M IS FOR MARSHALL MATHERS

I backed into Marshall Mathers, sort of like I have back-doored into most of the great blogs I found on blogger in the very beginning.  I used to think it was sheer luck that I found these excellent reads.  Then I decided that The Universe decided to look upon me favorably.  Then I decided that eventually every bird finds a worm.  So, there you go.  Let's circle back specifically to Marshall Mathers, shall we?

One of my new blog friends posted Marshall Mather's (aka Eminem) newest video, at that time, off of his Recovery album on HER blog.  The song was called Not Afraid.  I sat and looked at that YouTube footage- in horror- for probably two minutes.  I post a lot of YouTube footage, and really want people to take the time to actually WATCH it.  Ergo, I try to give others the same courtesy.  But rap, seriously?  I hate rap.  My hand hovered anxiously on my mouse.  I did not want to take this plunge.  Before I could go back, I clicked.

And I was astounded.  Amazed.  Mesmerized.  I watched it three times.  On her blog.  I dare you to watch it (only once)...

Then, I went to YouTube.  And that was when the confusion began.  There were videos like Not Afraid, but there were also these really angry songs that I didn't like at all.  Watching the video Superman made my stomach turn.  How was this the same guy?  And there were more of the same and worse.  So the quest began.  Who was Marshall Mathers?

I threw a Shout Out on my blog asking for help in explaining this mystery.  I got some excellent feedback from some amazing Blog Buddies (you know who you are) detailing that Marshall Mathers has *personas* that he raps as in each song.  Eminem, Slim Shady, and Marshall Mathers are all distinct characters in The Eminem Show.  They each have their own unique voice.  The fact that I hate the Slim Shady voice is just my own opinion.  Other people have reached out and embraced that hate speech, making Slim Shady very popular.  That is more a reflection on Public Opinion than anything else, folks.  Just sayin'.  (Yep, I am saying that the masses are a hateful bunch.  My opinion.)

Eminem's voice is still "street" but not so hard.  From The Man himself in his autobiography, he says that his song Lose Yourself, from the 8 Mile Soundtrack, is a good example of the Eminem voice.  When he raps as Marshall Mathers, he is actually himself.  He says that the song Mockingbird is one of those.  There are not that many songs coming from the Marshall voice, because he doesn't think people actually want to hear what Marshall has to say (according to him in his book).  I think he couldn't be more wrong about that.  Marshall is the only REAL person in the room, and everyone is very curious to know what Marshall has to say.  Again, that is just me. 

I think that there was a lot more Marshall in the Recovery album than in any of his previous work.  That is scary stuff.  When you are hiding behind a persona and everyone loves it, it is scary stuff to suddenly expose yourself.  And he went full throttle.  He told everyone about his addiction problem, his inability to cope with his best friend's murder, and the fact that he was an abusive husband to his former spouse.  In fact, I have never seen anyone be so honest about what abuse looks like in a relationship.  It often goes both ways.  The fact that one person is stronger than the other does not make the person being abused get out, stop it, or even curb things.  Please understand me... Not saying that they deserve anything that happens to them, but it is like an avalanche that everyone sees happening, except the two people at the bottom of the hill, about to be buried by it.  In their own ways, at different times, they are both certain they have got it under control.

Marshall Mathers taught me that I can respect someone for their honesty, without liking every minute thing about them.  The things that I don't like in him, he doesn't like in himself.  But he isn't lying anymore about them.  He isn't glossing them over.  I can respect that.   And I have to believe that when you know better, you do better.  That is what life lessons are all about.

As Marshall says, "I can't tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like."

Marshall Mathers: IDK yet.  He's been a Passion.  I thought he might be a Phase.  I certainly have learned some Life Lessons.

Had you seen either video before today?  Did it change the way you saw Eminem or Marshall Mathers?  Did I LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE feel like a sucker punch in the gut when you saw it?  Are there people whom you respect without liking every single part of them?  Are you able to accept people with their flaws and all?  If this was your first exposure and you are now intrigued, I recommend Lose Yourself, Beautiful, and Airplanes Part 2 as your next stops on the Eminem Tour.

