RIP: Hip Hop

ABOVE: The late Tupac Shakur

I'm feeling a little nostalgic right now, because I recently saw Flavor Flav on a reality show performing his modern-day mistrel show, and I'm disgusted.

It took me a while, but I have reached the point at which I no longer want to be called a fan of rap music. Nobody knows what that is anymore.

It wasn't always this bad, kids. I promise. Rap music was great once upon a time. It was the new punk rock -- the anti-establishment, in-your-face voice of a generation. And rappers had talent. Real talent. They could write. And they cared.

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"There's gonna be a lotta slow singin' and flower bringin' if my burgular alarm starts ringin'" -- Notorious B.I.G. (Ready to Die, 1993)

"I wanted an album so rugged nobody could touch it
Spent a million a track and went over my budget
How the f--k am I supposed to get outta debt
I can't rap anymore
I just murdered the alphabet" -- Eminem (The Slim Shady LP, 1997)

"I could see you comin home after work late
You're in the kitchen tryin to fix us a hot plate
Ya just workin with the scraps you was given
And mama made miracles every Thanksgivin'" -- Tupac Shakur (Me Against the World, 1995)
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But nobody writes like this anymore. Biggie and Tupac are dead. Jay-Z and Eminem retired (sort of). The Wu Tang Clan has always been fantastic, but nobody listens. Ludacris is funny but has no substance. Ice Cube is acting in Christmas movies and Dr. Dre hasn't released an album since 1999. It's like the NBA in that weird, post-MJ, Bird, Magic period.

People actually think Chamillionaire, a guy whose best song is called "Ridin' Dirty" and includes the line "When they realize I ain't even ridin dirty bet you'll be leavin' with an even madder mood/You can't arrest me plus you can't sue/This a message to the law tellin' 'em we hate you," is a good rapper. Lil John is a member in good standing of the hip hop community.

Eminem sparked the genre with his first album and appeared to be saving it with his second one (The Marshall Mathers LP, which has an argument for greatest rap album ever). From 1997-2003, nobody could touch Eminem. Nobody. It was a crazy period in the world -- the best rapper on earth was white, the best golfer was black. But Eminem (and Tiger Woods, for that matter) was such a singular figure -- a pissed off white kid who could really rap hooks up with Dr. Dre and starts writing about killing his wife -- that nobody could even catch his coattails. By 2004, he had lost whatever it was that made him great.

Now we have Kevin Federline.

I now know what Led Zeppelin and Kiss fans must have felt when Def Leppard started selling platinum records. To quote the immortal Dane Cook, "What in holy hell is happening here?"

Saying you're a rap fan in 2006 means you like "crunk" music, which is more or less rhythmic yelling. Imagine Will Ferrell in the "I drive a Dodge Stratus!" sketch, dropped over a drum beat and staccato clapping sounds. It means you think 50 Cent is the best rapper of his generation, and the awful thing is that it might be true.

So I'm done with rap. I'm holding on to my Biggie and Tupac albums and I'm still keeping Dre and Eminem in the rotation, but I need a new style of music to like, something that has some substance, some grit, some soul, some creativity and something that hasn't devolved into self parody.

Suggestions are welcome. In fact, if anybody has a suggestion, I promise to listen to it and write a blog about it.

Porn or Cross Country

I watched high school kids run cross country yesterday, meaning I now know what is meant by "cruel and unusual punishment." I grasp "objectification."

Pornography isn't this demeaning.

Let me set this up for those who haven't witnessed what amounts to a glorified hog show. Runners enter the facilities and immediately become nameless. Caroline from Shawnee Heights became 436. Joe from Washburn Rural became 481. Numbers. I think Stalin came up with this idea.

Then 436 and 481 line up with a whole buch of 436s and 481s, someone shoots a gun and they take off running with little regard for human life. It is very much like Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving, only it goes on for, like, 36 miles. And not on a track, where at least times would be consistent and the chance of blowing out a knee in a mole hill would be mostly eliminated. It's out in the middle of some guy's pasture.A And it's about 45 degrees. And people who are consuming donuts and coffee stand along all the curves yelling at you to run harder.

Eff that.

