"Open Book" by Jessica Simpson: PART 3: Closed Door, Open Window (Strategies for Dealing with Bullies)
Many times in life we are left to wonder "why" something happens, only to see later it was better that events played out the way they did. When one door closes, a window opens...
I feel like this is "today's message." I got the inspiration from a "Zoltar" machine I encountered at the "Tower of Americas" in San Antonio, Texas. My fortune reads:
It's time to stop waiting for things to get better when you are feeling somber. Rather, start making them better. Start with your perspective. When you are sad, know that things will soon turn around. When you are happy, don't get overzealous and know that it can be taken from you in an instant. It is important to not let these changes destroy you but accept them and know that this life is a constant wave of joy and loss. Don't let waves knock you down, fight through them and the entire ocean will be yours.
The message came just as I knew I just wrote a song with a melody that sounds like waves crashing on the shore as a thunderstorm approaches. I knew that this would be the "theme" of this post in this "read along" about Jessica Simpson's "Open Book." Learning not to get knocked over by rejection or to get over-confident in a victory, is a great skill needed to obtain lasting success. This is demonstrated in Jessica's life story.
"If it didn't work out, something that is meant for you is coming around the corner." This is the case for Jessica Simpson. In the last two blog posts, we follow Jessica's journey, as the "underdog" who doesn't quite make it into the "Mickey Mouse Club" after becoming one of handful of finalist in a massive cattle-call nationwide audition. The other finalist include Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera. Jessica is new to the auditioning process. She did not even have professional head shots like the other contestants. Instead of seeing how well she did, amongst her more-professional and trained peers, as a newcomer, she focuses on her loss. She takes the rejection badly, with non-stop crying for days.
Her mom decides Jessica needs a break from trying to "be a star" and just test out normal life as a cheerleader at her school. Jessica, trying to help out another person who may be experiencing abuse, confides in a best friend during a sleep over that she was inappropriately touched by another girl growing up. When the crush of this "friend" gets flirty with Jessica, this girl decides to spread a rumor. She uses Jessica's trauma to construct a rumor that Jessica attempted to "touch her" during a sleepover and that Jessica was gay. Like the Salem Witch Trials, other girls falsely accuse Jessica of touching them...soon after...Jessica is miserably bullied to the point of having to stay at home for weeks.
During that time, kids at school vandalize her home, TP-ing the outside, using shoe polish to graffiti horrible messages on the side go her house, and littering anti-gay flyers on the lawn. When she finally gets the courage to return to school for picture day (with her mom at her side) it is just as bad. She opens her locker to see anti-gay flyers splash out of it. Jessica decides to stay strong. She decides to get through picture day. Some girls unable to look at her knowing that they bullied her, but they do not openly try any antics with administration watching over them. The day goes by smoothly, so she decides to return to cheerleading for a school basketball game that evening. Everything seems back to normal, until a group of cheerleaders gather around her and develop a "chant" with pom-poms about gayness at the end of the game.
Jessica officially "quits" cheerleading.
Bouncing Back After Bullying:
If one door closes, a window opens, or so the saying goes. My advice to people who are going through bullying is that is won't "last forever." Researching the psychology of bullying is a good way to gain perspective on what just happened. Most people didn't even want to bully you, they just "joined in" because they didn't want to end up bullied themselves. The main bullies tend to have "issues" psychologically, or at home, or are acting in this way for a reason that has nothing to do with the person being bullied. Normal people don't walk around trying to make life miserable for someone else. That being said, it takes a lot of energy to bully. Think about it, while you probably already have, and assume the bully is going home plotting over a map of the school (or wherever you are getting bullied) trying to calculate your every move...that takes a lot of work! The truth is, bullies have homework and a life just like you. They are dealing with life too. So just being able to stay away, out of their path or sight, is sometimes all you need to do.
Jessica returns to music...and decides to work on developing her music career.
This time under a Christian record label, recording gospel music. Unfortunately, Jessica is under scrutiny once again, due to a developing womanly figure. She is asked to "cover up" and dress more conservatively (even when wearing outfits similar to what other girls her age are wearing at the time). Can Jessica ever catch a break?
