Chapter 8: Whataya Want From Me?

Today. Let's start off by saying that I did not heed my own advice from yesterday and did not check http://www.weather.com before work, so today I had the opposite problem of what I had yesterday. I got up this morning assuming it would be just as cold as yesterday, so I decided on a very adorable outfit, (Calvin Klein shoes, jeans from the Siegfried "My Old Denim" collection and a cute and comfortable Old Navy Sweater,) that it was a little too warm for today. I just can't seem to get it right when it comes to the weather. I look cute, though, and that is what is really important. Isn't it?

Work was very boring today. I don't even really have anything interesting to report from the day. It was pretty slow for the most part, until the last hour of the day when everybody left and I was alone, (due to the loss of the co-worker I discussed yesterday.) I had plenty of calls then. Fortunately, though, the calls seemed to clear out at about 5:45pm and I did not take another call for the last 15 minutes of the day. Working in a call center, those last 10-15 minutes of the day are crucial. They make the difference between getting off at your scheduled time and getting of considerably later. Luckily, they have managed to line up a rotation of my other co-workers to alternate working until 6pm on different days of the week, so I am not the only one there every evening. That was very nice of the management team, and I am very grateful for it.

I realized once I got home that I don't have any plans for the entire weekend. That is very unusual for me. I normally have plans with somebody or at least have a concept of what I would like to do and who I would like to do it with. Somehow, though, this weekend I wound up with nothing. This gave me an idea, though. What if I were to spend the entire weekend completely cut off from the outside world? By that I mean: no going outside, no calls, no text, no Facebook, no Twitter, not even blogspot. Also, no TV or internet. Nothing that would give me information from the outside world. Essentially, the plan would be to spend the entire day kind of inside my own head and see what comes of it. Now, because the whole concept of this blog project is to write a new blog every day for an entire year, I would still write the blog as a Word document and post it once my time was up. In fact, the reason I am so keen on doing this whole experiment is for this blog. The purpose of this blog is to discover parts of myself that I may not have been entirely aware of before, which is also kind of the purpose of the communication deprivation experiment so it only makes sense that I put the two together. I think a really interesting blog could come out of this.

Of course, when really thinking through the whole concept I kind of realized that, for my own sanity, two days may be a bit more than I can handle. So, instead I am only doing a 24 hour period. This 24 hour period will begin when I go to bed tonight. For the 24 hours after that my cell phone will be turned off, I will not be on the internet, I will not watch any TV or have any communication with the outside world. Things that are allowed: Music. Writing. Reading. Possibly DVD watching, but only in a limited amount. I don't want the temptation of just spending a whole day watching movies, or a season of a TV show all day. That would kind of defeat the purpose. I am excited and nervous about this whole thing. I think it'll be interesting to spend a day with myself, without any outside influence.

