last night i was at a party and there was this girl there who is visiting from switzerland and she asked me “what do you do” and i told her what my day job is and then i told her i write a blog about a popular music website and other stuff and we started talking about music and i said “what kind of music are you listening to on your vacation?” and she said “mostly opera but also some electronic and dance music” and then she goes, “what kind of music do you listen to” and i said “honestly it’s hard to say because i have to listen to stuff that [pitchfork] writes about and also i want to listen to my own stuff and write about that stuff too…”
and she said “okay fine, what is your own music”
and i said “wayne” which is what i should have just said in the first place
and she said “what is that?”
and i looked at her like probably like she had three heads, like how could someone not have heard of Lil Wayne in 2010 and i don’t mean that in a condescending way like she is culturally deficient, because she is from switzerland and speaks like 3 languages and i was told that she was quite a jetsetter, she was telling people at the party about visiting different cities in europe and asia. and also her dad retired when he was 40 and rides a motorcycle back and forth across Europe because he has so much money and that is what he has decided to do with his life and money
and i said “he is a rapper from new orleans, he’s in jail right now”
and she said “oh i don’t like rap, or i only listen to it when i am angry. why do you only say him, you don’t listen to rock?”
and i said “well he makes rock too actually but i can’t really explain him” because it would take like six hours to explain Wayne to someone who isn’t from America, i think, because people from other countries have different senses of humor and understandings of irony and meaning and visions of american gangsterism. like remember when Kanye West and 50 Cent both put their records out on September 11th a few years ago and 50 Cent said he would retire if Kanye outsold him and then Kanye outsold him by a lot in America but then 50 Cent sold more records worldwide so he didn’t retire?
50 Cent is a gangster cartoon and Kanye is a self-conscious weirdo who details his mixed feelings about fame and success, which wayne is and does too, and i think if you’re not familiar with the American version of Self, 50 Cent might make a lot more sense to you than Kanye. and i guess that Wayne, at his alien best and his kurt cobain worst and most places in between those, lands closer to Kanye than 50 Cent
like if you are a teenage mercenary in mogadishu or a stickup kid in the City of God or a college student getting yourself pumped up for a recreational basketball game in italy, or borat, or a swiss girl at a party in new york, and your reference points in American rap are Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac and maybe jay-z or 50 Cent, kanye and wayne might strike you as really skilled homosexual gangsta rap parodists
and then leon, who overhears our conversation, puts the Swizzy remix off Da Drought 3 on on his iPhone from an iphone app internet radio station and we sit there listening to it and he says “maybe this isn’t the right introduction” and i whisper (because i want her to be able to hear all the words) that it is the right introduction, or at least as right as any single song introduction to wayne could be because there are so many sides of him, and i want to pause it and look at her and explain that he is saying:
“George Gervin, I’mma get my chill on / I’m cold, yeah, I get my Buffalo Bill on / Beating up your block, yeah, I get my Emmett Till on / In the new edition, yeah, I get my Johnny Gill on / Keep a shot gun, yeah, I get my Jayson Will on / Fuck it Swizz, I’m still going / Black entertainment, yeah, I get my Stephen Hill on / only talk to models, yeah, I get my Seal on”
and say to her that hearing him flow like this gives me the same feeling that i think people get from hearing Jimmy Page solo on Stairway to Heaven, like this is superhuman, and also “george gervin is a basketball player from the 70s known as the iceman which lines up nicely in front of the next bit because Buffalo is a city in new york state known for frigid winters, emmett till was a black kid beaten and murdered in 1955 i think. when he says “in the new edition” it is a double entendre that means a late-model car but new edition is also an early 90s r&b group of which johnny gill was a member, jayson williams was a basketball player who murdered his chauffeur with a shotgun, stephen hill is the president of BET which is black entertainment television, and seal is married to the model Heidi Klum”
and how he rhymes them all in a row and keeps going and how there are a trillion other Wayne lines that are clever and sad and startling and funny, how wayne is virtuostic with his voice like a violin virtuoso or a saxophone virtuoso is with their instrument but people don’t think about it that way because rap is treated like an illegitimate child (how many people do you know who would say “rap music is just talking, it’s not even music”) but jazz and rock n roll were also treated like that once too
and also how a Wayne song is sometimes like a puzzle where the first time you listen to it you unlock the first layer of puns and then the next few times you listen to it you understand some of the next layer of puns and then some day in the future there is a line that you never understood but you have heard a thousand times and you’re like “ahhh i get it now!!”
