Happy Valentines Day

Is Kanye's heartbreak a manifestation of everything wrong in our country?

Typically a Valentine’s Day post here would be dedicated to some grand old Hollywood love affair from days past. The sensuous pairing of Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard, perhaps (complete with the stunning images of them in black and white shot by Herb Ritts on the ranch they owned in the early 90s) or the infamous love note written by Nick Cave to PJ Harvey displaying his obsession with her, which sadly failed to actually keep her.

But Kimye stole the show.

Literally.

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Yesterday, as Americans were busy glazing hot wings and building multi layered dips to indulge the appetites gathering in their living rooms for the Super Bowl, Kanye West’s bleeding heart took center stage. And held us hostage (virtually) for 24 hours filled with “off the rails” rants, a firing squad of insults & attacks slung at enemies via IG stories (with captions that appeared to have been drafted using talk text, in a vision that amuses me more than I care to confess) Kanye standing on a front porch spitting “dickhead Skete” sentiments into his phone is exactly the kind of thing I live for.

And hate myself for it.

The night prior, he took to IG to berate Billie Eilish for her alleged dig at Travis Scott (whom Kanye feels indebted to because he was the only family member to divulge the address where Chicago’s 4th birthday was being held last month - remember?)

For the record, I still can’t stand him.

Afterwards he focused attack on Pete Davidson. Going so far as to share an image he’d swiped from a Reddit fan account showing a Marvel movie mock up showcasing involved parties divided: Him, alongside his allies Drake - whom he was feuding with only 6 weeks ago - Tyga, and Julia Fox Vs. the enemies: Kim, Pete Davidson, Billie Eilish and a tiny Taylor Swift stuffed there at the end of the line looking cute but confused and a little out of place. Per usual.

Forgive me, but it was hilarious. Comedic Jeen Yuhs if you ask me. Kanye cruising threads on reddit, pulling this ridiculous creation of him and Pete posed as two opposing venoms from a superhero movie, with Taylor tossed in for sake of nostalgia.

I actually woke up the next morning laughing about it.

I’m actually still laughing about it…

But this was only the beginning. In the few short hours leading up to the Super Bowl Ye continued to unravel right before our eyes. Posting 22 slides calling out those who had betrayed him for Kim and the new guy (renamed “Skete”) - sharing ridiculous photos of Pete Davidson in his underwear eating popcorn tossed at him by Machine Gun Kelly - promising he would “never” meet his children. Boasting that no matter how many media outlets Jeff Bezos buys he’ll never hold the influence Kanye does. Writing "no comment" on a rumor that Ariana Grande had ended her engagement to Davidson for allegedly sending intimate photos of the pair to her ex Mac Miller before his death in 2018. And ridiculing Davidson over a photo that showed him in the process of lasering off the tattoo of his "hero" Hillary Clinton he had inked on his calf in 2017.

"Look at this dickhead. I wonder if Instagram gonna shut down my page for dissing Clinton's ex boyfriend," Ye wrote, adding "Y'all seen that tattoo but if I speak up then I'm crazy. I told you not going to use that one no more when a garbage man goes to work he gonna smell like trash but it's time to take the trash out the house ... You can Google the Hillary thing I'm not making this shit up."

"When I tag people I'm just putting together the web. There are a group of people who run media and the election. Thank god for free speech” he said in his caption, tagging Ellen DeGenerous.

And just like that, Hilary and Ellen entered the chat unasked.

At a certain point someone wrote me suggesting if I wanted Kanye’s captions to make sense, I needed to rap them out loud when I read them. Which I did and it quite literally changed the whole game.

Turns out if you read like he flows, suddenly all cognizance returns.

But Kanye went further, to clarify in all caps: "THIS AINT ABOUT SKETE PEOPLE IT’S ABOUT SELLING YALL A NARRATIVE. SKETE JUST PLAYING HIS PART IN FROZEN 3 ACCEPT ITS NOT IN THE THEATERS THIS TIME ITS ON DAILEY MAIL TELL BOB AND THE ENTIRE DISNEY STAFF YOU WAISTED YOUR MONEY ON STARWARS AND MARVEL BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES MONEY YOU WILL NEVER CONTROL THE HIGHSCHOOLS NO ONES EVER HEARD A MACHINE GUN KELLY SONG BOB."

Is he wrong?

He’s alluding to the Kris approved scripts their lives all follow to keep the show interesting. To keep them profitting.

We all know Pete is just a pawn here. But Kanye, for whatever reason, still wants to drag him royally. A little too amusing to hate. Plus I can’t but help think there is something so tragically Shakespearean about the whole thing. But set in modern day times, becomes easily laughable.

