10.25.11 "God Save The Queens", Nile collab, more

This is interesting, because my thoughts have been revolving around a similar axis the last few days, but when I look closely, I find that maybe they're spinning in the opposite direction!

You see (and this part isn't a direct response to you, juniemoon, bear with me for a sec), I'm really not the angsty type, at least when it comes to Adam. I can count the moments of true angst inspired by him on my thumbs. I was proper pissed (though not exactly angsty) over the OUT magazine situation two years ago. I panicked for about twenty minutes after the AMAs (which I hadn't been able to watch live, so I was mostly reacting to the hysteria at MJs and then, when I saw the youtube, to the generally wobbly execution). When I saw the next day that all the coverage was about the kiss, any residual angst evaporated--I saw it, in the end, as a win for Adam. Finally, the Lisa twitter rant made me pretty miserable for an evening, not so much worried about the future as upset by the childish and unpleasant and totally un-Adam tenor of it all. That's it, folks. That's the sum total of my worrying about Adam :D.

I don't worry about negative bloggers. I certainly don't worry about what has been dubbed "pearl-clutchers" here. I don't worry about bastard albums. I don't worry about release timing. I don't worry about competition. So I was surprised, yesterday, for a minute, to sense the contagion of release-date-worry, like a little tickle in my throat. Sure, I'm naturally impatient to hear what Adam has in store for us. But as I thought more about it, and about what this new fan-experience has meant to me, the tickle cleared up. Because yes, my general support of Adam is about the music, about the concerts, about the public performances. But that I could get as a casual fan, almost as easily. That's not what this whole stan-malarkey as been about for me.

The music will come, and I'll enjoy it just as much later as I would if it were released now. But in slipping into the world here at Atop, I was adding another element to the experience. I just like being casually invested in someone else's life--especially someone as likeable and fun-loving and interesting and entertaining as Adam. I like occasionally seeing pictures from the life of someone who walks very different paths from my own. I like watching a romance bud and blossom that is so very different from my romance, but in other ways so very similar. I like looking at all the beautiful and funny friends and family. I love the clothes, and the jewelry, and the hair. I love the warmth I get from sensing that a stranger is happy.

In addition to all these things, I like the for me entirely novel experience of getting to know a large and diverse group of people anonymously, and without preconceptions (that's you guys, in case you were wondering). I like observing the kind of social-experiment this is: the way a new language develops, and new humor, and new cliques and groupings, and new leaders--I find it fascinating and on the whole extremely heartening. I love the accentless internationality of it all. I also love how much I've learned about pop music, pop acts, the pop business--all of which I was (and to a large extent remain) astoundingly ignorant about.

All of which is just to say that these pleasures are still here whether or not Adam releases a single this month, or next month, or next year, just as Adam's music and performing would still be mine to enjoy if I dropped out of "fandom" altogether. They're separate things, for me, just as they are for you, Juniemoon. And as I was feeling a tickle of angst about release-timing yesterday I suddenly thought: really, I shouldn't let it bother me. Because look at that boy--he's clearly incredibly happy--and that gives me a new kind of pleasure completely independant of single releases. That pleasure isn't threatened by delays. And the music will be there, too, one day, and my non-stannish self will enjoy the heck out of it.

Yeah, but a wetsuit comes all the way up your neck, so his chest wouldn't be tanned from surfing. But maybe he just likes lying by the pool all day.

Has this been up?

@argeneau Gem
Has this been seen yet? New photo of Adam & Sauli at Supperclub LA for Club MSA :-) i.imgur.com/GDo54.jpg HQ PIC!
1 hour ago