Gavin's Blog

[Eminem]
Sometimes I just feel like, quittin I still might
Why do I put up this fight, why do I still write
Sometimes it’s hard enough just dealin with real life
Sometimes I wanna jump on stage and just kill mics
And show these people what my level of skill’s like
But I’m still white, sometimes I just hate life
Somethin ain’t right, hit the brake lights
Case of the stage fright, drawin a blank like
Da-duh-duh-da-da, it ain’t my fault
Great big eye balls, my insides crawl
and I clam up I just slam shut
I just can’t do it, my whole manhood’s
just been stripped, I’ve just been ripped
So I must then get, hope the bus didn’t split
Man fuck this shit yo, I’m goin the fuck home
World on my shoulders as I run back to this 8 Mile Road

[Eminem]
You gotta live it to feel it, you didn’t you wouldn’t get it
Or see what the big deal is, why it was and it still is
To be walkin this borderline of Detroit city limits
It’s different, it’s a certain significance, a certificate
of authenticity, you’d never even see
But it’s everything to me, it’s my credibility
You never seen heard smelled or met a real MC
who’s incredible, up on the same pedestal as me
But yet I’m still unsigned, havin a rough time
Sit on the porch with all my friends and kick dumb rhymes
Go to work and serve MC’s in the lunchline
But when it comes crunch time, where do my punchlines go
Who must I show, to bust my flow
Where must I go, who must I know
Or am I just another crab in the bucket
Cause I ain’t havin no luck with this little Rabbit so fuck it
Maybe I need a new outlet, I’m startin to doubt shit
I’m feelin a little skeptical who I hang out with
I look like a bum, yo my clothes ain’t about shit
at Salvation Army tryin to salvage an outfit
And it’s cold, tryin to travel this road
Plus I feel like I’m old, stuck in this battlin mode
My defenses are so up, and one thing I don’t want
is pity from no one, the city is no fun
There is no sun, and it’s so dark
Sometimes I feel like I’m just bein pulled apart
from each one of my limbs, by each one of my friends
It’s enough to make me just wanna jump out of my skin
Sometimes I feel like a robot, sometimes I just know not
what I’m doin I just blow, my head is a stove top
I just explode, the kettle gets so hot
Sometimes my mouth just overloads the gas that I don’t got
But I’ve learned, it’s time for me to U-turn
Yo it only takes one time for me to get burned
Ain’t no fallin on next time I meet a new girl
I can no longer play stupid or be immature
I got every ingredient, all I need is the courage
Like I already got the beat, all I need is the words
Got the urge, suddenly it’s a surge
Suddenly a new burst of energy is occured
Time to show these free world leaders the three and a third
I am no longer scared now, I’m free as a bird
Then I turn and cross over the median curb
Hit the burbs and all you see is a blur from 8 Mile Road
[Chorus]

The 8 Mile song is my favorite from all Eminem songs. It is a great hymn of hope.

The first part exposes Jimmy Smith’s struggle. Jimmy has to face a double fight: his struggle as a white M.C for recognition and his harsh conditions of living.

He feels divided between real life and the place where he wants to be.
His stagefright and the racism he experiences during his rap battles add a lot to the pressure he feels.

The second part describes his monotonous life as a worker at Detroit Stamping. He is also worried for his half sister who lives in unstable conditions with her alcoholic mom. He wants to protect her and wishes to play the role of their absent father, but he knows he has to fight for a better future first.
He’s got so much pressure put on his shoulders and it comes from so many directions (home, work,stage).

He addresses to God, he doesn’t want to go on living his monotonous life, he wants to escape from 8 Mile Road.

In the third part, Jimmy suddenly becomes conscious of his value. He is still unsigned and having a rough time, but now he feels the urge to act the right way. He knows ”he got every ingredient, all he needs is the courage”. He is no longer scared of the “Free World leaders”. He can feel his freedom and is able to smell the taste of his future victory. He is ready to drop bombs on his mic.

This song shows a path of hope to many people who are going through harsh conditions of living. It shows us that it is possible to escape to our “8 Mile road” if we don’t give up your dreams. We all got every ingredient. All we need is the courage to fight to the end and enough faith in our dreams.

