Andrew Fanow had a bad reputation in elementary school, mostly due to his infinitely poor hygiene. He routinely brought SpaghettiO's to lunch in a thermos, always getting half of that rancid, mass-produced, 5-hour-old tomato sauce encrusted on his lips for the remainder of the day. The other half made its way to its intended destination, but only served to give him near-fatal levels of Bagel Bite breath.
Athletically, he was a large, uncoordinated oaf who made baffling decisions on the field of play. In second grade we were on the same flag football team. I was the first running back on the depth chart and he was the second. On the few plays we ran for him, I invariably found myself blocking for nobody as Andrew had decided to turn the sweep right into a sweep left, usually losing three to five yards in the process.
Andrew was also the first kid I knew to get really into minutiae. When our borderline psychotic fourth grade gym teacher recruited student referees to preside over the four square games played at recess, Andrew was the first one to sign up for the multiple training sessions that would take place while the rest of us were playing Kill the Man With the Ball and calling each other fart knockers. He also had a quasi-encyclopedic knowledge of baseball statistics, and was able to tell you, for instance, who won the World Series in 1936. This infuriated me and my friends to no end, mostly because Andrew was a tremendously unskilled baseball player. It is only later in life that one begins to begrudgingly accept the John Claytons of the world.
Despite being acutely aware of the numerous negative attributes that Andrew possessed, I was forced to endure a handful of play dates with this creature in first and second grade. Andrew's parents were friends with my best friend's parents, who happened to be pretty good friends with my parents, so we were repeatedly thrown into the same social situations despite our well-cataloged mutual disdain for each other.
Even when I tried to put aside all the things that disgusted me about Andrew, I still had a horrible time with him. He liked to play shitty, conceptual, proto-hipster video games like Burger Time. I liked to play video games that required quick reflexes like Super Mario Brothers or Blades of Steel. As if that weren't enough, his house annoyed me. His room was a revolting mess, offending even my 5-year-old boy sensibilities, and his kitchen smelled like my grandmother.
Perhaps mercifully, it was in this moth ball haunted domicile that I suffered one of my most retroactively mortifying childhood experiences. Andrew and I were sitting at his kitchen table in silence, waiting for his mom to boil a few hot dogs. I was already in a heightened state of fear as Andrew was at his grossest during meal time. I had no doubt he would leave the table with mustard-coated lips, ready to send heatwave after heatwave of hot dog breath into my face as he recited baseball statistics I couldn't care less about while playing a Nintendo game that I hated. But in addition to that very specifically Andrew-based anxiety, I was on edge due to a neuroses inflicted upon me by my mother, who had convinced me that hot dogs were one of the most dangerous substances on the planet Earth.
To this day, I am reminded on a roughly semi-annual basis of the time I almost choked to death on a hot dog at Sid's, a non-chain fast food restaurant in my hometown. Sid's is the kind of disgusting, greasy shit hole locals manage to convince themselves is a guilty pleasure, but in reality is far too foul for even Guy Fieri to touch. During one of our meals at Sid's, about a year or two before the play date in question, I wolfed down a chunk of hot dog so quickly that it lodged itself in my tiny, post-toddler esophagus. When my mother saw me gasping for air, unable to speak, she quickly gave me the Heimlich maneuver, sending a slimy piece of one of Sid's Famous Hot Dogs hurtling through the air. I made it. Barely. But my hot dog eating experiences would never be the same.
After that episode, my mom made sure to cut every hot dog I ever ate into at least two pieces. That, however, only accounted for one of the hot dog's many dangerous qualities. In addition to this fairly reasonable precaution, we were also given one vitamin C for every hot dog we ate, the idea being that these citrus-flavored discs would counteract whatever damage the hot dogs were sure to inflict upon our general well being. I'm not sure if my mom specifically said this to me or not, but I was under the distinct impression that if I didn't eat vitamin C with every hot dog, I would get cancer. Two hot dogs? That's two vitamin Cs.
So there I sat, in the feeding cage of my arch nemesis, about to down one of the most dangerous food stuffs known to man. Having already cultivated a paralyzing fear of death, and not wanting to die in the presence of a sworn adversary, I asked Mrs. Fanow to cut my hot dog in half for me.
"Sure," she said, mildly amused. I might have seemed a little neurotic -- precocious if you're feeling generous -- but cutting a hot dog in half wasn't completely unheard of, even in those considerably less litigious times.
Emboldened by the success of my first request, I asked Mrs. Fanow for vitamin C.
"Excuse me?" said Mrs. Fanow.