like yesterday i was walking past Ground Zero and i have been watching the building there rise as it is being built because i work near it, and Wayne says on that same song i just quoted, “switchin up my flows like a nigga do construction” and i never understood it after 3 years of listening and like 400 itunes plays but then as i was walking past Ground Zero i realized he is saying flows and also floors with a southern accent, like a construction worker builds the floors of a building!!
and all the other ideas there are about wayne that would probably take up like half a book and i don’t wanna make you bored reading, and i kept them to myself to not be a really annoying party guest
so anyway then i told her i want to get a tattoo of his face on my arm because he means a lot to me and i said i write a lot in my blog because wayne makes so many songs and that model of output is so admirable about him, and i can’t even process how he could release so many songs and how they could be so funny and interesting and he is my idol
and she laughed when i said i wanted to get a tattoo of him and then she said, half-jokingly, “when are you gonna get it” and i said i needed to wait until my parents died to get the tattoo because my dad said if i ever got a tattoo i shouldn’t come home anymore, and she said that the tattoo was ridiculous and asked leon if i was serious and leon said “i think he’s serious” and she said “don’t do that” and i said “i’m gonna do it tomorrow” and she said “is he serious????” and i said “yes i am serious, this is not that ridiculous, tons of people have tons of tattoos of butterflies and chinese characters and spider webs and hearts with wings, and to me getting a Lil Wayne tattoo is maybe even counterintuitively more rational than those tattoos”
and then today i woke up and realized that i love my parents very much but i also love wayne a lot and i don’t want to offend my parents or make them upset with me but their reasons for not wanting me to get a tattoo are archaic and puritanical and based on a value system that i do not share, and not in a rebellious teenage way (or maybe in a rebellious teenage way?). also i am going to be a lawyer and people might be hesitant to hire a lawyer who has a tattoo that is portrait of a drug-addled rapper
but i have been thinking about getting this tattoo for probably like six months and so i have slept on it for about 180 nights and i don’t want to wait for him to die to get the tattoo because then it will feel like i am memorializing him but i wanna get it to celebrate him while he is still living and working, and for all the other ineffable self-definitional reasons that people get tattoos
i do not have any other tattoos and i was really scared that it would hurt and that i would pass out from the pain and it would smudge or look really fucked up, but whatever, so this morning i asked jacob if he wanted to come with me to get a tattoo, and he said “sure but i hope you’re not expecting me to get one,” and then i took the L to union square to meet Jacob and then go to St Marks Place to get a tattoo of Wayne
but as an id/superego compromise i decided to get the word WEEZY on the inside of my lip, instead of his face on my arm, so i can share it with people or decide to not share it with people based on who the people are, like my parents for instance
so anyway then we walked to St Marks and went into the first tattoo parlor we saw which is the one labeled like FANTASY TATTOO or ECSTASY TATTOO with the red awning, apparently you’re supposed to go to a “good” tattoo parlor but i was just getting letters so what’s the difference, and i walked into the back of the storefront where they sell pretty much only bongs and flasks and marijuana belt buckles and that drug that is anachronistically legal that only lasts for 5 minutes that you smoke whose name i can’t remember, one time freshman year meredith smoked it and says she ran through the dorm hallways in a panic because she thought she had turned into a strawberry but it was only for 3 minutes, and there were two girls in the store who were maybe 16, and one of them said to the other, “they won’t even SEE it until you decide to show them” and i think she was going through the same parental tattoo issue that i am going through
and then i went into the back and talked to a chubby guy in a New Era cap with gold stitching named Kenny and i said “hi i want to get a tattoo inside my lip” and he said “what do you want” and i said “i just need it to say W E E Z Y” in black letters and he said “okay i could do that” and i said “how much” and he goes “60”, i say “okay is it gonna hurt a lot? am i gonna cry?” and he says “lip tattoos hurt like a bitch but if you cried i would seriously doubt your sexuality” and i said “okay fair enough, okay i gotta take a walk around the block and think about this, thank you”
