The Dark Side of the Morning - Part One

••• today's entry continues here below •••

It would be easy for me to be misunderstood here, but I trust that you will understand when I say that .. you sometimes need something that kicks you swiftly in the nuts .. over into your true voice.

"Ah, there it is."

» Erica Finds her Voice

I feel confident that Erica knows exactly what I am talking about here (at t=0:30).

Notice how she said, referring to uncomfortable things that happened to her in the past, ".. that I realize now I had blocked out."

Such blocking-out is sometimes called 'denial.'

Her response there is what I would call 'healthy'. Good for her. Good for you, Erica. I bet that felt good. Felt healthy.

Your voice sounds beautiful to me.

Do you want me to kick Charlie Rose's ass for you? Maybe I will call John Oliver.

Doesnt he look intimidating here with sledge in hand?

» Waxing Abstract

I can feel myself waxing abstract here .. talking about finding your voice. Abstract writing makes me feel like I dont really know what I'm talking about .. because I have to detach from normal things.

My critic starts saying, "What are you talking about here? The chemo has obviously toasted more than just a few neurons."

You know, Selena .. the first time I ever read something about this "finding your voice" thing .. I thought, "That sounds like such pretentious bullshit." How times have changed, eh?

» I was Definitely not Expecting this from Selena

Your song starts deceptively low-key and understated. A number of reactioners said, "Oh, I was definitely not expecting this from Selena." Then they get surprised as the song progresses.

Another common comment is how people find your voice soothing. They feel that you have a soothing voice. And here I would have to agree.

Everybody was very much looking forward to seeing what you were coming back with .. after returning from your stint in rehab.

Everybody seems so proud of you .. because everybody knows that it is not easy to rebound from difficult and challenging periods in our lives.

It's definitely a song that makes you want to turn it up.

» Justin Seems Jealous

Everybody feels sure that Justin is the primary target of this song. If so, these types of things can be very cathartic and liberating. In this sense, this song seems like a special song, no?

When I saw and heard some of the things that Justin had said about Abel, the voice in my head said, "Justin is jealous." (Who can blame him, really?)

What is it about you, Selena .. making both Brad and Justin crazy? And it seems like just yesterday when I heard James Franco saying some very nice things about you. You obviously put the zap on his ass.

Your movie looks good. Steinbeck speaks to social issues with full fucking strength. I need to get in shape before reading Steinbeck. I neeed to work-out for a good six months before attempting to read a Steinbeck novel.

Selena, you have to go easy on these guys. Take it slow. Dont give them too much of your Selena juicy-juice all at once. They cant handle it undiluted. It makes them crazy.

Justin shouldnt feel jealous, tho .. because he have any supermodel he wants.

» How Closely do Your Lyrics Match Real Life?

Regarding the lyrics .. I found myself wondering how closely your lyrics play off of real-life (existentially accurate) experiences. Because, for me, this is the thing that takes this song to the next level.

I understand the massaging of things that goes on in writing. Sometimes you use the exact experience, and sometimes it is just easier and better to use a representative pattern.

In other words, if you were really sipping whiskey neat with Justin .. then this would be a special type of song. But that's just me.

When I write, for example, that I should not have let that renter's policy expire .. this is a little existential thing that juices my writing, I feel.

» The Dark Side of the Morning is a Nice Way of Saying the Night

[ I am trying to write a little thing right here, but it is not letting me do it. The server is throwing an error. Very weird. I will need to look into that later. There is something in the text that the server is refusing. It has to do with the title of today's entry. Something in one of your lyrics spoke to me. Oh, I think that I found the problem. It does not like when I use the word » s.e.l.e.c.t.e.d. That is a word that is used as a SQL command, which is a language used to talk to databases. Yeah, that's definitely the problem-word. I cannot even have that word in a link, so I cant even link to the SQL command there on that SQL page. It must be some sort of security thing, but it should not be doing that here. But Movable Type does indeed use/access (write to) a database. I can tell that the security here on the new server is cranked up higher than it was at the old server. I do not deal with money or selling things, so I tend to not be so strict on the server's security settings. Sometimes it can take a while before you get a new server dialed in just the way you want. Anyway, I think that my point in mentioning my title here in the section on lyrics that match real-life .. is that I am familiar with the darkside of the morning. You know.]