N is for Not Afraid

A friend of mine emailed me with some comments on the last blog. She indicated, once again, that I am much funnier in bullet points than I am in paragraphs. I think it is because I have a sarcastic personality and you can't really get a good jab in with a paragraph format. It is only in bullet points can you sink one. I am a real fun one at parties, too. Nothing out of me and then *BAM* I nail the sarcastic jolt when least expected. Of course, my friend had a few other comments. I think I shall address those and anything else that comes to mind in bullet points, since I am insanely funnier that way.

• She says that I shouldn't have laughed at H-Girl when she said she was "all about the learning." That sort of behavior on my part is likely just to make the kid angry at me.
• I say that the kid needs someone to call her out on her crap. She needs to know that she isn't snowing me like she is other people. Kids don't respect people they think they are manipulating. I want her to know that I have her number. 'Nuff said.
• My friend also indicated that blogger had this nifty bullet point program. Peeps, I am utterly lost on a computer. Hand to God.
• My mother used to tell me daily when I was a kid that I would lose my head if it weren't attached to my shoulders.
• What does this have to do with anything?
• Well, I know that there are some of you who think I should just learn how to do the design on my website. You are thinking, "It can't be that hard."
• I thought like that, too, for about three hours after I bought the domain name and my web hosting site. Into the fourth hour, I very nearly chucked my laptop out the window.
• Eventually I called the 24-hour 800 number help line to get them to put up a page indicating my site was under construction because I could not figure out how to write that on a BLANK PAGE and put that up.
• Yes, it is that bad. And that is where the head and shoulders business figures in.
• I tell you that and I share you this thing about the bullet points for this reason: I have been on blogger for over a year and didn't know that in the menu bar that it would create bullet points for me.
• Right now I am looking at the quotations and I can't figure out by sheer reasoning what that will do if i click on it. Clearly it will do something regarding quotations, but what? what? what?
• It should be obvious, but it isn't.
• It's hard to believe right now that I graduated with a liberal arts degree from college, isn't it?
• I know. I am having trouble digesting it, too.
• On Saturday night, we went to the pizza place for food and karaoke.
• Our usual karaoke guy wasn't there because his band was playing somewhere so some friends of his were filling in. This was a new experience for us.
• Not so much for them. They have their own business and their own equipment.
• Once again, too many kids were singing for our taste. Pretty much any kids are too many because most can't sing. They scream or talk into the microphone and it is monotone.
• However, the kicker this past Saturday was that there were only 8 people on the sheet to sing, but the teenagers took over every time it came to them. How did they do this? They sang solo, they sang duets, they sang trios.
• Three girls managed to hog the microphone for forty minutes every time the rotation got back to them.
• So, we we were there for three hours and sang three times. You do the math on that one. Eight people. Three hours. Everyone should have gotten to sing a lot.
• We almost didn't sing that third time because my mom was tired of listening to teenagers and kids scream into the microphone. The lady came around with the sheet to get our song to speed up the process, and my mom asked how far out we were. Turns out two kids were ahead of us, one of whom was singing.
• At that point, I was in favor of waiting and singing. We were there for three hours and had only been able to sing twice. Mom was ready to go, and said something about there being too many kids.
• I knew that was a pointless drum to beat. When you go to karaoke at a restaurant, there will be kids.
• The lady said if you want no kids you should go to a place that is over 21, and she was right.
• I said that the real problem was letting small groups of people monopolize the microphone. It was not right. It would be like me singing, my mom singing, me and my mom singing, my mom and another friend singing, the other friend singing, me and the other friend singing, me, mom and the other friend singing. We could tie up the works for forty minutes just like you have let those girls do all night, but we haven't.
• She didn't like what I said, but she admitted that it was a mistake and wouldn't be happening again.
• Now, would it not be happening again because I said something, or would it not be happening again, period?
• I got a nasty comment from the guy running the machine about being impatient to sing when he called me up.
• That tells me that even though the woman was very gracious to me, and admitted that I was right, she didn't relay it back that way to her partner.
• Most people just leave and don't come back if they don't like something. My mom said that if she finds out that our regular karaoke guy isn't going to be there, we will rethink going there in the future. And that was after I said something.
• People don't like confrontation. I didn't like it when I was married. My ex made it so uncomfortable that I eventually stopped speaking out about what I did and didn't like. What is and isn't acceptable.
• I am not doing that anymore. It is unacceptable to hog the microphone at a karaoke joint. I will tell you nicely. You can make one jab at me, but not two. And if it keeps happening I won't come back.
• I guarantee you this: for every one person who tells how it is, there are twenty who are thinking it and just not coming back. Be grateful for that person who speaks out.
• And if you are someone who is afraid to speak out, try it. It feels so good. It if is your truth, then it isn't wrong to say it. It is never wrong to speak honestly and from your heart.
• Trust me on this: the worst thing in the world is losing the ability to speak your own truth.
• The first Marshall Mathers song I listened to was Not Afraid. It was what hooked me on Eminem. The song is about not being afraid to do what you need to do, speak your truth, be yourself.
• Before you say that you hate rap or hip hop, know what you are talking about. I thought that I hated it, too. I hated it BEFORE I listened to it. It is dangerous to make those kind of calls. And it is also dangerous to hate an entire genre of music, because you never know when a specific piece of music will jump out and hit you where you live. Just sayin'.
• My mom has been watching OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network) and loving it. Apparently, there was something on there about the new Oreo cookie. It is a regular Oreo covered in chocolate.
• I couldn't quite follow if it was on one of the shows or if it was a commercial... Anyway, the entire family sans the mom are sitting around the table eating these cookies and talking in Martian about them. (In other words, my mom had no idea what they were saying.)
• Then the mom came in and she tried one and my mom tried repeating what she said. She kept at it until I figured it out. That was when I realized that the kids and hubs are talking in modern day slang. I hated to break the news to mom that the family were not taken over by aliens.
• What was the giveaway phrase, you ask?
• Shut the back door!

