Surprised to see no threads on this yet. Kanye and Trump did…some kind of press conference in the oval office (link).
Results weren’t pretty. Kanye asked for a pardon for Larry hoover mentioning that maybe Kanye is larry hoover in a parallel universe. Then a lot of incoherent things about trump as a father figure, how much of a genius he (Kanye) is, and kinda beat trump at his own game in terms of meandering rants, talking for 10 minutes uninterrupted.
My POV is simply that I had no idea just how far gone he was (I’m referring to Kanye right now BTW). I knew he was eccentric but that was scary. If a guy on the street was talking like that you’d be worried he was about to hit someone or self-harm. He really needs help.
Some are downplaying it; saying they are just two peas in a pod (and indeed it was exhausting enough in this post needing to clarify which lunatic I’m referring to in each sentence). But while trump is an idiot and a narcissist, and a terrible person, his breakdown does not appear anywhere near as imminent.
It finally happened. For once Donald wasn’t the stupidest or craziest person in the room. Can you imagine Obama hosting someone like KW in the White House in front of a live audience? Shows how far the office of the US Presidency has fallen. The rest of the world is truly laughing at us…
Kanye West was also the musical guest on the first episode of SNL’s new season. I thought his first costume was weird enough, what with him and another performer dressed as water bottles. (One wore a Fiji water costume and the other was dressed as a Perrier bottle.) That was weird enough, but then he went on a Trump rant after the closing. This wasn’t shown on TV but videos of the rant are available on the internet.
And anyone remember his interruption of an MTV Video Music Awards presentation nine years ago?
That’s what I was thinking too. Then again, if Obama did 1/1000th of the shit that Trump has done or said he would have been impeached, drug out by his heels and burned on the National Mall. I can only imagine the head-asplodiness from the right if Obama hosted a mentally ill artist in the White House in front of every camera he could find, and let him rant on about how fantastic Obama was, and then hugged him. It’s almost like a paradox of some sort. It’s the sort of thing that you just know in your heart would never happen in a million Rick and Morty universes so it’s hard to even wrap your head around. But Trump, eh, whatever. Hail Idiocracy.
Kanye. Not a fan. I couldn’t identify one of his songs if you spotted me the bridge (are there bridges in rap songs?). The only thing I knew of him before he became Trump’s lawn jockey was when he mortified Mike Myers saying, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Then I was spared a few years before he made a jack-ass out of himself at the something something Awards (Grammys? VMA? MTV?). He’s like my excema - he shows up every few years to bother me.
I think there’s reasons to give no mind to Kanye West, but being “mentally ill” isn’t one of them. He’s obviously functional enough pull off things most “normal” people could only dream of. Even more than other politically active artists that “open up” to us about their mental illness. Fact is, 1 in 4 people have some form of mental illness in their lives. That, in and of itself, should not disqualify someone for having an opinion.
If I don’t pay attention to Kanye, (and I don’t, I’m not going to bother listening to that press conference) it’s because I don’t think celebrity and artistic talent endows one with any special opinion on politics. I think we give celebrity for too much credit.
This was a brilliant move by Trump! He brought-in someone who made Trump look and sound intelligent, without having to utter a word (and risk the whole thing).