One Last Sam Adams Post! Please!?

That’s what I asked Wm. Steven Humphrey just moments ago. Then I pouted and said, “Everybody else got to post something about Sam Adams…”

“Well, okay little trooper,” he replied, smiling and ruffling my hair. “You can do a Sam Adams post. But just one.”

(You wouldn’t believe some of the things we have to do around here…)

Anyway, little did he know that my Sam Adams post would include Kanye West! Boo-yah!

Mr. West (who recently released his new album 808s and Heartbreak) knows a thing or two about controversy. He appears to crave it just as much as he loathes it. One might say he’s a kind of self perpetuating controversy engine. I saw him last summer at the Rose Garden and was astounded by the crazy diatribe that ended his show. The rant was directed towards critics (like those at Entertainment Weekly) who called his Glow in the Dark tour the “ultimate ego trip.” Of course, the rant just proved their point, creating more media hype, more controversy.

What the hell does any of this have to do with Mayor Sam Adams? Well, Kanye West is also a sage when it comes to controversy, and Adams could learn a thing or two from him about keeping a good attitude when faced with harsh public scrutiny. In fact, the Mayor should start by reading this recent e-mail sent from West to Rolling Stone (caps are Kanye’s, not mine!):

I’M FINE WITH JUST BEING THE BEST ME! I ACCEPT AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY MISTAKES AND LEARN FROM THEM. I WILL NEVER ATTACK NEGATIVE PEOPLE AND THEIR ENERGY…I FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY DON’T THINK FOR THEMSELVES BUT MERELY BASE THEIR OPINIONS ON WHAT THEY WERE TAUGHT. LIFE IS A GAME! IF EVERYONE UNDERSTOOD WHAT I WAS DOING WHEN I WAS DOING IT THERE WOULD BE NO CHALLENGE THEREFORE NO GAME. IT IS THE CRACK IN THE WALL THAT ALLOWS LIGHT TO SHINE THROUGH… SOOO THANK YOU SENSATIONAL NEWS REPORTERS … THANK YOU GOSSIP SITES… THANK YOU BARBER SHOPS… THANK YOU TO ANYONE WHO THRIVES ON THE DOWNFALL OF OTHERS FOR I WILL NOT FALL!!! YOUR PESSIMISM IS MY POWER… YOUR PRESUMPTIONS LEAD TO MY REDEMPTIONS …

And so on, and so forth…

I think it’s best if Adams adopts this attitude towards local media and “recall types” who’d seek to destroy his mayoral term. We need a Mayor as confident and cocky as Kanye West who will, as West puts it in the same e-mail, “SPARK A GENERATION OF THINKERS WHO WILL QUESTION TRADITIONAL THOUGHT UNTIL THEY FIND THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH.” Even if that truth turns out to be that making out with an older dude in the bathroom is totally hot.

Also, if Adams could learn to rap. That probably wouldn’t hurt either.