photo found at www.weheartit.com

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

DAY 2: DEAR CRUSH

Dear Marshall,

I have spent the last month trying to separate the man from the personas that you have created. I have read up on your story, listened to lots of your songs, am planning on watching your movie, but I think people continually evolve. You caught my attention with your most recent songs Not Afraid and I Love The Way You Lie. I understand that Airplanes 2 is also a recent recording. When I compare those songs to the earlier songs, I can see how much you've grown. Although, Lose Yourself, which is from 8 Mile, indicates that you were already beginning to move in this direction.

I understand why the songs that launched your career were so angry (Slim Shady), and contrite (Eminem), and moderated (Marshall Mathers). You explain that in Lose Yourself. "What if you had just one shot, one chance, would you take it?" You needed all of that to take your shot, and it worked. You were punching through the floor, instead of walking through the door, because you weren't invited into what was an all-black hip hop club. You had to work 10x harder to prove you were as good as they were. And you did it. In fact, I think you exceeded your own expectations. I don't think anyone knows what the downside of fame is going to feel like until it arrives on their doorstep. You weren't prepared. Your wife wasn't prepared and no one is writing a handbook. By the way, I am a writer. If you want to work on that project together, that would be totally cool. HOW TO DEAL WITH FAME: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE. I can see that wouldn't be your kind of title. HOW TO DEAL WITH FAME: KNOWING WHEN IT'S TIME TO TELL PEOPLE TO TAKE IT THROUGH THE MIDDLE FINGER. Yeah, the title is a little too long. We can work on it.

Anyway, the music was awesome. You were being paid to do what you loved. You had lots of anger issues from your childhood and it was therapeutic letting it out. But then the fame itself generated crap all on its own. Your marriage went to hell twice and that made for more anger than you could handle. You started doing drugs to take the edge off, because it was all just too much. And you had to have been thinking, "When did the dream turn into a nightmare?" And still you wrote because you had to or you would explode. The hate was so intense. The only love you had in your heart was for your daughter and your ex-wife was making that relationship hard on you. Nothing was coming easy.

