My Intrigue - Song lyrics I wrote ten to eleven years ago . I was honored someone online recorded and turned it into a song!

     I started writing song lyrics and poems when I was thirteen years old. I started to write , aspiring to write like Mariah Carey, Alanis Morissette, Jakob Dylan, and Fiona Apple. Over a years time I started to develop my own style of writing. However I held on to my influences, who wrote in a reactionary, honest, played with words, stream of conscious way (Mariah excluded) . 
    I wrote pop song lyrics, R and B song lyrics, and the deeper honest lyrics, however I will never be as great as those I aspire to write like. 
    When I was nineteen or about twenty I wrote this song called "My Intrigue." I shared the lyrics with my Alanis Morissette yahoo group, of which a lot of people would share their poems etc with everyone. I didn't expect anything. Then out of the blue, I got an MP3 back of my song lyrics set to an acoustic guitar and sung by one of the members Dana. She told me that she read it and the song lyrics inspired her to sing it and record it. I was honored. 
    It always shocks me when people ask me to write a set of lyrics for them, or want me to write a song for a contest to put in a Mariah Carey fanbook, because they enjoy how I write. 
It is just mind blowing and touching, because I honestly only write these song lyrics or poems to express myself and get out my feelings. Never in a million years do I ever expect anyone to like them or ask me to write for them. I just don't think my writing is on people's radar. 
  I've written song lyrics, poems, and one screen play in the course of seventeen years of my writing hobby. 

  I now share with you the song that inspired Dana to compose music to, and sing on. This will always be something that I will feel honored by. 

Listen to : My Intrigue (Written by Jennifer Risinger, Composed and Sung by Dana. )
It's a long song, the lyrics are below the video.

It has a angsty mid 90's vibe musically . 

"My Intrigue" 

Through your eyes you see me as a little girl

Through your eyes you see me as vulnerable

Through your eyes you see me as a sex driven kitten

Through your eyes you see a girl that you think you can deceive

Through my eyes I see a man who's got a lot to learn

You better think twice about what perception you have of me 

Cause in the end you won't be so sure of it

Chorus:

And I bet you think you got me figured out 

(But you'll never figure me out)

And I bet you think you got me figured out

(But you'll never figure me out)

And I bet you think you got me figured out

(But you'll never figure me out)

But somehow I twist it all about 

leaving you hanging and wanting my intrigue

my intrigue, my intrigue , my intrigue

Verse 2:

I look at you with such focus

That sometimes I see the dirt spots on your personality

I look at you with such carelessness

Sometimes I forget who you really are

I look at you with such realness

Sometimes I laugh cause your thoughts of beauty are so cute

I end up taken you in again 

Without fail you get me, but I end up getting you back

And oh, running after each other, again, and again, and again

(Chorus repeats)

Verse 3:

Don't get me I am fascinated by you

Don't get me wrong I want your flesh by mine

Don't get me wrong I have all these childish fantasies about you and me

Don't get me wrong I am asking about you

Until you tell me more, I can only keep reserved

...Unless you do 

(Chorus repeats)

Lyrics by : Jennifer R. 2000/2001

Music and Vocals by Dana

Iconoclast of the Day - Alanis Morissette 

Two Iconoclast - Fiona Apple & Quentin Tarantino

Two Iconoclasts - Fiona Apple & Quentin Tarantino 

The Sundance series "Iconoclasts" was the first time where I heard, and fell in love with the word "Iconoclast." The meaning it represented within the series of 'Creative Visionaries' talking about the alchemy of their work really spoke to me. 

Fiona Apple brought me to the series, but the word has stuck with my point of view on life and creativity ever since. Quentin Tarantino's words of how film excited him and how he discovered it as a child struck a chord as well as Fiona's story, in examining how performing arts such as dance, creative writing, and creativity in general excited me and moved me as a child as well. 

Watch some really interesting and thought provoking insights into two creative prodigies, and discover where and why my blog "The Current Iconoclast" got its name and importance in my life. 

"Who's they? There's nobody I've given that kind of authority over me to say I can't do anything. I can do anything that I want or that I can achieve. It's up to me. I don't ask permission. I may ask for forgiveness, but I don't ask for permission. There is no they, there is no they. And by saying there is a they, you are creating a they ." Quentin Tarantino on the people that told him for years that he couldn't do something, or that in film. 

This quote resonated with me and is in this part of the episode:

Iconoclast of the day - Fiona Apple - Again...Why? Because I can... It is good, and I share similar thoughts to it.

Expand your mind with Fiona Apple

Iconoclast Lip Color of the Day: MAC - Lady Danger 

The Seven Deadly Sins - My Concept used on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 4!

Greed 

The Seven Deadly Sins - My concept used on America's Next Top Model (Cycle 4, 2005). 

