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In this letter I will try not to sound completely annoyed, pissed off, and regretful of the fact that you are alive.

I completely understand that IHOP is (despite its many other purposes) above all else, an eatery. People come when they need food. Its late night status, however, makes it a favorite spot of studying students, drunken revelers after a night of dancing and general partying, and in my case, sleepless couples who simply want to grab a bite to eat.

One thing it is NOT (ever!): a playground for your ill-behaved children. ESPECIALLY not at midnight, when said children should have been in bed hours ago.

There are a number of things wrong with the picture I was part of Wednesday night.

1. It is midnight and you, your degenerate wife, and twin daughters JUST walk into this establishment.

2. You look like you’ve been partaking in hard drugs (meth?) for years and years, and so does your wife (Is she your wife?). You are dusty and somehow the air around you is tinted yellow (not unlike Pigpen, of Peanuts fame). Your wife is several years past her prime and is still wearing a denim micro-mini. Clear heels does not help the situation.

3. You sit right behind us.

4. Your adorable twin girls are sitting in the SMOKING SECTION, next to your chimney ass, and your wife’s chim-chiminy chim chim cheroo. Don’t you want your kids to at least get a good head start on health? I mean, why don’t we all just go diving in shark infested waters and send them out front?

5. You start to cough. Uncontrollably. And undeniably because of your chain-smoking habits, and quite possibly because you order steaks at IHOP. Honestly, sir…who does that?

6. Your little girl starts to cough. Uncontrollably. And undeniably because she is sitting next to you, inhaling your toxic stream of aerosol death.

7. You become embarrassed of your little girl’s uncontrollable hacking and tell her sharply to “calm down,” because you have stopped coughing long before she could find a clean patch of air. Your lungs are used to the abuse sir. For fuck’s sake, give her a second to catch her breath.

8. You let them order coffee. I’m sure in your world time is of no essence. Hell, you probably don’t have a job, so it’s no problem to stay up with the girls until the caffeine overload wears off.

9. Your wife is wearing a terry-cloth scrunchie. Her ponytail is high and swingy. Each time she jerks her head, her ponytail brushes my bare neck and shoulders.

and finally,
10. Your children, caffeined to the brim, have made a small flood in the bathroom by playing with the sink water. It has rendered the bathroom unusable and makes me hold it until I arrive home.As you can see from the evidence provided above, I hate you.

Truly,
Ms. Farinas

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I think so. Is it because he’s a clown? Because he is an encyclopedia of free-association pop culture references? Because his flow is sick enough to get him “dough like the bakery?”

The answer is here:

my two best friends will accompany me/ and right now they are in my Dungarees sleep/ one named mac/ one named nina/ they hit you make you do the Macarena.
-0:50, “Boom,” Da Drought 3

These thirty words could very well hold the key to Wayne’s current status and his future staying power. So you have Da Drought 3, a 29 track mixtape dropped as a precursor to The Carter III. FYI I really don’t like The Carter II, which is the only Wayne record I own, at all, and I kind of stumbled upon Da Drought 3. I wasn’t really a fan until about a month ago when I heard Da Drought 3 for the first time.

So Da Drought 3 is funny, or maybe Wayne just sounds like he’s having fun. Does it even matter though? I’m listening now, ready to laugh some more, to have fun myself.

So I’m listening, and he’s clowning. The thing is though, when Wayne clowns, you get this:

my two best friends will accompany me/ and right now they are in my Dungarees sleep/ one named mac/ one named nina/ they hit you make you do the Macarena.

Here, you have, in eleven seconds, a flow that touches on facets of life identifiable to pretty much any listener. If you don’t know what Dungarees are, you might know about a mac and a nina. Even if you don’t though, you’ve probably heard and done the Macarena. And if you, by chance, have heard of all of those, then you know why getting hit by mac and nina will make you do the Macarena.

So you have a pair of jeans, some guns, and a dance known all around the world. In a nutshell, you have pop culture and street culture all rolled into one. Wayne has woven them together into a tapestry which, upon the removal of any of the images, would fail to even be noticeable at all. That, to me, is the gift. It’s easy to rap about guns. Anybody can do that…anybody. It’s easy to rap about pop culture too…Gwen Stefani can do that. Wayne does them both though, at the same time, and he’s funny.

Have you ever shot somebody? I haven’t, but I’ve done the Macarena. And that little bit of understanding is enough to engage me, to make me want to listen some more, to see what else he might say that I recognize. We come from very different places, yet he is saying stuff that I can actually fathom instead of me just regurgitating something that sounds tight but to which I cannot relate at all. I’m not saying Wayne and I are one in the same, but I’m paying attention now. And that makes me keep buying Lil Wayne records, and I’m not even a real fan. That, my friends, makes Wayne the future of rap. Maybe you can relate?

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Justin Harder makes these playful, bright, modern motion graphics for the likes of VH1, MTV, and a host of other major companies. His use of color is awesome and his timing is impeccable. My favorite piece on the site shows how a cow is a part of everything that we know and use.

http://www.justinharder.la

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