Kanye West opens his eyes to total darkness.
He begins to walk, each step like a shovel digging away at shadows to create light. A long bright hallway opens before him.
There’s a row of doors, each sealed tight like Chris and Snoop from The Wire came through with their nail guns to board them shut. Except the last door, which hosts a sign that reads, “ASSHOLES. DOUCHEBAGS. SCUMBAGS. JERK-OFFS. GENIUSES.” Kanye twists the knob and walks in.
Whitewashed walls, black-and-white checkered floors. In the center, four chairs facing inward. One’s empty. John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Joe Strummer sit in the other three.
Lennon looks up at Kanye and speaks in a heavy Liverpoolian accent. “Welcome Kanye! You’ve made it in the fookin’ club!”
“Have a seat!” says Strummer.
Kanye sits. “What is this place?”
“We’ve been waiting a long time for you, Kanye,” John says. “Like us, you are a genius … and an asshole. It’s not easy to make it in this group, friend.”
“No one, I think, is in our tree—right, John?” Strummer smiles and winks. “What put you over the top, Kanye, was the way you treated Paul McCartney like a wanker. Just like John used to do.”
“What a fookin’ cunt that Paul is, eh Kanye?” John said.
“I don’t get it. I mean, I sit with Puff. I sit with Dame. I sit with Jay. I sit with Farrakhan. I’m not sure why I’m sitting with y’all. And who is this dude sleepin’ over here?” Kanye gestures toward Dylan.
“Hey man, I’m awake,” Dylan says, peeking from under a large Baron hat. “My eyes may be closed but they’re wide open, you dig?”
“Damn, okay, that’s deep, right? This is the genius and asshole group like it says on the door? So we got Lennon and Dylan. But who are you?”
“I’m Joe, mate. Leader of the Clash.”
“Okay, okay. I know the Clash. Y’all were dope. I get it. But why do y’all have to be douchebags? Wouldn’t it be just as easy to be humble?”
Lennon smirks. “Ya know, Bobby here, he just treated everyone like they were below him. Especially anyone from the press.”
“Fuck those cockroaches, man,” Dylan says. “I answer to God, not to no goddamn reporters. I did some other things too that might have been a little douchebaggy-ish. I distanced myself from my parents to build more credibility, you know, to be seen as a rebel … a loner. I couldn’t be this lyrical profit when I grew up in a normal family with respectable white Jew parents. So I made up stories about how bad they were … to give me some street cred.”
“For real?” Kanye said. “For me, I would never do that to my parents.”
“That’s not even close to as bad as what I did, mate,” Strummer said. “I fucked me drummer’s wife on the tour bus while he was sleeping right next to us.”
Kanye shudders. “What the fuck?!”
The door to the room creaks open and the group turns to see Chris Brown.
“Wrong room, brotha’,” John says. “You’re down the hall with Tommy Lee and Ike Turner.”
Brown turns and walks out.
John leans over and smiles.“They have great coffee at those meetings.”
Kanye shakes his head. “Man, John, you’re messed up. Should I even ask what you did to get in here?”
“Shit, brotha, what didn’t I do? Let’s see. My wife walked in on me meditating in the nude with some strange Japanese chick I just finished making love to, and instead of apologizing, I told her to leave the house. As you probably know, that Japanese chick turned out to be Yoko Ono. Then, Yoko and I had a son named Sean, and I basically disowned the other son from my first marriage. I even wrote a song called “Beautiful Boy” where I only talked about Sean. I’m pretty sure Julian never got over that one.”
“Damn, how you gonna write a song about only one son when you have two sons?”
John continues, “You know how you like to heckle white people who win Grammys?”
“I mean, I don’t really heckle …”
“I was like that too. During comedy shows, I would get fookin’ high off cocaine and drunk off brandy Alexanders and absolutely destroy the acts on stage. I once made The Smothers Brothers cry, heckling them about how they had gay brotherly sex with each other and were raped by their mom.”
“Didn’t you walk up on stage with a tampon stuck to your forehead, too?” Strummer asks.
“That was a different night and a different show.”
“I’m not really even sure what you all are talking about right now,” Kanye said.
“It doesn’t fookin’ matter,” says John. “People hated me, just like people hate you.”
“Yeah, but they hate me and I ain’t even do half of what you did.”
“John also fucked Yoko’s assistant,” Dylan said.
“You fucked your nannie,” John shot back.
“He fucked a 17 year old,” Dylan said, thumbing at Strummer. “While married to his first wife.”
“I tried to divorce me wife when I met the 17 year old, but I had no idea where she was,” Strummer said. “Couldn’t find her. We didn’t have cell phones or GPS back then. I guess it didn’t matter. I ended up cheating on both my wife and my 17-year-old girlfriend at the same time. But, also, let’s not forget Bobby—what about that girl you forced to get an abortion?”
“I didn’t really make her have it,” Dylan said. “She chose the money I offered her to get it done, so it was her decision.”
“Didn’t she try to commit suicide after that?” John asked.
“I mean, yeah, but 1.) It wasn’t a successful suicide, and 2.) Who says she wouldn’t have tried to kill herself on her own if she had never met me?”
“Damn, you motherfuckers really are assholes,” Kanye said. “Way worse than me. And people look at y’all as legends … building up our culture and shit. I’m working on bringing power to the people, not taking power away from the people. I’m sorry. I’m outta here. I ain’t on y’all’s asshole levels.”
Kanye starts to walk out, but then turns, smiles and comes back. “Nah, I’m just playing. I’m just as big a asshole as you three. Did you hear about the time I bought Sway his first TV?”
This story was written by Jesse Taylor.
