BREAKING NEWS- a white kid likes Eminem (for serious)

By Sam Fran Scavuzzo
Senior Staff Writer
March 1, 2006

With last week’s passing of Don Knotts, the termination of the Olympics and the conclusion of fraternity bids, three very annoying things came to a welcome end. Now, all of these things also had good moments, so they weren’t all bad. When it comes down to it, though, they were rather irritating. So you would think with these burdens now absent, things would be easier, right?

Sadly not. For, during the shower I typically take around mid-week, I was greeted with another annoyance, one that is at least partially self-induced: my secret affection for rapper Marshall Mathers. Also known by his milk chocolate, candy-coated moniker Eminem, this Detroit native has captured both my mind and my ear with his sick lyrics and catchy hooks.

Surprised much? Me too. Unlike many other white boys out there, rap music is not so repugnant to me that I cannot appreciate it. That being said, I am by no means a rap aficionado. The closest thing I’ve got to “rap” is G. Love and Special Sauce (unless you count my “Dinosaur Rap” album by children’s folk group Trout Fishing In America). So, what makes Eminem so special that he holds a creepy wife-stabbing, gay-hating place in my heart?

During my aforementioned shower (the one that brought my Eminem love back to the forefront), one of his lovely jingles was pounding the cerebellum and cerebrum of my brain. I’m not sure how it got there—maybe someone in the hall was blasting it. Nevertheless, I had the phrase “my dad’s gone crazy” tattooed in my skull. The fact that a young girl (his daughter?) sings it takes no credence away from the fact that I do indeed heart Eminem.

Throughout my teen years, this blond bombshell appeared in many different situations. I first remember hearing him in an eighth-grade woodshop class when my friend Blake Smith played “My Name Is” while the teacher lectured about T-squares and protractors. It didn’t stop there, if you were a kid at this time, too. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing one of his mean-spirited-yet-hilarious anthems blasting from local dances, sporting events or movie soundtracks.

Did he just monopolize the airways? No, no, no; if it was only that, then maybe I’d be a sane man today. One could argue that Mathers’ videos are just as popular and as visionary as his songs. Without him, I’d venture to say that Carson Daly would not have a terrible late-night television show after Conan.

One phrase that cannot be used to describe Eminem is tolerant. Is this a reason I can’t support him? Sadly, no. Every homophobic, chauvinistic or politically incorrect statement he utters endears him more to me. Does this make me a bad person? Yes, yes, it does. Like an ignorant mother, I believe there is a good boy inside there somewhere, and hope for him to come out. I think poor Marshall needs to be hugged a little bit.

I think I have always been afraid of him, or at least the idea of him. Because of this, I have never personally owned an Eminem CD. Is that it, though? Am I afraid I may love him? Am I afraid I would start buying oversized T-shirts with his image emblazoned across the front? Am I afraid that I would even go as far as to cut my hair short, dye it blond and marry someone just so I could make songs about stabbing her? I want to say no, but I can’t be sure of that. I know that the last thing the world needs is a wife-beating, gay-bashing, bleached blonde Sam Fran.

So, I think I will continue to repress my love of Eminem, and hope he disappears from my head. Even as I write this, “Guilty Conscience” repeats incessantly between my ears. I’ll turn my Beatles records louder, crank up my BTO eight-tracks and spin my Old 97’s CDs at full speed, but it’ll be no use. Marshall Mathers will continue to haunt my every waking hour.

scavuzzos1@lasalle.edu