We're all self-conscious, I'm just the first to admit it
What should I do with all my Kanye West merch?
I have a $65 hoodie from the Saint Pablo tour. I have a white T-shirt with stained pits from one of the “Famous” listening sessions/music video premieres. The one where Kanye is laying naked in bed with Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, etc. Another $65 hoodie from the Wyoming sessions. And a $100 pullover with that very specific hue of blue from one of the Sunday Service shows in Los Angeles. It’s my favorite pullover. Nothing fits like it. It’s incredible.
Don’t judge me. We all have our weaknesses.
My first thought was, “fuck it, I’m still wearing them. At least the pullover.” The other day I put it on and almost went outside. I stopped at the front door, heart racing. I ran back upstairs to my closet and layered up with a vest to cover up the “Jesus is King” and “Kanye West” text emblazoned on the front.
I felt like the world’s biggest pussy, finally walking outside. I’m sorry to use that word but it’s the only one that feels commensurate. I hung my head pretty low as I trounced around the block on my daily walk.
Then I started thinking, is the vest layering even good enough? My big and very specific hue of blue sleeves were still sticking out. What if I got halfway down the street and got cornered by a group of rabbis?
“Unzip the vest,” Rabbi 1 would say to me.
“What?” I’d respond quizzically, feigning ignorance.
Rabbi 2 would brandish a mezuzah from his pocket only it won’t be a mezuzah, it’ll be more like a pocketknife that just looks like a mezuzah.
“Unzip,” Rabbi 2 would reiterate, brandishing the retractable blade from his impressive mezuzah.
“But I’m Jewish! I just like his music!” I’d try to reason.
Then I’d make a run for it, hightailing it back to my apartment where I’d sit on the very stupid ledge I teeter on now, considering disposal options for my Kanye merch lest I be hunted by rabbis again.
What do people do when their favorite musical artists make asses of themselves?
There aren’t many historical cases to compare data with.
Michael Jackson: still one of the most celebrated artists in the world. He exists in a dualistic state. His music is beloved as some of the greatest ever made, while he himself is mostly seen as a pedo pariah at worst and just a very odd man at best.
Chris Brown: the more women he abuses, the more women love him.
Marilyn Manson: no fans to ask.
Tory Lanez: even fewer fans to ask.
Roger Waters: now Crazy Roger is an interesting case, as his antisemitism is as well-documented as Kanye’s. I think the difference is, Crazy Roger comes off as eloquent, and perhaps too erudite for some to even recognize his brazen antisemitism. Kanye speaks in a more universal, inarticulate way that is accessible to wider audiences. Crazy Roger is also widely seen as senile, irrelevant and eternally cantankerous. People have been writing off what he says since he first hit the scene. That’s just Crazy Roger, after all.
The only fans worse off than Kanye’s are R. Kelly’s, who float very far in denial. They are mostly underground and attend secret listening parties, where they all wear black lacy underwear (even the men) and spray fake piss on each other out of the nipples of baby bottles. I’m not one to judge, but the kinks are very odd. It’s a depraved bunch.
So what should I do?
I could burn the merch in a small, sad little pile.
I could stash it into the deepest recesses of my closet, hoping one day Kanye will make another My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy apology album and resurge triumphant back into the embrace of the limelight. Hollywood loves a comeback, no matter how low one descends.
Even if Kanye never does come back into the good graces of the public, perhaps I could sell the merch one day. There’s a market for everything these days. I can see a dark, damp little recess of the internet where Trump superhero NFTs and Kanye West Jesus is King pullovers are all the rage.
Or maybe I could stop overthinking it so much and just wear what I want to wear. What do I care what anyone thinks?
Except I do. We all do.
The strength of my pride for the things that I love and my disdain for judgement both very much pale in comparison to the strength of my deep anxiety of attention.
I especially feel these emotions in the presence of my old man. I am always his son, eternally beholden to his squinting eye.
My old man spends his days as an unofficially official neighborhood watch for Neo-Nazis.
This consists of sitting on the toilet all day, crawling through Twitter and jpost.com, finding stories regarding antisemitism, becoming righteously indignant about said stories, and then blasting these stories via text, email and DM to as many people as he can. Sometimes he will send the same story via different methods just to ensure you saw it. Why this all must take place on the commode, I have no idea.
So as you can imagine, Kanye West is the number-one enemy, Neo-Nazi neighborhood watch most-wanted, persona non grata for my old man. And as a lifelong, unabashed Kanye West fan, I am my old man’s first target for preaching anti-Kanye sentiment.
My devices and social media profiles are filled with unread stories and DMs with coverage and analysis of Kanye’s recent anti-Jew tear, all sent by my old man.
“Can you believe what he’s done now? They ‘ought to hang him by his tuchus!”
Just an utterance of the name “Kanye” makes steam come out of my old man’s ears. He has even started mispronouncing Kanye’s name as “Kanya” just to be extra disrespectful. Which is actually very funny.
“Just ignore it, dad. Don’t let it consume you,” I’ve been saying to him.
The real thing my old man has worked to impart on me is that ignoring Kanye and his diatribes is not a healthy solution.
People said Hitler was just a pissed off, crazy little guy who had too much lager in his glass and too much cum in his eye (an old jail wound) when he first hit he scene.
So it is with great deference I keep this recent uptick in local antisemitism in mind. Signs hanging from highway overpasses, attacks on synagogues, flagrant and hateful marches by little bald men.
Yet sadly, just like racism and homophobia, antisemitism is here to stay in America. It’s deeply rooted down to the core, and it runs through the veins. I’m not ignorant to the fact that these things will never be eradicated. They will come in waves of varying intensity, and we happen to live in a time of high surf.
Instead of trying to eradicate these things, which will only lead to direct conflict, we can try to heal them and prove them to be false.
Music is one of the best tools for this: the spread of information and cultures and ideas, the ubiquity of musicality, it’s positive effect on our mind, body, emotion and spirit, it’s one of the few things we can all agree on as a species.
There are two things that may very well be the key to saving the world: music, and beer. Perhaps on that last one, I am biased.
Kanye’s music is objectively some of the best and most uplifting popular music made so far in the 21st century. His music is embraced and beloved all over the world. So while his words may hurt and divide, his music, the true universal language, can be used to unite.
What better way to unarm an assailant than to turn his own sword upon him?
Los Angeles is having one of its coldest and rainiest winters in a long, long time. Better hold on to my pullovers and hoodies.