People's Choice Awards Breakdown and a Shoutout to Marshall Mathers

Okay, here is the deal. I totally don't have a HERE'S TO YOU DAY post ready for today. If I hadn't had a doctor's appointment, followed by several errands with mom, I probably could have put one together. But.... I did. So, I am thinking it is going to be tomorrow. I have all of one idea written down. I know. I suck. Sometimes, the ideas for these things don't just come to me like bolts out of the sky. Sometimes they do. Sometimes I get three or four in a day. Sometimes I get nada. This week it has been a lot of nada.

So, instead of a Here's to you post, let's chat about the People's Choice Awards. Did you vote? If you did, you probably know that you could have voted repeatedly. There was no limit to the number of times you could go through the cycle of voting for all of the categories. I ran the gamut about six times. I then became so bored that I was about to nod off. I decided that six was plenty and quit. I am sure that there were some die-hard fans out there who spent days doing nothing but voting. On the one hand, I applaud their tenacity. On the other hand, I am really frightened of these people. Moving on...

I actually watched the awards show. I was hoping to see you know who, though I had a feeling that he wasn't going to be there. I was right. He was not there. We shall get around to the unnamed later. Let's talk about some of the stuff that actually happened.

Johnny Depp was named Favorite Male Actor again this year. Thumbs Up on that one. I can always get behind that vote. In fact, I think I cast that vote. Johnny Depp is not only uber-hot, but a very fine actor. I couldn't have been more pleased with this choice. America, you rocked that vote!



Glee won lots of stuff. Don't watch Glee, but it has made me curious. And I was in choirs in high school. If this show keeps music programs alive in high schools, I am all for it. Or if it makes people just spontaneously break out into song AND people think it is cool instead of nerdy, I can also get behind that. So, while I didn't vote for it, I can dig it.

Adam Sandler won funniest male actor. I really like Adam Sandler, so that was cool. I can't remember who I voted for, because my memory sucks. I don't think it was him, but I am still okay with how it all turned out.

House won lots of awards, but the only one that was broadcast was Lisa Edelstein getting her award. Now, I don't watch House, and I didn't vote for Lisa Edelstein. However, I think she may have had the funniest acceptance speech of the show. She whipped out a list of her favorite voters and read them off. It was hilarious. I have seen Lisa in other things and liked her. Glad she has found a show that has hit home with the viewers (even if I am not one of them). So, yay Lisa!

I learned something about this awards show business. They totally know who has won before this show starts. The only exceptions were two awards: New Drama and New Comedy, which they were still accepting votes on. Everything else had been closed out. The winners had been notified and the losers didn't even show up at the ceremony. How lame is that? They had all the winners in the front row. No one was surprised. Now that gets a thumbs down. What gets a thumbs up is that Hawaii Five-O won Best New Drama. Maybe, just maybe, Alex O'Loughlin can finally get with a show that sticks. That man is pure deliciousness and I am tired of following him from one show to another. It would have been fantastic had Moonlight not been cancelled, but it was. Then he went to Three Rivers. I would have been delighted if that had not been cancelled, but it was. Okay, now we have Hawaii Five-O. It has a tight cast and Hawaii. Mostly it has Alex O'Loughlin. CBS if you cancel this show, I might have to send you some hate mail. I really don't want to go there. The people agree with me. They have spoken. It got the vote!

The giveaway on the above was the viral video. They made a trip pre-awards show to the family who won the video and gave them an award made out of chex (or some other snack food) to keep until the show when they could get the real thing (made out of Waterford Crystal). This was one category I didn't vote in because I didn't know the subject matter. I treated it like any other voting situation. If you don't know what it is, don't vote and leave it to people who know something. Turned out to be a good decision because the winning vid was adorable. However, I wonder how many DAYS before the awards show they got their award???? Here is this hilarious winning video:



The most curious situation was the Twilight Saga. I thought that Kristin Stewart and Rob Pattinson were a couple. In real life. I don't know... maybe I am out of the loop on this one. The deal was this: Kristin, Rob, and Taylor Lautner were flown in from their location shooting for this awards show. Obviously, they won an award (or two). Turns out Kristin won Favorite Female Actor. Taylor is dressed to the nines in a tux. Kristin is in a dress that is way too short and heels that are way too high. (If that dress were any shorter, we would have been looking at her vajajay folks. That is something I really did NOT want to see.) And Rob looked like he came in from lumberjacking. WTH? When her name gets called, Taylor jumps up and escorts her to the stage. Well, he was dressed for it. Rob looks like crap. Kristin looks unprepared for this award (which I have figured out by now is BS, because she should already know she won it) and is all over the place. She has zero composure. When Twilight Eclipse wins, Rob talks first. Then Taylor. Kristin barely. She hurries as fast as possible to hang all over Taylor. Again, who is the couple here? From the dialogue, one might think it is Taylor and Rob. From the body language it appears to be Taylor and Kristin. But all the tabloids say it is Rob and Kristin. This is the craziest case of spin the couple I have ever seen.

Let's talk performances. As in actual performances. Selena Gomez was amazing. I was really pleasantly surprised. Such a young kid with a huge voice. I was really looking forward to Kid Rock. He is one of the few musicians who really has tried on just about every musical genre. I think that is pretty darn awesome. When I was married, my husband loved Kid Rock. Naturally, I had to take an opposing viewpoint and instantly loathed him... just because. When we got divorced, it was easier to give him a fair listen. I still think that song he did with Sheryl Crow has a good beat, but the lyrics are stupid. When he joined Big & Rich's Muzik Mafia, he went up a major notch. So, I have listened to my share of Kid Rock. So, what happened last night? Wait. I know the answer to this one. When you sing, you have to breathe from your diaphragm or your sound has no real substance behind it and it sounds tinny. As in not substantial or full. Huh. When you're recording in the studio and forget to do this, the person in the booth can stop you. When you are singing live... well, it just sounds like bad music. I was disappointed.






However, I think that was only the beginning, because the award came for Favorite Female Artist and Katy Perry won (not the disappointing part). She actually got two awards. They never did say what the second award was for, which was a cause for disappointment. What would you be expecting right now? The award for Favorite Male Artist, right? It did not happen. You read that right. In fact, almost none of the music awards happened. Do you want to know why? BECAUSE MARSHALL MATHERS WON FOUR PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS LAST NIGHT. HE SWEPT THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS. HOWEVER, HE DID NOT COME TO THE SHOW, SO THEY DID NOT EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACT THAT HE WON ON LIVE TV. Yeah, they gave him No Love. However, I am sending out lots of love. Congratulations Marshall on your HUGE night. The people chose you over and over again. Some of them are really scary people who spend way too much time at their computer. For the record, I only voted for you six times in each category. I think that keeps me still on the sane side of the population. But then I am extremely biased on my own behalf.




Instead, they ended the big night with Best Movie. That was Twilight. I already covered that. I voted for Inception, by the way. Awesome movie.


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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?




all images found at www.weheartit.com

SIMPLY ADDICTED TO NO LOVE

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