For the moment, though, I am making sure to make sure I am all caught up on my general internet news sources before beginning the Communication Deprivation Experiment by reading one of my most-visited websites, Oh No They Didn't, to make sure I know what is going on in the world of celebrities and random indie stuff tonight because who knows what could happen tomorrow. I swear, if anything bad happens to Taylor Swift I will be kicking myself on Sunday morning! I am also listening to the music leaks of the day. The big one, of course, is the new Rihanna record, "Rated R." I have mentioned in the blog previously my issues with Rihanna as an artist, and my recently increased respect for Rihanna as a person. Well, I don't know if I also mentioned that for the first time, I am genuinely loving her music for more than just being brainless pop. It started with the first single from this album, "Russian Roulette." That song has been pretty much panned across the internet. People hate it. I have read comments about this song ranging from calling it anti-feminist or saying that it glorifies domestic abuse or violence in general to "it's slow and boring and I can't dance to it." When I heard the song I was really flabbergasted. This was the first time I had ever heard Rihanna sing a song that was actually saying something that seemed genuine and real and actually expressed an emotion. I actually love that song the more I hear it. Then a song that was supposedly meant to be the second single from the album, "Wait Your Turn," leaked to the internet pretty quickly, so quickly, in fact, that I'm pretty sure it was done on purpose to provide people with something a little more lighthearted than "Russian Roulette." I like this song even better than the first. Sadly, this one didn't get much better reception around the internet, so a third song "randomly leaked." This song was called "Hard" and it featured Young Jeezy. Of the three, this was my least favorite and was also the one that got the best response from the internet. Well, today the album leaked and after thoroughly enjoying the three leaked tracks, I decided to give it a try. Okay, honestly, I was going to give it a try either way simply because her last album was really enjoyable in that way where you know the artist didn't have anything at all to do with making it enjoyable, (like Britney Spears' "Blackout" album.) I must say, I was very surprised by this album. I have said many times that Rihanna is an artist who selects strong singles and then releases albums full of filler. This is not that album. I think pretty much every song is strong on it's own, and it is a solid collection of much more hard-edged and emotional urban pop music. My favorite tracks on the album are the more mid-tempo or slow tracks, like "Fire Bomb," "Photographs" and "G4L," (although I do question exactly how "Gangsta 4 Life" Rihanna really is.) One thing that I find fascinating, although not entirely surprising, is that the album has one main recurring theme. Guns and violence. There are a lot of lyrics scattered throughout the record making references to pulling the trigger and putting your guns in the air and such that in many cases were a bit shocking. There is also a lot of swearing on this record. Pretty much every song includes the F word somewhere in it, which I don't have any problem with. It is pretty jarring, though, in contrast to her previous records. Of course, going through something like she has definitely changes a person, (which I can personally attest to.)

The other big deal leak of the day for me was two of the tracks from the Adam Lambert album, "For Your Entertainment." I have to say, I am just in love with that guy. I was a huge fan of his on American Idol, but I always thought, "Once this show is over, he is going to be something HUGE." I just think that he is the ideal artist to kind of open the door for openly gay musicians. He can dress up as flamboyantly as a drag queen and then bring it down a notch and look like a classic film star, which is brilliant. More than that, though, he is an immense talent and has done an amazing job thus far of showing the American public that there are many different sides to gay artists. Plus, he is sexy and adorable at the same time. I really believe that he could easily wind up being a huge beacon of hope for the community of openly gay musicians. I could gush about him all day long, but instead I will shift gears a bit to gush about his music. There are now three full songs from the album floating around the internet, along with one from the album sessions that did not make the standard album tracklisting, and it shouldn't be a surprise to hear me say that they are all absolutely brilliant. He has yet to disappoint me, outside of the fact that he only has writing credits on 4 of the 14 tracks on his album, which I assume has more two do with a couple of other factors than him not being able to write or just choosing not to. First of all, when it came time to write for this record, there was a long list of musical geniuses wanting to write songs for him, or pitch him songs that they had already written. One example of that is my favorite of the songs that have leaked thus far, "Whataya Want From Me?" which was written by Max Martin and Pink in a session for her last record that just didn't fit in with that collection. It is absolutely perfect for Adam, and is a beautiful, heartbreaking, but still upbeat love song about having a person in your life who believes in you more than you even believe in yourself. It makes me think of my best friend, Don, who is really that person in my life. If I were a newly signed artist and had Max Martin approaching me with a song that he'd already written, and it were perfectly suited to my voice and the general flow of my record, I would jump at the chance. Same thing with Lady GaGa, who wrote a track on Adam's album called "Fever," or the guy from Muse, whose name escapes me at the moment, who also wrote a track for the album. It makes sense enough when you are being approached by songwriters and producers and artists of this caliber to maybe set aside some of the stuff you have written yourself to have the honor of working with such talent. I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing, (although, the songwriter in me would rather try to coax those artists into a co-write, as opposed to just performing one of their songs.) In any sense, Adam Lambert is completely brilliant, as far as I am concerned, and the wait for his album is making me a little crazy with anticipation.

Tomorrow? The Communication Deprivation Experiment will commence. Wish me luck.