Word: suburbanitis
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...demeanor with their expectations of what a rapper should be. They had no idea how to market him. "It was a strike against me that I didn't wear baggy jeans and jerseys and that I never hustled, never sold drugs," says West, 28, who grew up in suburban Chicago and often dresses as if he's anticipating an acceptance letter from Exeter. "But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can't tell you how frustrating it was that...
West is hardly the first person to bring a Buppie sensibility to rap. In the '80s, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, A Tribe Called Quest and LL Cool J successfully wove suburban perspectives into rebellious music, but when gangsta rap arrived, nuance was smothered by a blanket of extreme poses. Tupac Shakur, once a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts, died with THUG LIFE tattooed across his torso. On The College Dropout, West found a way to bridge the divide without self-destruction. His follow-up, Late Registration, arrives Aug. 30 and continues to mix race...
...except that it quickly veers into fiction. Bret (this is the fictional Bret) has managed to sire a son with an actress named Jayne Dennis, and when he flunks out of his umpteenth rehab he decides to save himself by marrying her, moving to Connecticut and becoming a regular suburban dad. But Bret brings his demons with him, both figuratively--he can't kick the sauce and he's haunted by his late alcoholic, rageoholic father--and literally: the Connecticut McMansion is assailed by supernatural bogeys, including a real-world incarnation of Patrick Bateman, the titular American Psycho...
...easy to understand why Trish and Andy Olson initially considered suing. But more than money, what the suburban St. Paul, Minn., couple wanted from the hospital was a genuine apology. Their son Owen, 7, born with spina bifida and a range of other birth defects, had already endured more than 40 operations by the time he was taken to the Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota for treatment of a suspected infection last fall. Because the staff on duty that night forgot to attach a catheter to Owen, doctors ended up having to take emergency action several hours later...
...domestic projects. The lifestyle mogul has agreed to extend her court-imposed home confinement three weeks, until Aug. 31, after reports that she violated the terms of her house arrest. Stewart may have irked authorities by unrolling her mat at a nearby hatha yoga class and tooling around her suburban New York estate on a Kawasaki Mule four-wheel-drive vehicle. Imprisoned for lying about a stock trade, Stewart will still be freed in time for the fall debuts of her new TV programs, the syndicated daily talk show Martha and NBC's The Apprentice. In the meantime...