Tag: Mariah carey

You’ve shown me nothing

The other day, a friend of mine was in town and stopped by for a visit. I was incredibly happy to see her given the fact that it had been a little over 5 months since our last get together. This time however, she had her 4-year-old with her. This was a problem for 2 reasons:

First, my house is not kid-friendly and, 2) neither am I. I don’t dislike all kids, you understand. Just the ones that are very self-absorbed. You know the type: always asking you for things and always wanting you to witness their latest “trick”.

This one was extra Mariah Carey that day. He started off by calling me Jem, very “I don’t know her” of him. But I actually liked that 80s cartoon so I didn’t correct him. It wouldn’t have mattered, though, because getting my name wrong wasn’t the problem. Saying it ad nauseam was.

“Jem. Jem. Jem. Hey Jem. Look Jem.” What could possibly be of that much importance, he’s only 4. It went like this for the next hour, each question and proclamation more nails on a chalkboard than the last.

He began by pointing out the Xbox controller on my coffee table. “Hey Jem, is that an Xbox controller? I like Xbox.” Me too, I replied. “Can I play your Xbox, Jem?” I’m sorry but no he could not. I’m currently playing Evil Within 2 and my score is logged online and I don’t need some overactive toddler making me appear to not know how to survive a zombie invasion.

Could I have switched out the games? Sure, but all of my games are zombie games and I don’t like to share and my husband just has Madden, which I know nothing about, and Grand Theft Auto, which I’m sure my friend wouldn’t have enjoyed watching her son murder a hooker because he doesn’t want to pay her. Even I know that.

The requests continued. “Hey Jem, let’s go look outside.” “Hey Jem, can I take the duck out of your pool?” “Hey Jem, what happens if I throw rocks in your pool?” “Hey Jem, is that your bedroom? I’m going to jump on your bed!” “Hey Jem, can I eat the pizza in your fridge?”

Oh. My. God. I genuinely can’t remember the conversation between my friend and I because he interrupted every 30 seconds like a goddamn egg timer. Not even cartoons kept him quiet. He was jumping on the couch, running around everywhere. One interruption after another.

Then he said, “hey Jem, check this out!” and did some weird leg shuffle. What did I just check out? The answer is nothing. You’ve shown me nothing and now I know why Simon Cowell is such a jerk on those talent shows.

It reminded me of the time my friend’s then 13-year-old was on an I-can-do-anything kick. One day she showed me a video of herself strumming a ukulele and proudly proclaimed “look, I can play the ukulele!” Can you play any songs, I asked. No. Do you know any chords? No. So I kindly explained to her that she, in fact, could not play the ukulele because strumming it was not playing it and she should stop telling people that she could. She has since quit (or never actually got started if we’re being technical) the ukulele.

I didn’t tell this 4-year-old that his little shuffle was garbage, I know you were wondering. Instead, I looked away so he would go do something else. And that, my friends, is how I know I’m maturing. I’m 37.

Review: The Meaning of Mariah | Mariah Carey

Years ago, I had a dream of being a famous singer. Back then you had to really work for it. There was no TikTok or YouTube to propel a talentless individual into the spotlight. No. Back then, you had to find a way to get in front of record executives. I tried cold-calling them using my sales tactics that I learned from my telemarketing job but it didn’t pan out. Then, a miracle in the form of a talent show appeared: American Idol was auditioning for season 2.

The day before the audition I decided I should probably rehearse. I chose a Mariah Carey song and practiced for about 10 minutes in our dining room. I thought I sounded great. My then 7-year-old sister wanted to know why I was screaming. Either way, it didn’t matter. When we got to the venue they’d already reached their cut-off so I couldn’t audition, which was probably for the best since I was prepared to walk in there and SING A MARIAH CAREY SONG. I still live with that blind optimism and confidence, by the way. But just like no one can sing Mariah Carey like Mariah Carey, I don’t do confidence the way she does.

I just finished reading Mariah Carey’s book, The Meaning of Mariah, and I never knew how amazing she actually was until she told me. I had zero intentions of reading this book, but during her appearance on Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper’s New Year’s Eve special she kept talking about her book and how she wrote it and her book was her answer to every question she got asked so I felt like I had no choice but to read it.

It’s actually not bad but is also exactly what I expected: the story of her life mixed with praise for herself. If you’ve ever seen the movie Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, you’ll recall a scene where, playing herself, she says “I’m probably the most humble person I know.” That’s the entire tone of the book.

HOWEVER, it’s also incredibly inspirational, believe it or not. I was completely unaware of her hardships. The hardest time I thought she endured was the period of her life that was that shit Glitter (she even talks about the infamous TRL publicity stunt that went terrible and made her look batshit crazy, at least she did to me). She had a pretty rough upbringing, growing up around addiction, rage, and poverty. Her drive to make it out and achieve her dreams of becoming the superstar diva she is today is pretty motivational. And now I get why she celebrates anniversaries instead of birthdays and sometimes acts like a kid with a credit card.

She also goes into full detail about her time with Tommy Mottola. I remember when she was married to him and I also remember thinking she became a star because she married him. I was also like 13 when that went down so what did I know? The answer is nothing because the reason she married him and the shit she endured while she was with him is nowhere near as light-hearted as being a gold digger.

She has a great story and while it’s not without her mentioning her thousands of accolades she’s collected over the years – and I mean like every single story has some sort of praise for her, by her – it somehow doesn’t take away from the point of it: never give up. That’s the point of a lot of memoirs I suppose, but this one’s pretty legit. Of course it is, it’s Mariah Carey.

The Meaning of Mariah is a pretty good read, just ask Mariah Carey. She’ll tell you all about it.

Photo by: Rolling Stone because I was too lazy to take a picture