She does.
The Christian record label she is under goes out of business before she able to release her record. Her entrepreneurial parents help her to continue to sell a self-tiled gospel album with one of the headshots from the "Mickey Mouse Club" audition made a sepia color.
Teresa LaBarbara Whites, a Dallas based A&R rep from Columbia under Sony, responded to hearing Jessica's demos. She decided to fly out to San Antonio just to meet with Jessica. She wanted to see if Jessica's real voice matched the sound on the recordings. A&R stands for "Artist and Repertoire." Teresa is responsible for scouting talent and matching talent with songwriters to help both parties thrive. Among people that Teresa had scouted, was Beyonce Knowles...when Teresa mentioned Beyonce and a girl group that she was in, Jessica had a strange feeling that she would also be encountering that name in the future...
Jessica was now in a hotel room singing "I Will Always Love You" and "Amazing Grace" so that she too can be discovered. After the audition, Teresa decides that Jessica needs to get signed on as an artist.
"I can get you straight to Tommy Mottola," Teresa said. As green as we were, I definitely knew who Tommy Mottola was. He was the head of Sony, but more important to my mind was that he had just separated from my idol Mariah Carey and had signed her to Columbia in the first place." Pg. 110
After that positive meeting, Jessica and her father continued to go on meeting with other record labels. Jessica decided on a mission statement to gauge the reaction at each label, "I will only go with you of you believe that I can change the world." While it came across cheesy to some people, or even as a "angle" to help sell her, Jessica firmly believed that singing was her spiritual calling. She wanted God to guide her in the right direction. To her, the "right direction" to her was anyone able to help her with this mission. On the road to finding her "place" in the music industry, Jessica heard some familiar names at record labels who rejected her.
"When I sang 'I Will Always Love You' at Jive, they were direct with me. 'We just signed a girl just like you and sang that same song,'" someone said in a suit said. This girl Britney Spears." Pg. 111
Jessica's stomach flipped. When Jessica arrived at RCA, they informed her that they just signed a girl, "Christina Aga-something..." (referring to Christina Aguilera).
It seems Jessica's mother's prediction about seeing these girls from the Mickey Mouse Club audition "in the future" came true. It is easy in life to lose hope, especially after a big failure, or in Jessica's case, coming from a car accident that left her with a speech impediment, to being abused by an older girl, to almost making it into the "Mickey Mouse Club" and then experiencing rejection by not being selected, furthered by social rejection as her entire school bullied her...
Now, Jessica Simpson, just turned 17.
After meeting with a string of record labels and finding some familiar names have already taken her spot at some top labels. Luckily, she still has her appointment to meet with Tommy Mattola...the head of Sony Records.
"'He listened to Mariah sing in the shower, Dad," I said, as the elevator went down. When I get nervous, most people can't tell. On the outside, I seem very calm, but inside there's a tornado." Pg. 113
Unlike her audition for "The Mickey Mouse Club," Jessica heavily prepared this time around.
She entered a room where Tommy Mattola sat at the end of a table, alongside the head of Columbia Records.
"So, what do you want to do with your life?" Asked Tommy.
Jessica's reply to this was that aspired to be an example to young girls and show them they didn't have to compromise themselves to become successful. She was then asked to sing a song. She selected and sang, "Amazing Grace." Her audition was cut short before she could continue to "I Will Always Love You."
To her relief, after a brief nerve-wrecking pause, she was accepted...and Tommy believe that she could indeed, "change the world."
At the end of this process of interviews with major record labels, she found two other record labels extended offers, Mercury (the record label of Bon Jovi) and Atlantic (the label of artists like Tori Amos and Aretha Franklin).
Based on "a sign" of a blackbird careening into a window and then spotting "Columbia Hospital." Jessica decided to go with "Columbia Records" and Tommy Mattola.
So friends, this is the "end" of this blog post about how sometimes not getting what you want or expected is actually working out for the better. Have faith in your journey when you feel lost or rejection, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.
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