"Vitamin C," I said, "My mom always gives us vitamin C with our hot dogs so we don't get cancer."
She reacted as one might suspect an adult would react in such a situation, with a mixture of bemusement, confusion, and impressively restrained derision. But, ever the dutiful host, she rustled up a Flinstone's chewable and that was that.
At the time, I thought Mrs. Fanow's perplexed manner was further evidence of the bizarreness of the Fanow clan. "What is wrong with these people," I said to myself, "It's like they want to get cancer. Hasn't anybody told them about hot dogs?" With the passage of time, however, it has become increasingly clear to me that it was not the Fanow clan that should have been embarrassed, but me and my ilk.
Luckily, it was only the mother who knew that anything was askew. Andrew was too absorbed in his private world of baseball stats and Ragu to care about what I was doing. And even though I hated him with the furious, naive passion of a child unfamiliar with any of the world's real evils, the fact that I had requested vitamin C at his house and his house alone meant my social life would momentarily avoid irreparable damage. I still had time to make that nightmare a reality, but for at least a little while longer, my secret was safe with that vile, stinking, know-it-all Andrew Fanow.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Confession
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Laundry Room Book Exchange Update
Apparently there's some sort of book exchange going on in my laundry room. There's no sign, but there's always a pile of books in there, and they're different every time I venture into that stinking, mildew-ridden Island of Unwanted Washing Machines.
Anyway, here's what I found today:
You may disagree with me, but I think The Fancy Dancer deserves a closeup:
Notice the priest in the background.
There's also some sort of delicious irony in the fact that one of my college English professor's books made it into this group. Can you guess which book it was?
Anyway, here's what I found today:
There's also some sort of delicious irony in the fact that one of my college English professor's books made it into this group. Can you guess which book it was?
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Why Donnie Walsh Should Be Worshipped/Held Dear Like Whatever it is You Worship/Hold Dear (Organized Religion is a Scam)
Some people have been criticizing Donnie Walsh for the moves he has made as General Manager of the New York Knicks. These people have cited various reasons for their dissatisfaction, most of which I'm sure are quite logical. But I am not here to debate the minutiae of these objections. They do not concern me, for no matter what fancy ass, statistically significant, academically rigorous argument you throw my way, I will counter with one devastatingly irrefutable, multi-paragraph, questionably-punctuated rebuttal:
After taking over the most bloated payroll in the league, and arguably the worst roster, Donnie Walsh has, in a miraculously short period of time, positioned the Knicks to have a realistic shot at signing Lebron motherfucking James AND Dwayne motherfucking Wade in the SAME MOTHERFUCKING YEAR.
Lebron James and DwayneWade would arguably be better than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen right off the bat. Obviously nobody is Michael Jordan. I know this. But Lebron James has the skill set/freakazoid, probably-enhanced-by-HGH body to dominate the game for years and years to come. Dwayne Wade is, I would argue, superior to Scottie Pippen, having won a title as the alpha dog at a very young age, and possessing equal, if not greater, natural athletic ability.
You're telling me that Lebron James and Dwayne Wade turn down the chance to be better than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in NEW YORK MOTHERFUCKING CITY!?
Let me repeat:
YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT LEBRON JAMES AND DWAYNE WADE TURN DOWN THE CHANCE TO BE:
BETTER THAN
MICHAEL FUCKING JORDAN AND SCOTTIE YEAH-I-GUESS-HE-WAS-PRETTY-GOOD PIPPEN
IN
MOTHER
FUCKING
NEW
YORK
CITY?
Why would either of them do this?
Who would ever do such a thing? How could anyone be so stupid? It's not possible. It's simply not possible.
Money is not an issue here. The Knicks can offer both of them MAX CONTRACTS. And I don't give a shit what Bird Rights or Petrovic Corollaries or Articles 6, Section 1,429 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement entitles them to if they resign with their current teams. While I know that Lebron James and Dwayne Wade are getting a shitload of marketing money no matter what they do next year, they are definitely getting AN EVEN BIGGER SHITLOAD of marketing money if they play in New York Motherfucking City. WAY FUCKING MORE.
ESPECIALLYIFTHEY'REBOTHONTHESAMETEAMHOLYSHITCOULDYOUIMAGINESUCHASCENARIO?
Do you understand how many silk screen Modell's brand Lebron James/Dwayne Wade T-shirts they're going to sell? A motherfucking shitload. That's how many.
Whether it be through hawking t-shirts,or street meat, or Cadillacs, or thousands of pounds of CIA-produced crack/cocaine, there is no doubt in my mind that the both of them could most definitely get enough money on the side to offset however much more they can make by resigning in CLEVELAND (and yeah I guess Miami is pretty dece, but honestly I think it's a shitty little, rinky dink piece of crap compared to New York. Wow, you have a beach, good for you. Call me when you're more than one block long).
