Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
The American rap musician Kanye West must have made so much money so quickly that it went straight to his head and sent him into orbit. I’ve noticed mental health experts commenting on Mr. West’s seemingly erratic mental state over the years, but today those experts stand helplessly agaggle on the periphery of Mr. West’s next car crash. Now he’s decided he wants to be called “Ye.” That’s great! I love movies! …movies?
When I was a boy, moving pictures were magic, and like many of my generation, I grew up captivated by the cinema. As a result, I am an adult who is constantly transposing real-life people and events with my favorite movie scenes. In the case of Kanye West, I’m trying to reimagine what Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, the drill instructor in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” indelibly portrayed by the late actor Lee Ermey, might say to Mr. West if he were a Marine recruit: “So you want to be ‘Ye,’ eh? Bullshit! Sound off like you’ve got a pair!” yells the sergeant. Then he re-names the artist currently confusing his reality with the reality of the artist formerly known on Sony contracts as “Kanye” in the very same breath: “From now on, you’re ‘Private Snowball’,” Sergeant Hartman growls. “Disappear, scumbag!”
I imagine a shaken and quivering Mr. West dropping and giving Gunnery Sergeant Hartman twenty-five push-ups.
By the way, I’ve seen Kanye West perform before; when I saw his manipulation of visual images, spacial perspectives, and sound, I remember thinking at the time that Mr. West is a stone-cold genius whose wacky politics and soap-opera headlines are symptoms of something he can’t control. Things may not work out for Kanye West in the way the public expects, but hopefully things won’t work out the way the public secretly wants it to. Unfortunately, people never seem to tire of watching a flaming muscle car speed over an ocean cliff. For what it’s worth, I hope that doesn’r happen to …er, him — I wish Mr. West the best of luck. He is far too talented to be lost to a media vortex.