Checking Out of the Holidae In

“I think he’s on Letterman tonight, instead.”
Fateful words from Eric B. AKA DJ The Evil One, sub-promoter of last night’s Ludacris/Chingy/Kanye West/David Banner show, which became last night’s Ludacris/Chingy/David Banner show. Upon hearing of Kanye’s cancellation, I threw myself at Eric’s feet, and wept.
David Banner was charming, but likely high. He rapped for about five minutes tops; his posse took care of the other 15 minutes. It was the tour kickoff, and it’s possible Banner had never performed to so many people at once. Or he acted like it, rather–a little showy-offy, jumping onto speakers, wrapping a towel around his head like a goofy bandana, turning around and mugging his full-back MISSISSIPPI tattoo, jumping off the stage and literally running circles around the audience (Room capacity: 4000/ attendance: approx. 2500/ average age: 17) while girls in spiked Gucci knockoffs gave chase and grabbed at his shirtless rotund torso. Again, he was charming, seemed stoked, WAS ACTUALLY SMILING, got the other half of the audience to point to our side and say,
“You ain’t crunk, bitch!”
to which we responded
“Yes I is, ho!”
That went on for at least three minutes, but was carloads more fun than the excruciating half-hour chant of “Get drunk… get high… and fuck” at Snoop Dogg’s last WACK show. Most tent-revivalist moment of the evening came mid-set, right before “My Lord,” when Banner flashed that jillion-watt smile (lit up the stage as much or more than Chingy’s bling, by the way) and asked,
“Do y’all smoke weed? Oh! Sorry, there are little kids here. Do y’all smoke marijuana? Put up your lighters if y’all like to smoke marijuana! Yeah!
Now, do ya’ll believe in God, that God is the one true way? Put your hands up if you believe in God!”
I threw my hand up; my incredulous friend Katie turned to me and said, “You believe in God?!” And I do, actually, in a non-specific way, but mostly I was so moved by Banner’s vehement and focused passion for preaching The Way of the Lord in that moment that my heart swelled up and I pumped my fist–pumped it like NEVER BEFORE–for the whole of the song. I was pumping my fist for David Banner, and his posse, and the play-acted baptism they were carrying out, but I was also pumping my fist for God. Someone in an interview I read recently–the actor’s studio guy in the NYT mag, maybe–was asked the question, “What would you like God to say to you at the Pearly Gates?” The response was, “I want God to say, ‘Hey, I exist, but you can come in anyway.” As for me, I would like God at the Pearly Gates to be all, “Hey, Julianne, I DO exist, but it’s cool you blasphemed me all the time, cause I totally saw you pumping your fist for me at the David Banner show.” And then my mom could stop praying rosaries for my lapsed-Catholic salvation.
Uh… anyway, this is probably no surprise, but I can’t express how many different ways CHINGY SUCKED. Chingy sucked UP AND DOWN, Chingy sucked LEFT and RIGHT, Chingy sucked in circles, figure 8s, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Spectacular, Bob Barker’s Arbor Day Extravaganza, Chingy sucked on a unicycle and Chingy sucked going up in the godforsaken Glass Elevator. Chingy SUUUUUUUUCKED. I don’t believe he rapped at all; I think his sole artistic purpose was telling all us available ladies that he is single, and flossing his five-inch-wide pendant spelling out “Chingy” in diamonds, which a member of his crew would periodically lift up off his chest like a serf and hold up, to catch the light and reflect back onto the fine available ladies in the audience who were DEFINITELY NOT going home with him tonight.
By the way, the ladies/lady-girls were unfortunately screaming holes in their lungs, and I was reminded of being 12 and cutting out photos of my fave musicians and hanging them on the wall, because that was our rite of passage. We cut from countless magazines–Bop, 16, 17, Teen, basically every magazine up to the invention of Sassy, and while in retrospect it is frustrating and almost shameful and a little sad, the boys we cut out were for the most part fairly innocuous–who were the *NSync of 1988, again? New Edition, NKOTB, LL, Fresh Prince?
But imagine being 12 and cutting out Chingy’s photo and hanging it in your locker. He is not only the object of your inchoate pubescent longing, but his records convey that in his world you, as a female, have the non-choice of the Ho/bitch role (and the boys, they should totally be pimps and floss just like Chingy, because some dumbass rewarded his complete dearth of skills with a… RECORD CONTRACT? WHAT?). I swear to god I heard 16-year-old girls, fondly, breathlessly, calling him their “baby-daddy,” as a term of endearment.
SO ANYWAY< DOWN WITH CHINGY, who not only played "Right Thurr" last, but played it TWICE. IN. A. ROW.
That's how sucky Chingy sucked.
After Chingy, aka my current symbolic-Saddam-statue of everything-that's-wrong-with-everything, Ludacris sounded like a Rhodes Scholar. One thing that differentiated Luda from Chingy and even the charming Monsieur Banner is that Ludacris actually rapped… actually formed these ephemeral things like "thoughts" and "ideas" and put them together with "flow."
Katie doesn't go to many hiphop/rap shows and her main beef was that none of the artists were as good as Lyrics Born. I got all Harvey Fierstein and was just like, “Honey… tell me about it.”