Dead People Party III

Method Man: Mad different styles to the way I do my shit, none of them have particularly been working of late. Let's face it, if rap albums were Fleetwood Mac joints, Tical 0 is my Tusk, and 4:21 didn't exactly set the world on fire, either. With Belly and the short-lived and almost universally-forgotten (it's much, much better that way; I think we're all in agreement on that) Red and Method sitcom, my acting resume isn't nearly as impressive as I would like (but at least I got The Wire). Plus I got outed in Superhead's book. Nope, not a whole lot to feel good about these days.

I realized last Thursday morning as I was on my way to Starbucks that I'm the same age as Shaq, and I suppose this awareness is the cause of my current malaise. Seriously, I can't even be bothered to hit up the Electronics Boutique in my neighborhood to pick up a copy of Super Mario Galaxy. What's the point? I might try reading John Cheever, instead. That might be good.

Getting older, I find myself becoming more intrigued with musical genres outside of hip-hop. I listen to the works of Frank Zappa and Warren Zevon and sometimes consider parlaying my musical reawakening into how I approach my shit, but then I remember the time Raekwon called me a faggot for suggesting we play the Magnolia soundtrack in his ride and that I guested on a Limp Bizkit album, and I am humbled.

Returning to basketball references for a sec, I am often plagued with the fear that my career as an MC will by future generations be looked upon as those of Karl Malone's and Charles Barkley's: a perrennial all-star and future HOFer who never had the right amount of luck and/or help to win a coveted championship. Tical is a classic, sure, but as far as Wu-Tang solo releases go it'll always stand in the shadows of Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, Only Built for Cuban Linx, and Liquid Swords. Fuck me for being such an eager beaver and clamoring that RZA make me the first out the gate, before he really got into that groove. (Double fuck me for being the first to drop a follow up -- the disappointing Tical 2000 -- after he lost his touch.) What can I say, I smoke a lot of weed. Case in point, today I went grocery shopping wearing a black belt and brown loafers. I'm falling apart.

Is there such a thing as passive-aggressive depression? Yesterday, Redman called my cell and asked if I wanted to play tennis. I just hung up on him. Later, I bought a six-pack of Coors and listened to Blackout! for the first time since a couple of days before the Twin Towers were felled, and I wanted to garrote the fucker. We never were as close as you might think (it was Def Jam that hyped up our friendship, almost to the point where it appeared we had a gay-level affection for each other), and these days we only exchange pleasantries via text messages, which has become increasingly annoying on my end because he keeps using "ur" as both an abbreviation of "you are" and "your." But what I realized a few hours later, while watching Ronald Jenkees videos on YouTube, is that Reggie, for all his adolescent behavior, is still having fun in the twilight of his career. That's mostly because he has been clinically diagnosed as borderline retarded, but I feel consumed by an unbearable weight of jealousy nevertheless. You know what made me happy today? I saw on TV a petite Japanese woman eat 100 fried dumplings in fewer than 10 minutes. However, not five minutes later I was thinking about the Vin Baker/Shawn Kemp/Terrell Brandon trade and calling my agent, telling him that if there's a new Leprechaun movie in development that I'll take a starring role pro bono. He said he was busy and promised to call me back, but I think he was lying. It's 10:05 and he hasn't called back. Nobody is that busy on a Sunday night.