and then me and jacob left and walked around the block and i thought about my identity and whether getting a tattoo would change it somehow, and i decided it might but i only live one time, you know, and this is something that is important to me, and then charlie texted me and said “what are you up to?” and i said “getting tatted let’s hang out later” as if getting a tattoo was just a casual thing, and he called me four times and sent some disuasive blackberry messages but i ignored them because i already made my decision
and then me and Jacob walked to the liquor store on 2nd and 10th and i bought 3 tiny bottles of whiskey, the size that alaina used to call “shorty forties”, and drank them and went back to the tattoo place. joe was waiting there for us because i texted him, and me and jacob and joe go inside and into the back room and i see the tattoo guy and go “hey i hope it’s okay that i got a little drunk for this, i know it’s gonna hurt and i didn’t want to pass out” and he goes “yeah it’s fine, what do you want again?” and i say “W E E Z Y on the inside of my lip, let me draw it out for you” and he lets me draw it on a piece of paper and looks it over for a second and makes me sit on a chair and my heart is racing because i’ve never gotten a tattoo or surgery or any other piercing, pretty much nothing that ever hurt really badly, but i am sort of drunk so i feel okay
and then he takes a disposable needle out of its plastic seal and shows it to me and says “new york state law requires me to show you that your needle is brand new and sealed” and then he puts a piece of paper towel on my lip to dry it and then moves in close to me so he’s sitting like one foot from me and he makes me tilt my head up and turns the needle on and i am shaking, and i am thinking about my parents
and then he puts it to my lip and it burns and i can feel him doing each stroke of each letter and my eyes are closed, i think i’m going to pass out at first but then that subsides when he is on the first E, and then before i know it it’s done and it burns a little
and i look in the mirror and it says WEEZY and it is clear but it is also off-center!!!! like discernably off-center
and i think for a second and think “shit this looks stupid” and tell joe and jacob “okay this looks stupid because it’s off-center, should i get the F? i was thinking about the F before, remember i told you jacob?” and jacob looks at joe and says “yeah he was thinking about the F” and joe says “yeah go for the F” and i go back inside and say “hey it’s off-center, can you put an F on it?” and the guy goes “yeah sure” so i sit back down and he makes it say WEEZY F
and then i thank him and tip him with $20 and say “hey i hope twenty is okay, i don’t know what’s customary and i don’t want to be cheap” and he says “yeah twenty is good, can i take a picture?” and i say “okay” and he takes a picture with his phone and then says “what does it mean?” and i say “it’s Lil Wayne’s nickname, like Weezy F. Baby” and he goes “hahahahah that’s what i thought it meant!! you crazy man” and i say “no, people get tattoos of butterflies and rainbows and dragons and naked women and hearts with wings on them, getting WEEZY F isn’t that crazy!!!” and he goes “whatever you say dude”
and then we left and walked around for a while and now my lip hurts. hopefully one day i can show wayne and he will laugh and say “you crazy” in modesty i think, because he would maybe think that me getting a tattoo of his name was going overboard, but he doesn’t understand, and i will tell him about that steve jobs quote where he says:
“When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”
and then i will tell him that, in his own mind, his work seems good but maybe obvious because he is the one that comes up with it and he “just saw something” when he connects 18 obscure pop culture references together through rhyme or does other magic, but to me it is miraculous because when i was younger and growing up i held all these bands and rappers and visual artists and writers in high esteem because i couldn’t even conceive of how they did what they did, like their work was really mysterious to me and their thought processes and work ethics were beyond my grasp and that is what made them so magical. but then i got older and gradually have sort of come to understand, at least a little, how many artists work and think and that has been disillusioning and disheartening
someone else said something like this, but you can kind of understand what is going through Kanye West’s mind, you can kind of understand what’s going through Win Butler’s mind, or Avey Tare’s mind or Kevin Drew’s mind or Craig Finn’s mind or almost everyone else’s mind. but Wayne is incomprehensible. and in the spirit of it not being fun to have all your illusions shattered, wayne has become even more important to me because he is the last inconceivable mind standing, so here it is:

also i know i said i was gonna not blog for the rest of the week but i decided against that obviously. also aunt amy or uncle mel if you are reading this, please don’t tell my dad