Sunday, August 8, 2010

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.

7 comments:

  1. oh, wow.

    I'm not sure if wikipedia says that but Eminem has a tatoo of a tomb with "rot in pieces, Kim" written on it. And still she re-married him again. I think that this whole 2nd marriage of theirs was weird thing, it made me think that she's a gold digger because, honestly, how much can you forgive. but then, again, I might be 100% wrong. I'm not judging them. in "KIM" Kim's voice is actually Eminem pretending to be her. I think that his brutal honesty fits somewhere between "oh, that's going to sell" and being really therapeutic for him. A song "The way I am" sort of makes few more things about him clear. Honestly? I think there's nothing wrong with being that honest if someone's hurt you but then, again, I wouldn't go and write a song about how I'm going to kill someone...

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  2. I think we also need to remember that Marshall Mathers III has not one, but TWO personae: Eminem AND Slim Shady.
    How much is Marshall, and how much are the characters he created to rap those lyrics?

    He does a wonderful dance; for all the venom he spews on Kim, he does an equal amount, if not more, on how much he loves and wants to protect his daughter and be someone she can be proud of.

    One of the best artists of his generation. I'm glad you found his work and that it speaks to you. Music is very powerful and therapeutic.

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  3. Interesting...

    I know I wouldn't want to be famous. I can't imagine having the pressure to have it all together all the time. And having people looking at me would drive me crazy.

    Thanks for the great comments lately. I never take offense with you girl. I found what you wrote very interesting. I believe a lot of the theory to be true. But it doesn't really explain all the unanswered prayers. What I failed to mention in my post was that the first boyfriend was unanswered prayer. I begged and pleaded with God to keep us together to make everything work out and it didn't. Thank heavens HE knows best and doesn't always just give us what we ask for. When I stopped praying for who I wanted and asked for His will to be done in my life HE delivered! So glad too:)

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  4. Yes living in Detroit you hear a lot of the crap that Kim as gotten into herself over the years, believe me she is no angel herself. We are talking two young people ripped from the trailer and learning to live with money, fame and an industry and culture that isn't for the mild.

    Your next step is to watch 8 mile, it is not auto biographical but it gives you an idea of what it is like around here then.

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  5. I'm with Lira on this one - Eminem plays a lot of different personalities on his albums that do a lot of stuff that in real life, he hasn't done or won't do. You have to separate his characters from him. Did he and Kim at one point or another actually hit each other? Yes, and that's where he crossed the line but he talks a lot about how he hasn't done it since and has grown and how sorry he is. There's also quite a bit of songs about his mother rotting hell but he will literally in the next verse apologize to his mother and tell her he loves her. He's not afraid to play levels and depth and refuse to be boxed in to one emotion.

    Here's a video which I think is very, very interesting: it shows the point of view of a fan of Eminem's who has listened to his songs about Kim and doesn't understand that Eminem would never actually kill his wife. The video is amazing, but the look on Eminem's face as he reads his deranged fan's last letter and realizes that his music is partly responsible for someone killing their wife and unborn daughter is priceless - and haunting.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hfMtY

    (The video edited out all the swear words so if you have trouble understanding what's going on towards the end you can always just google the lyrics too.)

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  6. I left a fairly long comment here yesterday and I guess it never got published...

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  7. Marshall Mathers is definitely a person to ponder about. You wonder why he actually lets out the things he lets out about his life. I honestly think it's so people can realize he is as real as they come, but he does it in lyrical form. People don't usually see past the lyrical and focus on how he sounds instead of the actual meaning. Coming from a fifteen year old I know this comment might not mean much, but it's definitely my input. People don't realize that "Eminem" is still a real person, which is why in "The Way I Am" he overall says that people need to back off while he's in public. How he talked about them having the decency to not come up to him while he's feeding his daughter, and while using the restroom. Yet, how many more people do you think came up to him when they seen him in person to tell him they loved that song? When the song they love is telling them to do the opposite that they're actually doing. That's my input...but again. I'm only fifteen. What do I know(: haha.

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