Grown ups, in between, children and babies

One feature of the xbox is that you can load music into it, like an ipod. No one carries them around like ipods though. The xbox we brought on this trip was purchased secondhand at a mall in Portland. Portland has no rappers or metrolink, so we were shocked to discover rap music on this xbox, like a cobra waiting to strike. There are four songs, one of which is "Go DJ" by Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne is a very special young man, and "Go DJ" is a particularly bright spot in the constellation that is his career. Another feature of this secondhand xbox is that it refuses to recognize the game discs immediately, and we normally have to turn it on and off 30 or 40 times to get the game to start. We recently discovered that the xbox really likes "Go DJ" by
Lil Wayne. When you play the song, the xbox console will almost immediately recognize the disc in question, without any trouble. Once we got the xbox rolling, we spent a lot of time looking at David Banner. He is really really cool.





The sad part of the story is that Lil Wayne used to be best friends with Mannie Fresh, and "Go DJ" is, in Wayne's words, "Courtesy of the young man young Carter and the great man Mannie Fresh." It would take a writer of great talents to unpack the exquisite wordplay of this line, but anyone with a heart can feel the sadness in the severed friendship between these two. Brian and I have watched our friendship blossom while playing Def Jam: Vendetta, and the ensuing discussion. The joy of pairing Method Man and Redman; the humor we found in building tag teams based on origin (for example, Queensbridge rappers vs. ATL's finest); the unstoppable rawness of pairing Lil Kim with Slick Rick. We have decided to offer our xbox and the Def Jam: Vendetta disc to Mannie Fresh and Lil Wayne if they would be willing to put aside their differences and play for a few hours. As long as they understand that it's their responsibility to unlock more rappers and also that the game doesn't actually belong to either of us and if my friend asks for it back, they have to give it back.