album (and is amazing), and the song AIRPLANES 2. That is it.

The problem when you don't know your history on someone is it distorts the view. I don't know if that is better or worse. In the case of that blog, I think it was better because I wasn't talking about the man, I was talking about the song. Could I tell that he knew something about abuse from the lyrics of that song? Yes. Rage? Yes. Has he maybe been on both sides of that coin? Maybe. I don't know. Whatever. Veering off the course.... I said in today's blog that Misery posted a comment about who he is as a person that might not make me think so highly of him. That sent me slogging through what I could find out about the guy. I wanted facts and not rumors. You know what the truth is? Confusing.

I think I got it right on the blog I posted today, but maybe not all the way right. Hence the addendum. Do I admire the Marshall Mathers III before he went into drug rehab (for himself) as a person? He went into drug rehab before that for other people and it didn't take. It never takes until you want to do it for you. It doesn't take until you admit that you can't beat it. That the drugs are controlling you. For someone in hiphop (macho image yada yada) to say that was big. Huge even. That was when he reclaimed his life. Maybe when his real life started. Someone on drugs and someone not on drugs are two different people. Back to my question about MM III before he went into rehab... do I admire that guy? No. However, even then he lived his life honestly. Like I said in my earlier blog. It wasn't always pretty, but it was honest. Sometimes it was scary as crap.

Lira posted a comment about his dual personas: Eminem and Slim Shady. I don't even know what that means. That is how little I actually understand Marshall Mathers. But, as much anger as I have seen him throw at his ex-wife, I have never seen him throw anything but love at his daughter. And then he has gone and adopted at least one other girl. There is more here than meets the eye.

Since I was married to someone who was verbally abusive, I have been asked more than once if I think people who are abusive can change. My answer to that has always remained the same. Only if they really want to change. Only if they recognize that they have a problem and they decide that they want to change for themselves ~ not because someone else is threatening to leave them, etc. It is when they look in the mirror and decide that I want to do this for me. If you have a life-altering experience that changes the way you see everything, yes, I think you can change. But you have to want it. More than you want anything because it is going to be hard.

The bottom line here is that I can't judge the man. I don't even want to judge the man. I have seen a live interview that he gave that was very impressive. He admitted his drug problem and that his first stint in rehab was for other people. It wasn't until he almost overdosed and died that he realized that he had a serious problem. He could not quit. That moment changed his life. When he went into rehab that time it was for himself and he came out a different person. The music seems healthier. The man seems healthier. However, I am never going to be your go-to person on what the celebs are doing because I just don't read the rags. Now, you have got me making an exception...



So, Marshall Mathers, you are now on my radar. I got my eye on you, and I am so hoping that you do me proud and keep your priorities straight. And it would be really nice if you didn't drop the FBomb so much all the time when you're talking. I mean, I know you got an image and all, but the kids are listening!

COULD YOU BE THAT HONEST?

I had a plan for the next few days. I was going to do my one word and fifteen minutes writing exercise so that I could really put the hammer down on my book. I have been reading instead of writing and it actually worked. On my way to the library yesterday, the light bulb came on. I love those moments. REVELATION. Of course, that also meant I figured out how/where I screwed up again and I am going to have to go back and fix that shit. But, it makes it possible for me to motor through it. Sometimes it truly does work to let something sit on the backburner and let your subconscious work on it. It isn't being lazy. It is working by not working. Or working on something else. I don't know, but it worked. That doesn't mean I haven't worked on the novel at all. I have, but it has been frustrating going because I knew something was off. Now, it will be easier.


Several things have jettisoned my plan. One was Misery's comment on my blog from yesterday. She, too, wrote about Eminem's new video. I suppose that is great minds thinking alike. Except that we didn't actually share the same opinion about it...exactly. I am a very new Eminem convert and am not at all familiar with the old stuff. She said I needed to have a listen to his song KIM and that might make me feel differently about him. I went to my music player. I decided video would be too distracting and had a listen. It was a horrible song. Abuse at its worst. Kim was his wife, the baby was crying, and, in the end, there was the distinct implication that he killed her. She was crying and pleading (or some woman was, probably not the actual Kim), and he was vicious. So, then I went to Wikipedia and read all I could. His whole bio. It broke down each of his albums, what songs were on them, and what the general concept was for the album. Amazingly enough, each album did have a concept. Eminem writes his own music and the album reflects his life... whatever it is at that moment in time. It also broke down his personal life so you could compare and contrast the two.

Well, that is something to think about right there. I am not sure that I could be that honest if I was as popular an artist as he was, and my life was what his life was. In other words, if I was abusing the shit out of my spouse, I don't think I could write about it, then put it on my CD. I am pretty sure this song was written in between their marriages. Stop and think about that one. They married two times. He wrote this horrible song about her and then she married him again.


Back to the writing what he's living.... every single important thing that he is living is flowing from his brain onto the paper. Then it goes onto a CD for the whole world to know. Abuse. Drugs. Missing his kids. Fighting with the record label. Political opinions. Opinions about other celebrities. Pretty much everything he thinks, it gets put on the paper and then on the CD. And it isn't just the stuff that makes him look good. In fact, a lot of it makes him look like shit. I think that you really start to see the turning point in his later music, but he still falls down. WHEN I'M GONE is an excellent example of him indicating that he doesn't have a handle on anything. His priorities are all messed up and he knows it. I listened to several. I think that LOSE YOURSELF has a great message, but I think that he was still in "the hole" at that time. I am not sure how AIRPLANES 2 fits in. It doesn't feel like the old Eminem. It feels a lot more like the stuff on this new album. I think maybe he recorded it during his hiatus? I don't know on that one. Maybe someone who knows more about rap can answer that one. Anyway, he released a Greatest Hits album and then took some time off. He needed that time away from that mad business of making album after album. He'd either gone through rehab or knew he needed it... not sure which. All of those were the milestones that led him to where he is now: RECOVERY.