Life was teaching you so many lessons and they were all bad. Trust no one. Love no one. There is no such thing as loyalty. Everyone screws you over in the end. Count on no one but yourself. The public will love you as long you are successful, but they will turn on you like wolves. Everyone is out for number one, so you better be out for number one, too. Screw forgiveness. You tried that with Kim and she just screwed you again. Fool me once, shame on you . Fool me twice, shame on me. Friends are only your friends based on your success rate. You really are in this thing alone. The only person who loves me for me are my daughters. That is it. That is the only part of my heart that is open. Everyone else can keep the hell out because I don't trust you, don't need you, don't want you, and don't believe you. The need and want part might be a lie, but the don't believe part is true, and makes the need and want part too scary.

I know a little bit how you feel. Friends have let me down. The last three relationships I have been in have been horrific. Well, two out of three anyway. But they were all very painful. You do that enough times and you get scared of even trying again. It's easier to have superficial relationships than to have a relationship with someone real. A real person has the capacity to hurt you. You and I are a lot alike. We are both on this road of reclamation; we are in the process of reclaiming our lives. You have already come so far by going to drug rehab, for you and no one else, and owning that. However, in order to really gain any ground, you have to go all the way. You have to spend some time digging out your pain, looking at it, and letting go. That is how you get your life back. Eventually, you will meet someone, hopefully not in the fame business, who is a real person and you will be cautious about the whole thing, but you will let her in. And it will be a beautiful day to start out the rest of your life. I am hoping for the same kind of thing for myself. It's not healthy going through this world alone. However, it isn't healthy jumping into something before you have mentally and emotionally "cleaned house."

Wishing you much happiness,
Robin


image blatantly ripped off from Miss Angie at My So-Called Chaos

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!

I'M NOT AFRAID

A couple of days ago I won a contest! Yes, you heard that correctly. I entered a contest on Yenta's Mary's page (the Food Floozie) and won this dish.

Isn't it precious? It is in the mail as I type. I am very much looking forward to its arrival.

I made the rounds of blog reading and happened upon something disconcerting at Java's blog (Never Growing Old). Apparently she got a comment from a brand new blogger that her page had too much distracting stuff on it, and they were not coming back as a result. Java was, at first, offended, and then wondered if this person had a point. She received many encouraging comments that her blog was fine. However, it caused me to ponder my own. One of the points that Java brought up was the length of a blog. Apparently, if your blog takes longer than five minutes to read it is too long. Woah. No wonder it is taking me so much time to pick up followers....

Then there was this video that Misery posted a little more than a week ago on her page. I hate hip hop music. Actually, hate just isn't strong enough to indicate how I feel about hip hop music. I don't like Eminem AT ALL. However, since I post a lot of youtube footage I tend to watch other people's youtube footage. It seems only fair. I watched this video twice on her page, and three times on youtube since. I am reading your blogs and it keeps striking a chord. I think about the oil in the gulf and I think of this song. I think about lost keys, feel overwhelmed, and I think of this song. I think about the people we love dying and I think of this song. I think about life being a marathon, not a sprint, and I think of this song. Now, you're thinking I should have saved it for tomorrow. You're probably right because my footage for Thursday is lousy. (Write more peeps.)

I know what he's talking about in this song. However, life is messy. And there are a lot of situations that need "cleaning up." If Eminem can MAN UP, then I think it is high time that some other people do it, too. Yeah, that is directed at all of you high powered yo-yos wanting a bailout. At BP for not getting the job done. At Mr. President for not jumping in sooner and putting your foot in some oilman a**. And the list goes on.

Don't misunderstand me... I am not lumping my blogwriting friends in with BP and President Obama. I think of my blog writing friends because they, too, are not afraid. I think of the others because they aren't manning up. They are on opposite sides of the same coin ~ worlds apart.

Don't forget to turn off my music player at the bottom of the page.

By the way, I freaking love this song and video. Now I totally have to rethink Eminem.