I was listed last night for the second date of the Yeezus tour at Barclays Center, and you wanna know who put me on the list? Lebron James. You wanna know what I did? I bought a ticket anyway, just to make sure Bron started freaking out when I texted him and said, “Be there soon, brah!” but then he never saw my name get crossed off the list.
“No, man, I swear he said he'd be here,” he's telling the door guy. “I promise, he's a solid dude!”
Bron Bron just got his listing privileges revoked because of me.
I got to the show early. I get to everything early, I'm a fucking squirrel, it doesn't matter what time I get to things. No one is going around being like, “Wow, I went to brunch at Roebling Tea Room with Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel from all four Ice Age movies, and he sure is punctual!” No. That would be inane. The point is, I arrived and saw a bunch of nerdy white dudes practically pissing out thinkpieces from their pores and it smelled like rank night tremors and Oedipal complexes all over the rust-covered shit spiral that is Barclays, so I left. I got a night bagel, extra scallion cream cheese, then I came back just in time.
Do you think Kanye West knows who Judy Chicago is? I do and I am literally a rodent. Do you think that Kanye is interested in the intricate mastery of The Dinner Party and its commentary on the feminizing of skill? Out of all the women invited to the meal, which one do you think Kanye thinks is hottest? That's a trick question.
Kanye opened the show with a bunch of hits from his latest album, Yeezus. I know that I've been on this planet for hundreds of millennia and have seen the Earth crack from its Pangaeac form, felt tectonic plates unhinge beneath my paws, and I am friends with a goddamn wooly mammoth, for Yeezus' sake. But I still didn't have enough pocket scratch to get a good seat, so I was up in the nosebleeds singing along like,
“I am a job?”
“I am a blog?”
“I am a frog?”
“Hurry up with my damn plooplahnz?”
I couldn't hear anything. The sound was worse than my stereo in the movie Ice Age. Don't remember my stereo in the movie Ice Age? That's because I didn't have one because electricity and plastic hadn't been invented yet. Some of the speakers were not firing, particularly in the poor squirrel seats. Things started to lighten up, however, when the woman sitting next to me asked if I was real and gave me a molly—a drug that highly concentrated in my pathetic little scruffy body took me straight up to heaven. I forgot about the sound quality immediately. But then I remembered the acorn.
[INCOMING TEXT FROM JA-BRON-I JAMES] where r you, bro? ur letting me down. never thought you'd bail, you're always on time. [clock emoji]
-lmao
-wait r u herE?
-you got any 'corn, bro?
-…scrat, you said you were off that.
-oh yeah, yeah. no, it's cool, man. i'll c u later.
-come by the VIP area, i'll get u in.
I met up with Bron and things got away from me a little bit. Kanye was doing his rant thing, talking about being banned from entry at Givenchy, and I was floating high, on the lookout for some of that rich protein-filled product. The 'corn, the hard nuts, nature's emeralds. Bron has a good hookup, so I knew if I stayed around his boring ass for even a little while longer, things would be okay.
The backstage area of Barclays looks like the bowels of a North Korean armament factory. There's a lot of shady shit going down, everyone looks miserable and stern, and there are no nuts. Not even a fucking pine nut. There's no fucking organic basil pesto in North Korea, okay?
“You wanna go closer to the stage?” Bron asked, leaning down. I shrugged, eyes on the prize.
We walked up there, and Yeezus was through with his rant, now doing a pretty blown up version of “Jesus Walks”. He was in chainmail.
“You like Monty Python, King J?” I asked.
“Well, sure, who doesn't like—”
I told him I didn't actually care, this wasn't a date. We peeked behind the scaffolding and barriers to get a glimpse of the glowing mountain that Yeezus was preaching from. Do you think Kanye West knows about the Sermon on the Mount? That's a trick question, he knows it a little too well. When are we gonna get Revelations-era Yeezus? I'd like to see that man rip heads straight from their necks and laugh like a maniac when he tells the decapitated body that they were not absolved, too bad. Welcome to Hell.
I realized I had said that out loud to Lebron James. He did not look comfortable anymore.
“Are you using again, Scrat?”
“I don't do drugs,” I told him. “Only 'corn.” He turned away from me and I blinked toward the stage again as fires and flames started going off, the colors were so beautiful, the weird bodies in leotards looking like some epic, Kardashian-era Merce Cunningham performance. Do you think Kanye West knows who Merce Cunningham is? Who cares. Just as I was about to duck my head down to wipe away a tear, the craggy mountain burst open.
I gasped. The nut is in there. I went to find it.
In conclusion, I give the Yeezus tour a 6 out of 10. Pell-mell sound quality, but decent pyrotechnics.