Lebron James and Dwayne Wade know this. They have to know this. If they don't, they will. This type of raw, potent truth can only be suppressed for so long.
You mean to tell me that because Lebron James was born in Akron, Ohio, Dwayne not-from-fucking-akron-ohio Wade is going to agree to live out his days in motherfucking CLEVELAND?
HELL TO THE MOTHERFUCKING NO DWAYNE ISN'T GOING TO AGREE TO LIVE OUT HIS DAYS IN MOTHERFUCKING CLEVELAND.
You think Lebron James, he who has wanted to be the global icon to end all global icons since shooting up HGH in his mother's adorably precocious/fiercely protective womb, will balk at Wade's request to sign in New York because he loves motherfucking CLEVELAND that fucking much?
No.
Fucking.
Way.
Let us not forget -- I repeat -- let us not forget, the two have already PUBLICLY DISCUSSED their desire to play on THE SAME TEAM, AND ARE KNOWN, ENORMOUS FANS OF THE CURRENT HEAD COACH OF THE NEW YORK MOTHERFUCKING KNICKS.
I don't think you guys understand. Donnie Walsh has just pulled off the coup to end all motherfucking coups. The New York Knicks are about to begin a dynasty the likes of which this league has never seen.
No two players of such a caliber have ever before had the chance to willingly join the same team in the same season in the greatest city on Earth in the prime of their careers at the highest possible salary the league will allow. Surround them with a flaming bag of dog shit; a youtube video of a racist, redheaded 8-year-old spouting anti-homosexual propaganda; and a beat up copy of your jizzed-in, 8th grade yearbook and they're winning 3 titles easy.
Replace that Bradford-Pear-Tree-smelling yearbook with Danillo Gallinari and that's a 4th title.
Throw in whatever you can get for Eddy Curry's huge, man-breasted expiring contract next year (even if it's only the jizzed-in yearbook you unceremoniously released the year before) and you've got yourself a 5th title.
Now, I'm not sure I've given the following point enough emphasis, so I will repeat once again that they have a chance to do all of this -- chase a record number of titles, make as much money as the sport allows, become the two most famous athletes to ever walk the face of the Earth -- in New York Motherfucking City.
Despite Al Qaeda's and the Hatas' (don't even try to take that band name) desire to bring us to our decrepit, Jonathan Bender-esque knees, we are still the best motherfucking city on Earth (I'm a New Yorker, in case you can't tell). We cannot be held down. We still produce the most expensive, delicious fucking restaurants (whattup El Bulli, call me when you get back in the game); attract the best, most basketball-relevant entertainment (whattup nonstop private concerts from Jay-Z/Beyonce/We-Can-Probably-Bring-Back-Biggie-Smalls-From-The-Dead-With-The-Amount-Of-Money-These-Two-Will-Be-Making)); have the hottest fucking, blow-snorting, champagne-guzzling, I'm-sure-they're-awful-people-but-holy-shit-are-they-attractive models/wanna be models/actresses/wanna be actresses/women-(or men???)-who-will-suck-Wade-and-Lebron's-respective-taints/balls/cocks-until-they-beg-for-mercy-24-hours-a-day-365-days-a-year on EARTH.
The rest of the league is terrified. It should be terrified.
Dwayne Wade and Lebron James are coming to the New York Knicks, and they are going to take a massive, tightly-coiled, gold-coin speckled shit on the NBA for years to come.
After taking over the most bloated payroll in the league, and arguably the worst roster, Donnie Walsh has, in a miraculously short period of time, positioned the Knicks to have a realistic shot at signing Lebron motherfucking James AND Dwayne motherfucking Wade in the SAME MOTHERFUCKING YEAR.
Lebron James and DwayneWade would arguably be better than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen right off the bat. Obviously nobody is Michael Jordan. I know this. But Lebron James has the skill set/freakazoid, probably-enhanced-by-HGH body to dominate the game for years and years to come. Dwayne Wade is, I would argue, superior to Scottie Pippen, having won a title as the alpha dog at a very young age, and possessing equal, if not greater, natural athletic ability.
You're telling me that Lebron James and Dwayne Wade turn down the chance to be better than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in NEW YORK MOTHERFUCKING CITY!?
