Hip Hop Shows and My Fake Death

One of my editors just asked me if I had any interest in reviewing the Anger Management Tour, this giant production starring Eminem, 50 Cent, the Game, Lil John and some other rappers. To sweeten me up, she wrote, "I really want to get a smart woman's perspective on this." But I wasn't fooled. There are few things worse than the idea of driving myself to some corporate-sponsored (Staples! Tweeter Center! And now Hyundai!!?) mega-stadium in San Bernardino with bad sound design, paying $8 for crappy watery Miller Lite in cups, and consigning myself to some 7 hours of bass and unintelligible rapping (re: bad sound design). Nevermind the 3 hours it will take to get out of the parking lot. Plus, the last time I went to a hip hop show, it was LAME, the worst.

It was a De La Soul show in 2000, Chicago, at that one theater with the really nice black leather seats and tables. I went with a coworker of mine from the newspaper I used to work at. Me and J were excited about the show, both of us being De La fans, but it was clear to me from the crowd as soon as we got in that some sort of Golden Age of Hip Hop had passed between the last time I'd been to a hip hop show and this De La show. Many of the women were giving me dirty looks, like "What up, white girl?" and no one was really dressed cool or edgy, like the hip hop kids you see on the subway in NY. They just looked tired in their saggy pants and Kangol caps (or precursor Kangol caps) and nudey suede Timberlands. And the vibe was just bad, sour and deflated. Nevertheless, J and I took our seats and watched the show.

De La sucked. Just plain sucked. Around 2000, they decided they had to become "hard" to stay in the game. Bad move. The whole appeal of DLS was that they were NOT hard, they were playful and smart. I understand they wanted to distance themselves from that whole "hip-hop hippies" tag that had plagued them since the mid-90s but the worst thing you can do is give creedence to a dumb misconception like that. Which is what they did by running a million miles from it straight into clichéd "pop a cap in yo' ass" territory. Anyway, this isn't a review. There's actually a story here...

After a while, J and I were bored and started drinking and doing shots, etc. J went off to the bathroom and some other guy sat down with me at the table. He was totally not my type--really big, not fat, but just really tall and thick, with a dumb plaid shirt and gold bracelets and crap. Besides even if he was cute, I was married by then anyway and while I sometimes flirt with strange boys just to amuse myself, I would not have with this dude. Big guys scare me. [Quick aside: I was talking to my friend, who I'll call Lady J, the other day and both of us realized that we're only attracted to guys who are near our height, not more than 4 or so inches taller (and definitely not shorter). I've always known that about myself, but I'd never really verbalized it before.]

But this guy was on the make. At first, he tried to be subtle about it, saying he came over "just to talk," but as soon as J came back from the bathroom, he was like, "Is this your boyfriend?" With no attempt to sound convincing, I replied, "yeah." I could see that J was like, Oh, Fuck. He'd always been a chicken-shit and he was scared Big Dude was going to kill him in order to win my hand or something, I don't know. But I knew that Big Dude wasn't the violent type, just lonely.

BD then said, "Well, if you're a couple, then kiss."
I said: "We're not into PDA." Which no one says over the age of 16.
He said: "Then I don't believe you."

I then blew J a kiss and he grabbed it out of the air and pocketed it. We started laughing really hard because it was just such a ridiculous thing to do in the moment and the Big Dude was kind of mad, but he still didn't go away. Nowadays when I get hit on by a guy, I just tell him I'm taken, not interested, etc. in a very direct way, but back then, I think I was more like a cat with a mouse. I realize now it's not nice to screw with people like that, but what can I say? A few drinks and shots, and I can occasionally get a little cruel. Anyway... Then he started asking us questions and he found out I worked as an editor at a newspaper. His eyes lit up. He had a new angle: "Oh, my friends have a hip hop band. Can I send you their CD?"

I asked him some questons about his friend's band and it became clear to me that they probably didn't exist. But whatever, he wouldn't leave, so I gave him my card. No big deal, I used to give out my work cards all the time. I had voicemail and email so no harm, right?

The next day, starting pretty early, Big Dude started calling. He called once. Left a message. He called twice. Left another message. He called another time. Hung up on the VM. Called another time. Hung up. And this was all before lunch. I was pissed and a little freaked out.

As I was walking back in from lunch, C, the receptionist, looked exasperated and said, "Your friend won't stop calling! He's on Line 2 right now!" C was the most awesome receptionist ever. He was super fashionable and spoke in this low, droll voice, smoked lots of cigs and read good books. I told him to tell Big Dude that I had gotten in a car accident while out to lunch and that I was in the hospital. "Tell him, " I said, "that I might not make it."

C was like, OK. In fact, he barely batted an eyelash. He got on the line and said: "Hi, yes, Margaret Louise has been in a terrible car accident. She's in the hospital and it's not looking good." Pause. "We're all rooting for her." Pause. "Oh, you'd like to leave another voicemail? OK, I'll transfer you."

He hung up the line and we both burst into laughter. "Oh my God," C said. "You have to tell me what he says on that VM." I ran back to my desk and listened. Big Dude said nothing of my car accident or critical condition. Just more shit about getting together for a drink, etc., going to see his friend's band. How insensitive.

But he never called again. Ever since then, my enthusiasm for hip hop has only gone downhill. I still like it but not like I used to, not at all.

Too early for Hitler

It's really hard to watch "Shoah" at 9 in the morning. That's what S had me do today. She wanted me to transcribe a letter that someone reads from a man who was told about the camps by an "eye-witness" who escaped. "Shoah," if you don't know, is Hebrew for annihilation and is about, of course, the Holocaust. The whole thing is 9 hours (!) long but we only watched about 20 minutes on one of the four tapes. Anyway, I felt strange as I wrote out this letter on blank typing paper with a ballpoint pen. Suddenly, this poor man, his words were being filtered through my handwriting. It was unnerving in some way, as if by writing his letter in my own hand, I was obscuring his history. His last line is, "Creator of the universe, help us!"

Later, we did research on her computer and read about the German composer Wagner, whom Hitler loved (but not as much as Beethoven). He wasn't around during Hitler's time, but Wagner was a huge antisemite who wrote a book about how the Jews were degrading music. S wanted to know more about musicians who were heralded by Hitler and those who were banned, so we read about Jewish musicians who were forced to leave in 1933, and people like Strauss who wrote several compositions for the Third Reich. At different points in my reading, both S and I got teary. It doesn't matter how many times I've heard these kind of stories about the Holocaust, they still affect me, and leave me dumbfounded.