The Great Communicator

Once upon a time there was this horrible loser of a graduate student who had the good fortune to live with MC Paul Barman, hip-hop’s new white supergenius. Now this housemate was the source of endless trouble for Barman and everyone else who lived with him. Besides being a horrible loser, he was also irresponsible, egomaniacal, and gratuitously evil to boot. You think you’ve got irresponsible housemates? This guy was always late with the rent, even though he made three times as much as everyone else (yeah, he was a grad student, but never mind). You think you’ve got egomaniacal roommates? This guy prided himself on his inability to finish grad school, of all things! That’s like bragging about how often you push the snooze button in the morning! And talk about evil, this guy: one housemate owned a cat, you see, and the Troublesome One even taped up the kitty door to try to keep her out of the house. Oh, he committed a host of other sins (he watched football and Friends; are you really strong enough to hear more?), until finally brave little MC Paul Barman decided that something had to be done and told this cocksucker off on the B-side of his recent 12” single (How Hard Is That?). Our plucky MC had moved safely out of town by then—but the point is, now the world finally knows what an asshole this guy is.

Or do we? See, I’m the horrible loser of a graduate student portrayed in Barman’s ‘Housemate Trouble,’ and as you might expect, I’ve got a slight difference of opinion with him about his interpretation of the facts. In fact, I’ve got a few problems with the fact-ness of his facts, too. Sure, I like to watch Friends (hey—could all of your foibles withstand the light of day?), but I’m not sure where, for example, the stuff about the rent or the kitty door came from. Poetic license, I guess. That would also explain the speculations about my own overinflated sense of self-worth; I mean, since most of our conversations revolved around him, Barman wouldn’t really know whether I was conceited or not.

But maybe this kind of exaggeration or even outright fabrication is par for the course on a dis track. Since this is the first time I’ve ever been the subject of one, it’s all kind of new to me. Despite my innocence, it seems to me that there are at least three ways to respond:

The first would just be to gun him down. This method would have obvious rewards—but what if it just helped his career, like with Tupac? Barman’s pretty clever, but I don’t think I could stand to hear his snotty little voice on the airwaves all the time. That’s why we don’t live together anymore.

The second option would be to record a dis track of my own. Call it the Real Roxanne Route. Tim Ross was actually kind enough to offer to put it out if I wanted to do it, but let’s just say that the world will keep on turning even if it never hears me rap and leave it at that. The problem with forgoing this route is that Barman actually claims on record that I’m too lazy to write a rebuttal, and since he’s thrown the gauntlet down like that, well, I’d hate to prove him right.

So if I can overcome my usual inertia but not my inexperience at rockin’ on the microphone, maybe there’s a third option: I could respond with your basic, traditional open letter. It’s not as dramatic or as satisfying as the first option, and it lacks a lot of the phat beats and cussing of the second, but y’know, I do have a dissertation to write. So here goes:

Dear Paul,

I noticed you’ve said some things about me on your recent record that weren’t very nice. This doesn’t come as a complete surprise—we hadn’t lived together more than three months before the shit really hit the fan—but it does leave me a little perplexed at some of your behavior in the months before you left. If you had noticed how long it was taking me to finish my dissertation, then why couldn’t you have refrained more often from barging into my room at night while I was working, plopping yourself on my couch, and blathering on about your life? I sincerely hope that up-and-coming rap stars have more interesting problems than struggling-artist busboys; otherwise, I feel for your new roomies.

But I guess you’re not very familiar with the travails particular to life in graduate school—or to be more specific, I guess you’re not very familiar with graduate school period (not that anyone should be!). How else to explain that line in your song where you marvel that ‘I make rap masterpieces/You can’t even finish your crap Master’s Thesis’? Now PB, we both know that first premise isn’t true—Prince Paul gave you some great backing tracks on your EP, and we all admire your ability to rhyme phrases like ‘white rapper’ with ‘tight snapper,’ but don’t you think you’ve been reading your own press a little too uncritically? As for the second premise, well, it’s kind of difficult to get a Ph.D. if you haven’t finished your Master’s Thesis, y’know? Check the records if you don’t believe me.

But I know you weren’t exactly aiming at veracity, Paul; you wanted to get to me, for whatever reasons best known to your own vindictive, petty little mind, and you did—I’ll admit it. I don’t take pride in having strung out my graduate-school career as long as I have—contrary to what you seem to think—but I do like to think that I’ve been serious about my studies. That’s why it really hurt to hear you sneer at the dust on my Hegel books. That was an especially strange thing for you to say, given that I was taking a Hegel seminar during the time we lived together. If I were as pompously pretentious as you seem to think I am, it’s a mystery why I would forgo the opportunity at least to parade my books ostentatiously around campus. Oh, well. While I never took the time to scrutinize your personal library as closely as you did mine, I’m sure the pages of your books are dust-free. But judging from what I saw of your love life, I’m also guessing that many of them stick together.

All of that was pre-recording contract, however, so for all I know, your luck could have changed. Money, fame, and good press tend to make even the most obnoxious of lays seem attractive. But it doesn’t seem to have done much for your inner beauty, I’m afraid. You see, Paul, one of the things you’re supposed to do when you become rich and famous is to remember the little people. And while I’m touched that you remembered, your way of doing so leaves open the question of who’s gotten bigger, and who’s gotten smaller.

Sincerely, Jay Murray