Let me repeat:
YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT LEBRON JAMES AND DWAYNE WADE TURN DOWN THE CHANCE TO BE:
BETTER THAN
MICHAEL FUCKING JORDAN AND SCOTTIE YEAH-I-GUESS-HE-WAS-PRETTY-GOOD PIPPEN
IN
MOTHER
FUCKING
NEW
YORK
CITY?
Why would either of them do this?
Who would ever do such a thing? How could anyone be so stupid? It's not possible. It's simply not possible.
Money is not an issue here. The Knicks can offer both of them MAX CONTRACTS. And I don't give a shit what Bird Rights or Petrovic Corollaries or Articles 6, Section 1,429 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement entitles them to if they resign with their current teams. While I know that Lebron James and Dwayne Wade are getting a shitload of marketing money no matter what they do next year, they are definitely getting AN EVEN BIGGER SHITLOAD of marketing money if they play in New York Motherfucking City. WAY FUCKING MORE.
ESPECIALLYIFTHEY'REBOTHONTHESAMETEAMHOLYSHITCOULDYOUIMAGINESUCHASCENARIO?
Do you understand how many silk screen Modell's brand Lebron James/Dwayne Wade T-shirts they're going to sell? A motherfucking shitload. That's how many.
Whether it be through hawking t-shirts,or street meat, or Cadillacs, or thousands of pounds of CIA-produced crack/cocaine, there is no doubt in my mind that the both of them could most definitely get enough money on the side to offset however much more they can make by resigning in CLEVELAND (and yeah I guess Miami is pretty dece, but honestly I think it's a shitty little, rinky dink piece of crap compared to New York. Wow, you have a beach, good for you. Call me when you're more than one block long).
Lebron James and Dwayne Wade know this. They have to know this. If they don't, they will. This type of raw, potent truth can only be suppressed for so long.
You mean to tell me that because Lebron James was born in Akron, Ohio, Dwayne not-from-fucking-akron-ohio Wade is going to agree to live out his days in motherfucking CLEVELAND?
HELL TO THE MOTHERFUCKING NO DWAYNE ISN'T GOING TO AGREE TO LIVE OUT HIS DAYS IN MOTHERFUCKING CLEVELAND.
You think Lebron James, he who has wanted to be the global icon to end all global icons since shooting up HGH in his mother's adorably precocious/fiercely protective womb, will balk at Wade's request to sign in New York because he loves motherfucking CLEVELAND that fucking much?
No.
Fucking.
Way.
Let us not forget -- I repeat -- let us not forget, the two have already PUBLICLY DISCUSSED their desire to play on THE SAME TEAM, AND ARE KNOWN, ENORMOUS FANS OF THE CURRENT HEAD COACH OF THE NEW YORK MOTHERFUCKING KNICKS.
I don't think you guys understand. Donnie Walsh has just pulled off the coup to end all motherfucking coups. The New York Knicks are about to begin a dynasty the likes of which this league has never seen.
No two players of such a caliber have ever before had the chance to willingly join the same team in the same season in the greatest city on Earth in the prime of their careers at the highest possible salary the league will allow. Surround them with a flaming bag of dog shit; a youtube video of a racist, redheaded 8-year-old spouting anti-homosexual propaganda; and a beat up copy of your jizzed-in, 8th grade yearbook and they're winning 3 titles easy.
Replace that Bradford-Pear-Tree-smelling yearbook with Danillo Gallinari and that's a 4th title.
Throw in whatever you can get for Eddy Curry's huge, man-breasted expiring contract next year (even if it's only the jizzed-in yearbook you unceremoniously released the year before) and you've got yourself a 5th title.
Now, I'm not sure I've given the following point enough emphasis, so I will repeat once again that they have a chance to do all of this -- chase a record number of titles, make as much money as the sport allows, become the two most famous athletes to ever walk the face of the Earth -- in New York Motherfucking City.
Despite Al Qaeda's and the Hatas' (don't even try to take that band name) desire to bring us to our decrepit, Jonathan Bender-esque knees, we are still the best motherfucking city on Earth (I'm a New Yorker, in case you can't tell). We cannot be held down. We still produce the most expensive, delicious fucking restaurants (whattup El Bulli, call me when you get back in the game); attract the best, most basketball-relevant entertainment (whattup nonstop private concerts from Jay-Z/Beyonce/We-Can-Probably-Bring-Back-Biggie-Smalls-From-The-Dead-With-The-Amount-Of-Money-These-Two-Will-Be-Making)); have the hottest fucking, blow-snorting, champagne-guzzling, I'm-sure-they're-awful-people-but-holy-shit-are-they-attractive models/wanna be models/actresses/wanna be actresses/women-(or men???)-who-will-suck-Wade-and-Lebron's-respective-taints/balls/cocks-until-they-beg-for-mercy-24-hours-a-day-365-days-a-year on EARTH.