So from Billie, to Kid Cudi, to Kim, to Bezos, to Skete, Disney, Hulu, Page Six and plenty more, Kanye is still busting at the seams in real time right in front of us, feeling burnt out, betrayed and misinterpreted by friends, family and the media. Which of course raises the question of mental health. The reporting I saw popping up online dismissed yesterday’s episode as further evidence of increasing mental fragility. Some urging him to go “back on” meds, others sighting this as the very reason Kim left in the first place.

I had other opinions.

First of all, Kim benefited greatly when she first linked up with Kanye. Her image at the time was sinking thanks to a failed marriage to a D-list basketball player and seriously faltering style.

Kanye was definitely the elevating factor in her leveling up. In one of his recent rants, where he claims he “gave that family the culture” he isn’t lying.

As for the Kanye of yesterday? I would argue it’s the same Kanye that’s always been. Loud, proud, uncensored, emotional, confrontational, catty, unpredictable, and damn funny.

The broken hearted Kanye is the same Kanye I remember seeing cry during one of his concerts a couple years ago over lingering beef with Jay Z (whom he considers a brother) after he had missed his wedding (rumor is Kim and Beyonce don’t jive) Begging him to stop by the house and talk in person, in a meltdown that happened in front of thousands of stumped strangers.

He’s also the guy who 20 years ago drove across town to confront a local rapper in person in the documentary just released, showing a young Ye with hurt feelings over a diss track by a musician he respected. In the scene, with a retainer in his mouth and tears in his eyes, Kanye is desperate to know why his friend would do this to him. He wants answers and resolution. He wants mending. When see them walk around the other side of the truck and hug it out off screen, he returns with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye. The Kayne who goes home to Chicago seeking Donda’s approval.

A man who always adored his mother.

And the Kanye who rudely interrupted Taylor? He’s the same Kanye now attacking Billie.

Is it right? No. Is it new? Not exactly.

Rather, the crazy narrative comes straight out of the Kardashian playbook, meant to reduce and discredit him now that his role in their franchise has expired.

And you know, maybe he is crazy. For all we know he’s riding the peaks and valleys of sanity. But in a world of plastic celebrities repeating tired lines, and singular rhetoric, I’m bored enough to welcome a manic wild card who will take on anyone and anything he doesn’t like. Who will make a fool of himself in front of the entire world in attempt to reclaim his family. Sprinkling in humor along the way.

I’m here for all of it. The pettiness, the cringe, the rage.

I saw a guy on Twitter today wrote “Kanye say a lot of the right things the wrong way” A nail on the head if you ask me. Because when you really break down what he’s ranting about, inside of all of these loaded captions, its all pretty respectable: the importance of a father’s role in a child’s life, the PR games the Kardashians play, mourning the loss of family, grieving his mother, refusing to let media or security interfere with seeing his children, the evils of money and greed, media lies and divide, and undercover racism masked by performative political bullshit.

Three years ago, when I loathed Kanye (I did, I coulnd’t stand him) and was hammering him for supporting Trump, he lectured in multiple articles how “telling a Black man how to vote is the most racist thing a person can do” It was a sentence I thought about continually. A sentence I couldn’t shake off. A sentence that changed my outlook entirely. Spoken by a man I couldn’t stand.

In the weirdest year of my life, Kanye West challenged me to think.

The antics we saw yesterday was pure entertainment, though. He’s great at that too. I didn’t care about the Super Bowl until Kanye claimed it. And then made no apologies for being wholeheartedly engrossed by the highjacking of it. As sloppy and cringy as it was, as trying as it was to follow logically, it felt real and unhinged, reckless and erratic. In stark contrast to everything we’ve come to expect from a slick Kardashian production. Where a whole family of women have gradually morphed into varying versions of Kim. All fake hips & fake lips, selling teenagers on makeup and dietary shakes they credit instead of fillers and surgery. Frozen faces, and soulless mansions.

The slow talk, the salad shake, I don’t know how much more I can take.

Just since drafting this post Kanye has taken it up a notch by delivering a truck full of Valentine roses to Kim’s house, with a sentiment painted on the sideboard that reads “my visions are Krystal Klear.” The man is riding the verge of a restraining order no one but him can stop. It’s mad and pathetic.

But I’ll take it over almost any alternative offered to us at the moment. Manic truths over scripted reality. That’s how desperate we’ve become.

SB Footnotes: shout out to Martha Stewart for being a high class clout chaser in her twilight years, Snoop for longstanding Crip loyalty, Eminem for great skin and taking a knee proving his rebellion hasn’t fizzled like his career, 50 Cent for not passing out whilst hanging upside down, Mary J Blige for bringing it pantless at 51, and North West for wearing the expression of every mom watching a televised celebration of 70K maskless people gathered together as their children return to classrooms in faces swallowed by cloth coverings to “protect” the community.