THE EXAMINED LIFE

ON JAN. 23, 1963, Robert Lowell wrote to fellow poet Elizabeth Bishop with news of a periodical “about to be set floating during the lull of the newspaper strike here that has temporarily put the New York Times book section out of existence.” That publication, conceived of by a group of writers and critics that included Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Silvers, and Barbara Epstein, was The New York Review of Books. Silvers and Epstein, who remain its editors, are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the journal with the publication of the Nov. 6, 2003 issue.

The first issue included essays by Norman Mailer, W.H. Auden, Mary McCarthy, William Styron, and Gore Vidal. Before long, the Review vibrated with the excitement and energy of New York intellectual life, causing Lowell to half-boast, half-complain, in another letter to Bishop, that working on it was like living “in the fire and burnt-outness of some political or religious movement.” Lowell’s two letters appear in the Nov. 6 issue, along with essays by Margaret Atwood on Studs Terkel, Elizabeth Hardwick on Nathanael West, John Updike on El Greco, Joan Didion on apocalyptic Christian novels, Garry Wills on Thomas Jefferson, and Ronald Dworkin on our endangered civil liberties.

Although the Review often runs with its stable of distinguished veterans, the anniversary issue does contain some offbeat surprises. In one essay, Luc Sante, author of “Low Life” and one-time mailroom employee at the Review, fondly recalls life on the Lower East Side before the gentrification of “the entropic slum that was my home.” In another, the 35-year-old Scottish writer Andrew O’Hagan favorably compares the artist known as Eminem with the poet John Berryman.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Nothing’s more impressing than Eminem’s rapid way to the top. In his song “Marshall Mathers” from the Marshall Mathers Lp, he says: “Last year I was nobody, this year I’m selling records”.
(more…)

Kim is Eminem’s ex wife and the mom of his daughter Hailie Jade.

Their relationship has always been complicated, it the kind of love-hate relationship that is always on and off again. They were both unable to live together, but their couldn’t live with each other either…
(more…)

A Shady mom : Debbie Mathers

Every Eminem listener knows that he hates his mom. Some people don’t understand why the famous rapper expresses so much hatred about his own mom.

Debbie Mathers seems to have a complex personality.She has abused her son emotionaly, verbally and even physically. She is a sick person who used to suffer from Munchhausen’s syndrome (“…victim of Munchausen’s syndrome, my whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn’t /till I grew up). This line from “Cleaning Out My Closet” defines Debbie’s sickness.

What is exactly “Munchhausen’s syndrome” ? It’s a kind of psychological illness that was discovered in 1977. A person with Munchausen’s syndrome gives fake symptoms of illness and insists on the fact she is sick. This kind of sickness (which is Debbie’s case) can also take the form of child abuse ( the mother uses the child’s fake sickness to gain attention: this particular kind of desease is called Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy.

The mother makes her kid believe that he’s sick and convincesd him to take some medication which creates other symptoms like vomiting for instance.

Debbie Briggs Mathers is the first to make a drug addict of her own son.
Eminem had to testify against her in Court and he shares his statements in an interview given to the “Rolling Stone” Magazine:

“In Court I had to testify against her. Nate who was 9 at this time was too scared to testify against his mom. His mom made him believe he was an hyperactive kid and that hje was suffering from “Attention Deficit Disorder” . My mother said I was a hyper kid and I wasn’t, he said. She put me on Ritalin.”

Debbie who pretends that she still loves her sons and that she suffers a lot from his rejection also filed a 10 Million dollars lawsuit against him for defamation in June 1999 because on the verses of the song “My Name Is”: “I just found out my mom does more dope than I do”.

He jokes about in his song “Marshall Mathers”:”My fucking bitch mom is suing lme for 10 Million : she must want a dollar for every pill I’ve been stealing/ Shit where the fuck do you think I picked the habit/All I had was to go in her room and lift a mattress. “
But the whole story started with the interview Eminem gave in the Source Magazine called “fear of a white rapper” where the rapper relates many facts about his childhood.

As we know, there is no defamation in telling the truth. That’s exactly what Eminem points out in the same interview:”As bizarre as my shit might be, it’s still the reflection of the truth. When I say my mom does more dope than me, people I’m just craking jokes, but that shit is real. It’s part of my childhood. 100 % fucking true.”