[ Oh, look at this, Selena. That sounds very cool. A look at one of the most famous artists ever .. using his own art in a creative way. A portrait of an artist. I am very much into portraits of artists. Because they usually make me feel less fucked-up. Even the concept for the movie itself is cool. An entirely hand-painted film. The effect reminds me of what you see at the Pageant of the Masters. The idea for the film is kind of recursive .. artistically recursive. 120 artists recruited from all over the world. I bet that the energy there was electric. It took 4 years to make. This video says 5 years. So many artists sympathize with Vincent .. who struggled for 8 years, and often existed at a level where he could barely afford to eat. I think that he sold one painting in his life for $80. At t=7:30 here, the lady there says that, even more than his art, it is his STORY that captures everyone's imagination. We should go see it when it comes out. Just me-n-you. Nobody else. Did you hear about this da Vinci painting that sold for a record $450 mil? ]

Speaking of legendary artists and their legendary art .. what do you think about this must-see show? » Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer.

Maybe we should see that one, too? It's at the Met. You know where that is.

This is exactly the kind of thing that feeds the artist's soul. This is exactly the kind of thing that inspires the artist. This is exactly the kind of thing that challenges him to up his game.

» Big Girl Stuff at the AMAs

Your AMA speech was most impressive. That is big-girl stuff.

Didnt I tell you girls that you need to take a break every now-n-then and get some down-time?

When I was writing to you before, that was me using Ariana to get to you. But this writing here is more of a one-on-one type of thing. It certainly feels more one-on-one, doesnt it? (I am a one-on-one type-of-guy myself.)

» Still the Queen of Instagram

I just noticed that .. when I wrote to you last summer (.. the summer of love) you had 92 million followers on Instagram. Now you have 110.

What does that feel like? Because that's a lot of people.

Do you feel that having so many followers makes you a political force? Without you even trying to be? I thought about some of these things with Marshall.

» Nuclear Wintour

Speaking of the question "What's it feel like?..." .. while I was over there at your Instagram page, I couldnt help but notice that photo of you sitting there with Anna Wintour. Anna Fucking Wintour.

And fuck if you dont look like you belong. Say hi to Anna for me, next time you see her.

Have you seen her garden? I love gardens.

Did you know that people call her Nuclear Wintour? for her "aloof and demanding personality."

When I saw that, I thought, "You gotta be shittin' me." (Along these lines the apocalypse intersecting with fashion .. here is an interesting title.)

If she has been there at Vogue for that long, then she has mad skills. I bet that she has seen some shit. She probably knows where the bodies are buried.

» Fashion is Very Much About Presentation

Speaking of fashion people .. do you know Vera Wang? She was the youngest editor at Vogue. (I see you, Vera. I like your story. I like your images.)

I know almost nothing about the fashion world .. but fashion is all about presentation. It is an external-surface thing.

A very nice thing that is obviously important in certain circumstances .. circumstances that singers such as yourself no doubt encounter on a frequent basis.

I was talking to Ariana about this.

» The Presentation Aspects of Marketing

Presentation is a concept very much at play in the world of Marketing.

Even after I had already accumulated enough credits for my degree .. I still took some classes .. because I was already in the class-taking mode. The class-taking mindset.

I was already in the college groove, the learning groove .. the groove of learning cool-new-things, and because there were some cool disciplines that I wanted to explore .. that I wanted to get a feel for. A working feel.

The very last of these not-required classes (such as a vocabulary-building class that explored the classical roots of many key Greek and Roman words) .. the very last class was » Marketing.

I dropped that class. I dropped it after the very first class. But I thought for a long time about the insights that I had gleaned there.

I always read ahead a few chapters before the first day of class .. so I had a decent feel for the concepts presented.

But it wasnt until the first day of class that I saw more clearly. I could go on here ad nauseam, but my point is that » I knew this wasnt for me.

The thought behind my thinking here was » "I have so much work to do dealing with the inside, with the important core stuff, to spend much time concerned about the superficial exterior appearances."

This was very much a function of the point in my life that I was at .. at that time. But that's another story. For another day.

Note: This is the end of this page. ■ This entry continues both here » Doing the Work (Oct. 5, 2017)
and here » The Dark Side of the Morning - Part Two (Nov 21, 2017).

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