But that's not even the best part. It's the state cross country meet, so whether you're in first place or 40th, you're basically running on pure guts for the last 400 meters. And if you're like 20 percent of your opponents, when you cross the finish line you're going to fall down, vomit, or bend over with a look of agony only matched by that of a woman giving birth to, say, Shaquille O'Neal.

You're totally spent and all you want to do is finish the last leg of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but some overweight 52-year-old woman, energized by that Volvo-sized slab of coffee cake, is yelling at you to keep moving and to get the #$@! out of everybody's way.

So someone drags your ass through a long gate that looks like it spends its free time coralling unbroken horses. Said woman hands you a small piece of paper with a number on it indicating your place of finish.

Shooting from the Hip

Every now and then, you just need to spew some thoughts all over the room and not worry about cleaning them up. This is one of those times ...

-Professors, if you're going to lecture for 75 minutes, please give me some reason to believe you're telling me information I need to know. If I don't think I'll be tested over it, I'm checking out mentally for the entire period and you might as well be speaking to the chalk board, which, in some cases, you already are. And if you don't have anything worthwhile to tell me, just stop talking. Nobody will complain. I promise.

-- Hey, studious kid, when a professor is about to let us out of class early and asks if anybody has any questions, do not, under any circumstances, ask a question. You've just screwed the entire class.

-- Women in the locker room: It's still a little weird.

-- Dear Guy Sitting in the Airport Effing with Your Blackberry,
Even I think you're a douchebag.
Regards,
Kevin Federline

-- Kate on "Lost." That's all I'm saying.

-- Women have "He's Just Not That Into You." Men have "She Really Likes You And You're Pretty Much Exactly What She Wants, But There Is This Asshole Who Mistreats Her That She Erroneously Feels Like She Can Change, So She's Going To Choose Him And Complain To You About Him."

-- If Peyton Manning gets intercepted in a forrest, and nobody's around to see him throw his hands in the air and complain to the back judge, did it really happen?

-- I don't get "indie" music or the people who like it. Seems like an awful existence. You find a band you really like, you start buying their albums and talking about them. But because they make good music, they become popular and hit it big, and are now you have to say they sold out and act like you're too sophisticated for them. This seems painful.

-- $2.99. Yes, I am out of my mind. Thanks for asking. Now stop it.

-- Top 3 GPA-destroying devices of all time:
1. Beer
2. Video games
3. Fantasy football
Trust me. I would know.



Out.

Why Med School Doesn't Want Me

The guy next to me in the photo is a man named John Tanksley. He is a medical student and also my main man. We have known eachother since we were 10. He is the kind of guy whose appartment is completely color-matched. He cleans his bathroom every day. He makes his bed. He has bottles of wine and champagne laying around "just in case." He shaves his chest. He's kind of a metrosexual.
But that is all irrelevant to the topic at hand, which is this: I am completely ineligible for medical school.

This came about recently as I pondered this fact: John will finish medical school in 2007, make about $40,000 a year while in residency (3 years, I think), then start pulling $150,000-$300,000 a year.

By 2011, he will have earned something like $220,000. By 2011 (assuming a normal sportswriter's salary), I will have earned something like $120,000. By 2021, he will be in the $2.3 million career earnings range. I will be in the $450,000 career earnings range.

So I asked him, "Say, uh, John, say I decided to take a year and study like a fiend for the MCATs. What are the chances I could get into medical school?"
John: "What, you're thinking about med school?!"
Tully: "I'm just wondering."
John: "Mmmm. Not good."
Me: "What if I got a really good score?"
John: "Well, they look at lots of other factors like GPA, and extra-curriculars. Plus, you have to be able to show them things you've done that indicate compassion."
Me: "Oh. I'm pretty much compassionately bankrupt, and my GPA is horrendous."
John: "Yeah. I don't think anybody would accept you. Unless you were black or something."

So there went that. Not that I was really considering it. Med school sounds like a lot of really boring work, and a lot of detail and a lot of debt. I don't think I would make a good doctor. And I like the career I've chosen. But it would have been nice to know that I still had some options. Turns out, if I had wanted to go to medical school, I basically would have started preparing for that when I was about 16, which is what John did.

So that's kind of a bummer.

On the bright side, I see 300-pound men naked on a regular basis.