Of course Debbie denies his allegations. But for Eminem , truth always matters. He is well known for always speaking his mind.

There are hidden reasons for Debbie’s lawsuit , but we can guess them easily. Filing a lawsuit is a good way to make dollars the good old American way.
Marshall also declined an out of Court offer to settle a 10 Million dollars lawsuit for 2 Million dollars. It shows how much she was in need of money.

Paul Rosenberg, Eminem’s manager, managed to prove the authenticity of Eminem’s allegations.

Later on , Debbie filed another lawsuit for 1 Million dollars because her son said “She does have no leg to stand on (in her defamation suit) and she’s looking for things I say in my interviews to help her.”

Debbie is also known as a “bingo addict”.

She also wants a lot of publicity. She released a record ( a three song CD) with X-ID where she addresses an open letter to her son .It is called “ Dear Marshall”:

dear *Marshall*,
I just wanna start out by saying
I still love you

even when i was pregnant with you
it was very hard for me
so many times of torture was worth every minute of it
cuz wen i looked in to those big blue eyes
this was the first time i had ever felt true love
in my whole life

we have a problem marshall
the past 2 years..something really went wrong

i was so excited about your success yet so let down by your
betrayal
playing the role of both mum & dad must of taken a toll on you
more then i ever imagined
*marshall* i did the best i could
i went without seeking half
it was rong of me and i see it now as giving you everything
and never questioning ne thing you eva did
as you were perfect in my eyes
my unconditional love created a spoiled young man
an angry one too
now before god and every1 i must apologise cuz at the time
i thought it was the right thing to do
im torchered daily *Marshall* by people always asking me where
such an angry young man ………………..
being the only role model in your life, of course they’re gonna
blame me
the demeanin me needs to stop and i speak 4 lots of mothers
the words really hurt and they cut like a knife
but theres no way to mend a bleedin heart
if not 4my frenz who ave been there for me and yes
*marshall* they really truely care
i pray some day your not going to be alone and you’ll ave frenz like
me…..and they wont be there just for your fame
and no more attacks on me
and vicious acts of heat cuz it really hurts
will the real Marshall Mathers please stand up?
and take responsibility 4his actions
and im gonna close this *marsh* by saying
its not too late for change
and always sincerely your mother

It sounds like a comedy knowing so many facts about Debbie.
When Marshall was a little boy, she used to treat him so badly.Once she came back home, and for no appearant reasons, she hit him, spat at his face, calling him “little bastard”.
Debbie has deeply hurt her son, what does she expect from him in return.
The worst sentence she has ever said to her son can be found in “Cleaning Out My Closet : “Remember when Ronnie died and you said you wished it was me”.
This sentence is killing love forever.

In the “Sally Raphael Show”, Debbie said that her son Marshall has been told by managers what to write in his songs and that his rage is just artistic expression.

People who know Eminem as an artist also know that he is not a commercial rapper . He has enough money and he doesn’t need to dis his own mom for recognition.

Debbie claims to be a good mom, but many other facts are talking against her.
When she left Marshall Mathers Jr, she didn’t spend his early years with Marshall. In fact, Eminem’s great aunt from Missouri, Edna Swartz, was taking care of him.
Debbie is also known for her instable relationships to men. She was dating many men. She’s been married four times.
Don De Marc, her former boyfriend says: “She complained of headaches, backaches and toothaches, she always seemed to be in pain. She was always looking for pain pills.” He also insists on her irrational character.

Nate is Eminem’s half brother.He’s been placed in a foster family for one year, because Debbie was abusive towards him.
Fred J. Samra (Nate’s Dad) also expressed about her :”She is lying about drugs and stuff, I won’t say any more.You would not believe the shit he( Marshall) has been through.

One of Debbie’s former husbands, Berger Olsen Au Gres remembers the time he was married to Debbie: “She was throwing him of the house all the time. I remeber Marshall telling her : “I want to do my rap, and when I do, I’m going to do all about you.”

Marshall Mathers is lucky to have found some consolation in his music , even if he is still hurt from his horrible past. His music helps a lot of kids who come from broken homes to overcome their problems. “Cleaning Out My Closet” is a real therapy for kids from dysfunctional families.