The Process :

     Toward the end of cycle two of America's Next Top Model in 2004, they had a promotional contest "Viewer's Choice Challenge Competition." The contest was to come up with a photo shoot concept that if you won, it would be used in an episode on the following cycle of the show. As well as you would receive an autograph from Tyra Banks, the cast, and a trip to Los Angeles to attend an America's Next Top Model Party. 

     They were looking for a concept that would be: challenging for the girls, interesting for the audience to watch, that could be done within a certain time frame, and would meet other criteria . They then would select the top ten ideas to be voted on by the fans on the official America's Next Top Model Website for about two months time. The winner would get the grand prize and have their idea used on the show. 

The Alchemy behind my idea and reasons for entering:

     I was a fan of the show, and saw the advertisement for the contest on one of the episodes from cycle 2.  I decided to enter. I thought "Perhaps I could win this" on account of the fact that it wasn't a random drawing contest, it was a contest based on ideas that they would go through and decide. Plus you could enter as many ideas as you wanted, which for someone with an overactive idea generator for a mind was slight torture. 

     I started thinking of the two cycles that had already been completed . I thought about what I "the viewer" wanted to see them do, and I thought that the idea that would most likely work would be an instantly recognizable theme that a lot of people would get, and that they could turn into a photo shoot. 

     I started thinking of ideas. I was in the shower when I thought that each model could embody one of the "Seven deadly sins" in a grave site. That idea would be one of my first, of five ideas . I then would go on and submit thirty ideas anyways, because I couldn't stop the ideas from coming. I really wanted a chance to win. 

    I wanted to win because I was twenty-two at the time, I was going to college for Graphic Design, and I wanted some validation that I had at least the ability to come up with concepts to be able to become a graphic designer. I didn't care about the party, or the autographs that came along with it. I just wanted validation and to see my creativity come to life. 

I made it the to Semi- Finals : 

     I made it to the Semi- finals. The top ten ideas were posted on the site, and were up for voting as many times as you wanted for about two months. I asked everyone that I knew to vote for my idea, as I sat there obsessed with hitting the select and enter button. Then the two months of voting was over, and I had about a month to wait to see if I had won or not. 

And The Winner Is: 

     Not me... Apparently... The Zodiac idea won. While I thought that was an idea along the lines of what this show would want, lets be honest I thought it was pretty predictable and an outright bore. 

Tyra Banks and The Producers Want Your Idea: 

     Sometime had past and I forgot about the competition that I set out fighting tooth and nail to try and win. Then I got the phone call. The guy asked me if I was sitting down. (Really?) . I said "Yes, why?" He told me "Because Tyra Banks and The Producers want to use your idea and have decided to award you the Grand Prize as well!" He asked me how I felt about that, I said "I think it's fabulous." Insert second hand embarrassment here at my response. "Fabulous" ? Really ? What drag queen possessed me to say that? Well to be fair I had been watching "Sex and the City" lately, and that word popped up quite frequently that I suppose it thought it should pop right into my mouth at that moment. I'm not really the bubbly girl with a smile on her face type, so if an excellent drag queen phrase was all I could muster on the spot, then hey it would be better than saying "Ok" and not pulling out a response anywhere close to the one that the guy wanted out of me.

The Fancy Affidavit & Seeing my idea used on the show:

     They sent me official rules, an affidavit for the trip, which was now a New York Cover Girl trip. My mom looked at those papers and said "No" to the trip. Quite unfortunate, as I thought perhaps I could network... However the papers where written to cover that companies ass within an inch of its life and wasn't a "free" trip per say that it was probably better off that I didn't go anyways. 

     The episode for my idea was episode eight of Cycle 4 and it was titled "The Girl Who Gets The Bad News." How fitting that one of the models friend just passed away and she had to push through those emotions, while portraying "Wrath" at the bottom of a dug out grave at a cemetery in Los Angeles. 

      All eyes were on me indirectly as my immediate and extended family and friends watched the episode with me. They called afterwards and told me how great they thought it was. I sadly couldn't muster another wonderful drag queen phrase. 

This photo shoot turned out to be one of the most memorable ones:

     Till this day, every time I mention to someone who has watched the series that, that was my idea they go "That was you? I really loved that photo shoot." And many sites and youtube videos still remain focused on that shoot. That for me is the second most rewarding thing to coming out of winning the contest.

I edited this video clip of an example of how they translated my idea with one of the girls, and all of the photos at the judging table at the end of the episode. 

The Seven Deadly Sins Clip:

Here are screen captures of the voting system, with my idea on the shoot, the photos of each girl embodying one of the "Seven Deadly Sins" and a layout I did for it, that was included in a small booklet project for Intro into Computer Graphics course at CSULB.