Fuck the World/Feed it beans

"Two pills I pop/Til' my pupils swell up like two pennies/I'm Clint Eastwood in his mid-20s/A young ass man with a trash can strapped to the back of his ass/so the rats can't chew through his last pants"
-Under the Influence

I remember working at Pizza Hut summer after freshman year of college, the year 2000, it seemed like a world of unlimited possibilities was right around the corner, in Coatesville. There was this guy who also worked there, Eric, who used to recite Eminem lyrics while stuffing crusts with string cheese or squirting vegetable oil into deep dish pans. That one up top always stuck with me, along with "Hit the trees like Sonny Bono, oh no!" and "Fuck shit ass bitch cunt shooby-dee-doo-wop."

Eric and I were friends in the sense that we got along, shot the shit like two of the more intelligent people employed at said hut would do. I'd say we had a mutual respect. Neither of us had any kids out of wedlock, both of us graduated from the same high school and both of us enjoyed smoking pot on the job. Eventually I went back to school, that Pizza Hut got boarded up and I maybe saw Eric a couple times at parties, thanks the the hazy ways social circles of drug-using suburban youth can intersect.

Flash forward to a year or so ago and I see a police report here at the paper, fatal car accident. The dead man's name looked familiar, it was Eric. He had gotten in a head-on collision with a bunch of drunken Mexicans, late on a Saturday night. It's a fucked up thing, when a peer dies. Still, everyone knows a couple kids from high school who flew too close to the sun or whatever. You pour some out and move on in your life, it's healthy.



But when I watched the new Eminem video "Not Afraid" where he raps about facing his demons, kicking drugs, growing up, etc. it made me think of Eric. Yes, it's unfair to think that if the kid had heard this song, he would like somehow still be alive. Listening to one song cannot make a difference in a person's life. But there is something there, some flash of electrons in my brain at least, even if I can't "coherently" type it out. It makes me sad, I think.

People are way into Eminem, according to his raps (although it's likely that there is less obsession these days than those heady times after the Marshall Mathers LP dropped in 2000). And those people may not make the best life choices. And now this guy, this most profane and immature of rappers, who once had a public feud with a talking dog puppet, who wrote graphic rhymes about killing his ex-wife and kidnapping his child, is showing signs of maturity. And that means anyone can grow up, unless they're dead.