The rest of the league is terrified. It should be terrified.
Dwayne Wade and Lebron James are coming to the New York Knicks, and they are going to take a massive, tightly-coiled, gold-coin speckled shit on the NBA for years to come.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Then and Now
14-Year-Old Me
The following are things I am just discovering. They will play a significant role in countless unforgettable moments, occasionally place me in mortal danger, lead to thousands of hours of laughter, teach me the importance of moderation and responsibility, lower my guard and make me more amenable to altering my world view, and bring me closer to understanding what it is to be a human:
Alcohol
Sex
Drugs
27-Year-Old Me
The following are things I am just discovering. They will be expensive to experience, relatively safe to indulge in, intellectually satisfying to understand the nuances of, pleasing to the palette, unexpectedly arousing, and immensely satisfying in an evolved visceral manner:
Fine scotch/whiskey
Licking a woman's anus
Various species of non-hallucinogenic mushrooms
The following are things I am just discovering. They will play a significant role in countless unforgettable moments, occasionally place me in mortal danger, lead to thousands of hours of laughter, teach me the importance of moderation and responsibility, lower my guard and make me more amenable to altering my world view, and bring me closer to understanding what it is to be a human:
Alcohol
Sex
Drugs
27-Year-Old Me
The following are things I am just discovering. They will be expensive to experience, relatively safe to indulge in, intellectually satisfying to understand the nuances of, pleasing to the palette, unexpectedly arousing, and immensely satisfying in an evolved visceral manner:
Fine scotch/whiskey
Licking a woman's anus
Various species of non-hallucinogenic mushrooms
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Greatness of Ether's Hook: A Formal Rebuttal to Rap Genius' Interpretation
About three weeks ago I began contributing to RapGenius.com. If you've never been there, despite the fact that it's one of the recommended sites on this blog (tsk! tsk!), I suggest you go. It helps people understand rap lyrics by giving detailed, line-by-line explanations. If you see a lyric that's highlighted in orange, you can click on it to view an explanation. If all the stars align, you might even laugh.
Being a massive Wu-Tang fan, I decided to first sink my teeth into Ol' Dirty Bastard's Dog Shit. Not only is it a great song, but it's rife with Ol' Dirtyisms that need 'splainin. Please take a minute to check it out. I think you'll find it worth your time.
Soon after I began work on the site, I noticed that an exegesis of Nas' Ether had gone up. Being a big Nas fan, and a big fan of this song in particular, I was eager to see what my fellow contributors did with it.
After reading the song's description, however, I began to understand that the folks over at Rap Genius don't hold it in as high esteem as I do. This confused me. Isn't it universally acknowledged that Nas won this particular beef, thought I. Don't most rap heads agree that between Ether and The Takeover, Ether is the superior song, I pondered.
With those questions swimming through my head, I began to dig into the explanations, to see what Rap Genius found objectionable. The first thing I came across was a less than flattering appraisal of the hook. Isn't the hook one of the most famous parts of this song, my interior monologue reflected. What's wrong with it?
Let's look a little closer. Here's the hook, as it appears on Rap Genius:
(I) Fuck with your soul like ether
(Will) Teach you - the king - you know you
(Not) "God's son" across the belly
(Lose) I prove you lost already
If you click on each of the links in the lyrics reproduced above, you'll be taken to Rap Genius' take on that particular line.
What struck me most was that Rap Genius pretty much dismisses the main conceit of this song, that Nas will fuck with Jay-Z's soul like ether. They say it makes no sense. Hmm, I thought to myself. Better keep reading. Perhaps they're onto something I never considered. Then I read that they thought the second line trailed off, failing to make any sort of cohesive point. This made no sense to me, so I said so in the comments section. I wrote that I had always thought this line bled into the third one, so that Nas is saying, I will teach you who the king is, you know you God's son (Nas = God, Jay = His son), and oh, by the way, I have "God's Son" tatooed across my belly because I am the second coming, Jesus, etc.
The main exegizer of the song, who also happens to be the main exegizer of the site (by volume! I think you guys are all great!), replied to me that he disagreed. He thought that I was taking liberties with the line breaks, and that I was adding too much parenthetical content (extrapolating "Teach you the king you know you" to mean "teach you [who] the king [is], you know you...") and while I saw his points, and agreed with them to some extent, I couldn't get past a cherished memory of mine that wouldn't allow me to completely capitulate.
