Pulp Diction

That easy, huh...


I think it pretty safe to say that a majority of people under 40 would admit to at least liking Pulp Fiction. The movie epitomizes our generation's notion of cool. The characters talk fast and dirty and sharp, and they all live extraordinary lives, killing, doping, dancing-- no nine-to-fivers. When we watch this movie, we satisfy a repressed curiosity and yearning for the distasteful. Decorum (and i think rightly so) demands nearly all of our time, but eventually you feel the urge to tell decorum to go fuck itself, and that is when you pop Pulp Fiction in your DVD player. Well, I think that listening to certain coke-hop can also satiate that appetite.

Take this mixtape by Juelz Santana and Lil Wayne, Blow: The I Can't Feel My Face Prequel. I got my hands on it about a week ago, and since then it has completely seized me. It's not what Elz and Weezy are saying, it's how they're saying it. This is poetry at its finest, new and elegant. It's just like listening to Tarantino's Vincent and Jules for the first time. I could quote the record ad infinitum to hammer the point, but a few examples from Santana should do the trick:

"I cook good, make it look good, damn straight. / Put coke in the pot, take out pancakes. / Double stacks, triple stacks, why not? / I got that syrup too, jus call me IHOP."

"... fiends go to work, after the work you sell 'em. / They know they got to buy more, they head hurt, they eyes sore. / You sellin' that cheap rock, sheetrock, drywall /... I be chef, the chef / you never have to rechef what I chef. Comprende?"

"Now let me introduce the world to my girl. / She white, she bright, she shine like a pearl. / And I ain't talkin' 'bout Lindsey Lohan / I'm talkin' 'bout that sniff, that blow man."

I know that this kind of Rap can be misunderstood, and that it should in no way fall upon the youth. But it would be a great mistake to eradicate such creativeness and polish of language. It does serve a purpose. It does create a fanciful world for adults, just like the world of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, in which we can safely transgress the restraints of ordered society and briefly don the costume of a bad ass. I think that listening to Blow or watching Pulp Fiction can be healthy activities if we use them to cathartically purge our frustrations and fulfill our fantasies, not establish them.