What if Kanye West is Retarded?
I don't know if you knew this or not, but Kanye West wrote a "book." I put "book" in sarcastic, douchey, Internet quotes because I don't know if something is technically a book if it's 52 occasionally blank pages with gems like "Get use to getting used!" taking up full pages. (As a quick sidebar to people who publish crappy, poorly-written books, I'd like to point out that my book, Holla Atta Bitch: The Gentleman's Guide to Snaggin' Skanky Blonde Hoodrats is still shockingly without a publisher. I await your fat bag of money with a dollar sign.)
Zzzzapp! Zzzzapp!But now that I'm seeing this ridiculous book of what he perceives to be Confucius-esque witticisms, I'm not so sure. It's not enough that he's written a crappy book--he's gone on record as saying that he's a "proud non-reader" who doesn't see the value in books. Now, I'm not an accomplished author or anything (until Holla Atta Bitch goes platinum or whatever it is that books do), but I think the first rule of book-selling is "Don't tell your book-buying audience that reading books is stupid and worthless."Which leads me to my concern: What if Kanye isn't an eccentric genius and, worse, isn't even trying to feign eccentricity? What if Kanye didn't spout off a bunch of quirky, polarizing diatribes because he wanted to go down in history as a creative genius, but because he is, in fact, a complete fucking moron? The question we have to ask, then, is "What if Kanye West is retarded?" and everything Kanye's ever said and done takes on an entirely different context when you view it through this new lens.
Kanye's Book
Kanye claims he's publishing the book because he often gets misquoted, and he's trying to combat that. This is actually a wise move; eliminate the middle man of media and take your marketing and public relations into your own hands and you can be a totally free artist. The book itself, which isn't actually about ensuring Kanye gets accurately quoted and seems more concerned with GIANT BRIGHT LETTERS and quick-hitting, almost-clever proverbs, is goofy and inoffensive. It would be a perfect toilet book and just another piece to add to Kanye's collection of bizarre and unpredictable career moves. One more thing to add to the legend he seems bent on creating for himself.But What if Kanye West is Retarded?Kanye West vs. College
For two whole albums, Kanye rails against college and education in general. At first glance, it seems likely that he detects some discrimination in Chicago's public school system. It's possible, based on his own success that occurred independent of formal schooling, that he thinks the whole system is inefficient, or that the wrong set of skills are being encouraged. That's admirable. Plenty of intelligent people embraceKanye West's Shoes or Name Change or Something
Broadcasting from a hotel room in what he alleges is Paris ("PAREEE!"), Kanye announces that he a) has some delicious champagne, b) has his own Louis Vuitton shoe and that c) due to circumstances beyond his or anyone's control, he needs to change his name. He says "I've been called the Louis Vuitton Don," (despite the fact that the only person I've ever heard using that phrase to describe Kanye was, in fact, Kanye), but he declares that his new name shall be "Martin Louis the King... Junior." Strange, but it also means that Kanye can add shoe designer to his already impressive track record. And that sure is some kind of... something.But What if Kanye West is Retarded?Kanye West VS. George Bush
You all remember what happened. A few years ago, Kanye West went on TV in the middle of a disaster, veered off teleprompter and barked "George Bush doesn't care about black people." At the time, I thought it was either a passionate, gut reaction (albeit, an ill-advised one) or just a calculated rant under the guise of outrage, designed to make controversy and headlines. If that's the case, to his credit (or colossal shame, depending on whether or not you think seeking headlines in the middle of a disaster can be considered admirable) it worked. In either scenario, we have an artist who isn't afraid to get political and challenge the highest American authority, which is a sure-fire way to earn your spot in the Insane Musician Hall of Fame.Hurricane Katrina was wonderful for Kanye's public perception.And what exactly did he think people understood? Not that he was a goon, or a shameless opportunist, no. He felt that the words showed the world that he had, in his words, "little baby Tourette's, maybe not quite diagnosed" as evidenced by how "the truth just comes out accidentally like what's off the top of mind."So, here is the list of things we need to understand based on Kanye's statements...A) Kanye West genuinely thinks he suffers from an undiagnosed form of Tourette's;B) Kanye West thinks Tourette's syndrome is when you accidentally speak the truth in the heat of the moment;C) Kanye West believes that people will understand him better now that they're aware of his undiagnosed, nonexistent condition....and our conclusions are, respectively, "No you don't," "No it isn't" and "You're an idiot."The final and strangest point we can take away from his interview is that Kanye West seems to think that the degree of severity of Tourette's is measured on some kind of Baby Scale, where mild, sporadic adult onset Tourette's is classified as "little baby Tourette's" and, we can presume, more persistent and traumatic cases can be classified as "enormous super baby Tourettes."As a sidebar, while it may not be Science's preferred method for measuring the severity of a disease, "little baby Tourette's," is a truly hilarious phrase. One of these days I'm going to invent a face-shitting cocktail that renders the drinker immediately incapable of controlling their speech and I am hereby officially calling shotgun on the rights to "Little Baby Tourette's" as the name of said drink.