One afternoon when I was a junior in college, I was driving around campus, high off my ass, listening to a mix CD (HOW OLD AM I???) of rap songs that I borrowed from a friend. He was a big Nas fan himself, so he included Ether. I always liked Ether, but I didn't exactly love it. I didn't really see what all the fuss was about. What's with the whole ether thing? Why is that supposed to be hard? But while I was driving that day, the spring wind whipping through my hair, cannabinoids altering my brain chemistry, I had an epiphany: the hook is a work of genius.
As I sat on my couch years later, I knew incontrovertibly that I was right, but as I tried to formulate a rebuttal to this particular exegizer, I couldn't remember why I had come to that conclusion. I knew that the lines connected to each other, I just knew it, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the explanation I had written in the comments section wasn't quite right. I hadn't made my case correctly, never mind persuasively.
Days passed, lovers came and went, natural disasters ravaged the Earth, but still I was at a loss. What was the secret? Why had I proven to myself, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this hook was genius, yet couldn't remember the reasons why? I started to doubt my memory. God knows it's faulty. Had I dreamt the whole thing?
Then, just the other day, while listening to the song for the thousandth time in a month, this time after a big, fat blunt, it came back to me. Holy shit! I thought to myself. Of course! I yelled to nobody in particular. Maybe it was returning to the same state of mind in which I first made the discovery. Maybe it was God tapping my shoulder and saying, Hey, remember this? Or maybe I'm just a crackhead, and you'll disagree with what I'm about to say, but either way, the memory came back. I had rescued it from the void.
What had returned thrilled me. It turns out that the linchpin to my argument is the fact that, as Rap Genius notes, Nas intersperses one of Jay's catch phrases, "I will not lose" into the hook. But he does it in an interesting way. Rather than beginning or ending the hook with this line in its complete form, Nas begins each line of the hook with a word from Jay's phrase, then ends it with one of his own thoughts.
I believe that Nas is not just inserting Jay's motto into the background as a sonic device, but rather is using it to begin his thoughts. The phrase stands apart by way of spacing, but is fully integrated into each line, becoming a key component of the lyrics. In this way, Nas is taking a Jay line, inserting himself into it, and fundamentally altering its meaning to something that belittles Jay, much like ether would enter one's body, alter one's brain chemistry through chemical reactions, then put its victim to sleep. In this way, the structure of the verse mirrors Nas' claim that he can inhabit Jay-Z's very being and destroy him from the inside. Picture Neo jumping into Agent Smith and blowing him up at the end of The Matrix.
Pretty gully, right? For all intents and purposes, Nas is weaving himself into Jay's lyrics, changing their DNA, perverting them, and turning them against Jay.
With this in mind, here is how I interpret the hook for Ether:
Line 1: I fuck with your soul like ether
Nas is saying that he can do with Jay's soul, with his very being, whatever he likes. He can put him
to sleep, draw a cock and balls on his forehead, parade him around like Bernie Lomax. Whatever.
And, as Nas famously rapped in New York State of Mind, sleep is the cousin of death. It is your most
vulnerable state. If Nas can fuck with Jay's soul like either, he can pretty much do whatever he wants.
In addition, the phrase, "vanish into the ether" is often used to describe the passing of a person or thing
from this world into the next.
Line 2/3: Will teach you [who] the king [is], you know you not "God's Son" across the belly
I group these two lines together because I think that line 2 bleeds into line 3, but let's first address the
fact that Rap Genius thinks I am adding too much parenthetical to line 2, with the [who] and the [is]. I
respectfully disagree. On The Takeover, Jay-Z raps, "You niggas gonna learn how to respect the
king." This is Nas' direct rebuttal. He is saying, "I will teach you who the king is." The "not" that
bridges lines 2 and 3 both completes the thought that Jay-Z is not the king (you know you not), and
starts a new thought that points out that in addition to not being the King, Jay-Z is also not God's Son,
which, by the way, happens to be tattooed across Nas' belly. This drives home the point that Jay is not
the king of New York, the Rap Game, or the Comos/Heavens.
Line 4: Lose - I prove you lost already
Nas is telling Jay-Z to lose, then saying, "actually, you know what, I'm about to show you that you lost
already." It's the weakest use of weaving Nas' lyrics into Jay's, but I don't think that disproves my
point. Rapping is hard! Plus, let's not forget that this is music. The words have to fit into a certain
rhythm, within a finite number of beats, and this was the best way Nas could see to do that.
So there you go. I Will Not Lose doesn't just drop in and out of the hook, it is the backbone of the hook. The words are inseparable from what comes before and after them. This can all be a little bit difficult to digest without listening to the lyrics in question, so I suggest you give it another spin to see for yourself whether or not you agree with me.