The big question always is can you maintain it? Show business, the music industry, and all of the people that make money off of you want to suck you dry. Can you keep your priorities straight when you're in the middle of the hailstorm? It's easy when you're not in the middle of a tour, making videos, and having your songs topping the charts. It's easy when you're not being nominated for awards. Now is when it gets hard. Everyone is juggling all the time. The reality is that everyone's load is always too heavy to carry all at once, so we juggle. When we are moving at a comfortable pace, we can juggle slow. That way the balls are easy to catch and we don't have to put too many in the air. His pace just picked up and the musical powers that be just threw about ten more balls for him to keep in the air (on top of the ones he already was juggling). No one can do that forever. You have to know your limits. Marshall Mathers is about to find out if he really knows who he is. I hope that he really is Not Afraid To Take A Stand because he might have to (figuratively) kick some ass. That means saying "No," when you're being pressured by, what feels like, the whole world to say "Yes."

I just read that the definition of adulthood is no longer caring what other people think. I plan on writing an entire blog on that at a later date. But it seems a fitting way to end this one today.

CAN WE PRETEND?

I have posted before about my insomnia. Nothing new there. Well... I think that I mentioned that one of the things that I have recently tried is cutting the TV down to "3" (volume) and changing the channel to HGTV. That would be Home Garden Television for those of you not in the know. My mom loves that channel. It has been fairly effective at knocking me out. At that time of night, they usually run back to back episodes of HOUSE HUNTERS. If I can focus in on the show, and shut out my mental craziness, I will often nod off.


Well, I had a particularly bad night earlier this week. I was up until REALLY LATE. So, that meant that I didn't wake up until REALLY LATE. If I am not up by noon, my mom is knocking on my door. She has this fear that I might accidentally overdose myself in the middle of the night. It is actually a valid fear. When you have a rager of a migraine, you can forget what meds you have taken and how much. I used to scare myself sometimes when I lived alone. Hence, the notepad and the need to write this crap down. However, when you aren't thinking clearly sometimes you forget to write it down. It's a crazy circle. Anyway, at noon she knocks on my door to check if I am alive. Sometimes she waits until 12:30. Whatever.

I think that this particular day it was more like 12:30 and I was alive. I felt terrible, but I was breathing. Terrible migraine. But still here. HGTV was still running on my TV. I took my pain meds, grabbed a granola bar out of the nightstand, ate it in bed, and waited. A half hour later, the world looked much more promising. And then the most amazing thing happened. You aren't going to believe this sh*t. Actually, this isn't going to have quite the same impact because I haven't complained on here about HGTV the way I have in the "real world." BORING is the word that I trumpet the most loudly and frequently.

INCOME PROPERTY came on. Scott McGillivray comes in and assesses someone's house (at their request), if they have extra space that they want to turn into a rental, and he (and his team) does the renovation. I turned the volume up to "9" and was transfixed. Start to finish. Was the renovation cool? Absolutely. Did I learn a lot? Oh yeah. Was Scott so hot he set my television on fire? Definitely. You are thinking very loudly, Purple Cow. I know I am having a mid-life meltdown. Let me enjoy it.



I've discovered that INCOME PROPERTY comes on weekdays at 1:00 pm and weekends at 11:30am, so I have to plan accordingly. Well, today, after INCOME PROPERTY, I got sucked into two episodes of DESIGNED TO SELL, and there were NO hot men in sight. That was an entire hour of just digging the whole remodeling crap. Uh oh. My mom's favorite show on HGTV is HOLMES ON HOMES. He is not a hottie, but he is handy. They ran several ads for his show while I was glued to the TV today and they started to look good. The show... not the guy.



I am pretty sure it's official. I am turning into my mother. Pretty soon we will be hanging out in the living room together on Sunday nights waiting for HOLMES ON HOMES to come on and discussing things like plumbing. And that wasn't sexual innuendo ~ I mean plumbing, as in for reals. And fixtures. Heaven help me.

Now that doesn't mean I am not going to ogle Scott on INCOME PROPERTY for thirty minutes every day. You bet your sweet your a**, I will definitely be doing that. People, I have to ogle something! And he is HANDY. He knows how to use a hammer, wrench, and all of those other manly tools. Right Guy was HANDY. He was/is a mechanic. Yeah, I like a man who knows his way around a shop and knows what to do with his hands. Unfortunately, I am fairly certain my chances of re-jumpstarting my relationship with Right Guy are only slightly better than my chances with Scott. And that is nil, because Scott is newly married. Right Guy slept through his plane and he missed it.



Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now. Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now.

And it seems like yesterday it was just a dream, but those days are gone, they're just memories. And it seems like yesterday it was just a dream, but those days are gone.

Cuz he never risked shit he hopes and he wished it, but it didn’t fall in his lap so he ain’t even here he pretends that…
Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now. Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now.