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Sometimes, when I go out to dinner, I stain my ties on purpose. Very infrequently, I use it as a poorly thought out reason to skip out on the check, claiming to absolutely need a 24 hour dry cleaner before another minute passes. Generally though, I happily slop a little gravy or Shirley Temple condensation or Grand Marnier sauce all over my shirtfront. This only happens when I’m really enjoying the meal, when I want to carry a memory of the experience around with me for years after peristalsis has taken place in it’s fullness.

As you’d imagine, my clothing bills are accordingly extravagant, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay to protect, celebrate and develop one of the few wholly specific idiosyncrasies of mine. What makes us weird is what makes us valuable, memorable. The homogenization of the human experience, or even the expectation that we should all desire to act and think and move similarly creates more unnecessary tension than Dick Cheney choosing to use the bathroom in an ammo shop as opposed to the adjacent liquor store.

Being similar takes the confrontation of concepts out of normal life, and standing face to face with the new, with the different, with the unnecessarily greasy can be the most inspiring part of the day.

I wish hip-hop would leave a little A-1 on their tie more often, the residue might start looking like the sound of a song that will save a generation’s day.

The more successful and commercially viable major market hip-hop has become, the more standard the process has become, to maximize results and swell the bottom line. As in, this uniform, this sort of beat, this sort of song content all have made a google of loot in the Midwest market in the past, so, to expedite the check cashing process, let’s stick to the tried, tested formula.

It’s all the same

How many rappers do you see that don’t look like rappers? Beyond Kanye West and his pastel sweater fetish, and the Black Eyed Peas, who are more an aesthetic pastiche of b-list Tex Avery characters and glam rockers, the standard is pretty consistent.

Basically, they all have the same sartorial instincts, which largely come from a set of stylists who work for a shrinking set of record companies, so the level of crossover is directly proportionate to the level of imitation that occurs.

That’s only talking about how the songs are presented. When consideration is given to how similar the sound of everything from the highest charting to the lowest budget rap records, it’s rather staggering.

You don’t hear GRapped lispers anymore, no more wet Pun gasps separating bars, no more X-Clanned silver nostril rings, no more specificity in hip-hop. It’s all lowest common denominator, sterile and dirty in the same spots, in the same ways. As such, my ties are dirty, my hip-hop is clean, and I’m full, sadly waiting for the middle ground to get near enough to stand on and draw in.[[In-content Ad]]

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