Is Nas a better rapper than Jay-Z? I'm not saying that. While I do think that Illmatic is a better album than Reasonable Doubt, which I consider Jay-Z's best work, Nas had a notable, undeniable dip in quality afterwards. He put out some great songs, and some pretty good albums, but nothing that reached the soaring heights of Illmatic. So yes, Jay-Z had a better career, but when it comes to The Takeover vs Ether, I think Nas won. He had a more artistic approach, used a more abstract concept, and showed, however temporarily, that he was The King.
Being a massive Wu-Tang fan, I decided to first sink my teeth into Ol' Dirty Bastard's Dog Shit. Not only is it a great song, but it's rife with Ol' Dirtyisms that need 'splainin. Please take a minute to check it out. I think you'll find it worth your time.
Soon after I began work on the site, I noticed that an exegesis of Nas' Ether had gone up. Being a big Nas fan, and a big fan of this song in particular, I was eager to see what my fellow contributors did with it.
After reading the song's description, however, I began to understand that the folks over at Rap Genius don't hold it in as high esteem as I do. This confused me. Isn't it universally acknowledged that Nas won this particular beef, thought I. Don't most rap heads agree that between Ether and The Takeover, Ether is the superior song, I pondered.
With those questions swimming through my head, I began to dig into the explanations, to see what Rap Genius found objectionable. The first thing I came across was a less than flattering appraisal of the hook. Isn't the hook one of the most famous parts of this song, my interior monologue reflected. What's wrong with it?
Let's look a little closer. Here's the hook, as it appears on Rap Genius:
(I) Fuck with your soul like ether
(Will) Teach you - the king - you know you
(Not) "God's son" across the belly
(Lose) I prove you lost already
If you click on each of the links in the lyrics reproduced above, you'll be taken to Rap Genius' take on that particular line.
What struck me most was that Rap Genius pretty much dismisses the main conceit of this song, that Nas will fuck with Jay-Z's soul like ether. They say it makes no sense. Hmm, I thought to myself. Better keep reading. Perhaps they're onto something I never considered. Then I read that they thought the second line trailed off, failing to make any sort of cohesive point. This made no sense to me, so I said so in the comments section. I wrote that I had always thought this line bled into the third one, so that Nas is saying, I will teach you who the king is, you know you God's son (Nas = God, Jay = His son), and oh, by the way, I have "God's Son" tatooed across my belly because I am the second coming, Jesus, etc.
The main exegizer of the song, who also happens to be the main exegizer of the site (by volume! I think you guys are all great!), replied to me that he disagreed. He thought that I was taking liberties with the line breaks, and that I was adding too much parenthetical content (extrapolating "Teach you the king you know you" to mean "teach you [who] the king [is], you know you...") and while I saw his points, and agreed with them to some extent, I couldn't get past a cherished memory of mine that wouldn't allow me to completely capitulate.
One afternoon when I was a junior in college, I was driving around campus, high off my ass, listening to a mix CD (HOW OLD AM I???) of rap songs that I borrowed from a friend. He was a big Nas fan himself, so he included Ether. I always liked Ether, but I didn't exactly love it. I didn't really see what all the fuss was about. What's with the whole ether thing? Why is that supposed to be hard? But while I was driving that day, the spring wind whipping through my hair, cannabinoids altering my brain chemistry, I had an epiphany: the hook is a work of genius.
As I sat on my couch years later, I knew incontrovertibly that I was right, but as I tried to formulate a rebuttal to this particular exegizer, I couldn't remember why I had come to that conclusion. I knew that the lines connected to each other, I just knew it, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the explanation I had written in the comments section wasn't quite right. I hadn't made my case correctly, never mind persuasively.
Days passed, lovers came and went, natural disasters ravaged the Earth, but still I was at a loss. What was the secret? Why had I proven to myself, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this hook was genius, yet couldn't remember the reasons why? I started to doubt my memory. God knows it's faulty. Had I dreamt the whole thing?
Then, just the other day, while listening to the song for the thousandth time in a month, this time after a big, fat blunt, it came back to me. Holy shit! I thought to myself. Of course! I yelled to nobody in particular. Maybe it was returning to the same state of mind in which I first made the discovery. Maybe it was God tapping my shoulder and saying, Hey, remember this? Or maybe I'm just a crackhead, and you'll disagree with what I'm about to say, but either way, the memory came back. I had rescued it from the void.
What had returned thrilled me. It turns out that the linchpin to my argument is the fact that, as Rap Genius notes, Nas intersperses one of Jay's catch phrases, "I will not lose" into the hook. But he does it in an interesting way. Rather than beginning or ending the hook with this line in its complete form, Nas begins each line of the hook with a word from Jay's phrase, then ends it with one of his own thoughts.
I believe that Nas is not just inserting Jay's motto into the background as a sonic device, but rather is using it to begin his thoughts. The phrase stands apart by way of spacing, but is fully integrated into each line, becoming a key component of the lyrics. In this way, Nas is taking a Jay line, inserting himself into it, and fundamentally altering its meaning to something that belittles Jay, much like ether would enter one's body, alter one's brain chemistry through chemical reactions, then put its victim to sleep. In this way, the structure of the verse mirrors Nas' claim that he can inhabit Jay-Z's very being and destroy him from the inside. Picture Neo jumping into Agent Smith and blowing him up at the end of The Matrix.
Pretty gully, right? For all intents and purposes, Nas is weaving himself into Jay's lyrics, changing their DNA, perverting them, and turning them against Jay.
With this in mind, here is how I interpret the hook for Ether:
Line 1: I fuck with your soul like ether
Nas is saying that he can do with Jay's soul, with his very being, whatever he likes. He can put him
to sleep, draw a cock and balls on his forehead, parade him around like Bernie Lomax. Whatever.
And, as Nas famously rapped in New York State of Mind, sleep is the cousin of death. It is your most
vulnerable state. If Nas can fuck with Jay's soul like either, he can pretty much do whatever he wants.
In addition, the phrase, "vanish into the ether" is often used to describe the passing of a person or thing
from this world into the next.
Line 2/3: Will teach you [who] the king [is], you know you not "God's Son" across the belly
I group these two lines together because I think that line 2 bleeds into line 3, but let's first address the
fact that Rap Genius thinks I am adding too much parenthetical to line 2, with the [who] and the [is]. I
respectfully disagree. On The Takeover, Jay-Z raps, "You niggas gonna learn how to respect the
king." This is Nas' direct rebuttal. He is saying, "I will teach you who the king is." The "not" that
bridges lines 2 and 3 both completes the thought that Jay-Z is not the king (you know you not), and
starts a new thought that points out that in addition to not being the King, Jay-Z is also not God's Son,
which, by the way, happens to be tattooed across Nas' belly. This drives home the point that Jay is not
the king of New York, the Rap Game, or the Comos/Heavens.
Line 4: Lose - I prove you lost already
Nas is telling Jay-Z to lose, then saying, "actually, you know what, I'm about to show you that you lost
already." It's the weakest use of weaving Nas' lyrics into Jay's, but I don't think that disproves my
point. Rapping is hard! Plus, let's not forget that this is music. The words have to fit into a certain
rhythm, within a finite number of beats, and this was the best way Nas could see to do that.
So there you go. I Will Not Lose doesn't just drop in and out of the hook, it is the backbone of the hook. The words are inseparable from what comes before and after them. This can all be a little bit difficult to digest without listening to the lyrics in question, so I suggest you give it another spin to see for yourself whether or not you agree with me.
Is Nas a better rapper than Jay-Z? I'm not saying that. While I do think that Illmatic is a better album than Reasonable Doubt, which I consider Jay-Z's best work, Nas had a notable, undeniable dip in quality afterwards. He put out some great songs, and some pretty good albums, but nothing that reached the soaring heights of Illmatic. So yes, Jay-Z had a better career, but when it comes to The Takeover vs Ether, I think Nas won. He had a more artistic approach, used a more abstract concept, and showed, however temporarily, that he was The King.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
A Scene From My Childhood
INT. PUBLIC RESTROOM
My younger BROTHER sits in a stall, attempting to overcome his fear of defecating in a room full of strangers. I am washing my hands, post-urination, having unpredictably overcome my own chronic case of "pee shyness."
Our DAD enters the restroom.
DAD: [immediate, furious, audible urination]
Brief pause.
DAD: [weak but audible, trumpet-being-run-over-by-a-car-left-in-neutral flatulence that kinda smells like peanut butter and broccoli]
BROTHER: Dad?
My younger BROTHER sits in a stall, attempting to overcome his fear of defecating in a room full of strangers. I am washing my hands, post-urination, having unpredictably overcome my own chronic case of "pee shyness."
Our DAD enters the restroom.
DAD: [immediate, furious, audible urination]
Brief pause.
DAD: [weak but audible, trumpet-being-run-over-by-a-car-left-in-neutral flatulence that kinda smells like peanut butter and broccoli]
BROTHER: Dad?
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
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