When I heard, the other day, that Gucci Mane had been committed to a mental institution, and Charles Hamilton is currently undergoing a mental evaluation to determine whether or not he's fit to stand trial for trying to beat up a cop out in Ohio somewhere, I was concerned that there wasn't a third example of a rapper being officially declared batshit that would make it a trend, per the New York Times' rule (which I also try to live by)about there having to be three separate, distinct instances of any given phenomenon in order to declare it a trend. Then I was reminded that they finally tossed DMX in a looney bin down in Arizona, after arresting him like a million times, finding umpteen dead dogs buried in the back yard, that time he went off on a judge in court, that time he made up a fake name to check into a hospital, supposedly to avoid paying the bill, that time he was pretending to be an FBI agent, so on and so forth.

It's like it somehow just occurred to 5-0 that they could start throwing these rappers in mental institutions, rather than arresting them over and over again. There may have even been a secret memo that went out, like that time the FBI tried to convince NWA that it's illegal to make a song about killing the police, even though I'm pretty sure it doesn't say anything about that in the Constitution. They probably figured NWA was black and hence didn't pay much attention in high school, if they were there at all, except for Ice Cube, who I heard was secretly middle class. To their credit, I bet Dr. Dre and Eazy E were shaking in their boots, or whatever gangbangers wore in LA circa the mid '80s, until Ice Cube explained that to them.

My guess is that 5-0 can no longer afford to follow rappers around, like hot chicks at the mall, and constantly arrest them for bullshit crimes like having a gun without any bullets in it, and a shedload of drugs that were clearly for personal use. I heard in some places, they can hardly afford to have very many cops on staff. If you call 911 over in East St. Louis, and it's for anything other than the most severe of crimes, they just hang up on you. If it's a rape-rape in progress, they might even explain to you that you're best off not fighting it and letting the guy finish. If he does, and he gets any of it on you, maybe you can bring it down to the hospital the next day and they can run it through a database of known sex offenders.

I happen to know, from reading an interview with a pr0n chick (for the purposes of feminism), that once 5-0 declares you batshit, they can just toss you in jail for no apparent reason, and they can keep you there for as long as you want. There's some law, or legal classification or some such, called 5150 where, even if you haven't actually done anything illegal, 5-0 can toss you in the pokey, for fear that you might cause harm to yourself or others. They could just be like, "That motherfucker looks crazy. We'd better send him to jail." And then once you get in there, they can give you some sort of bullshit test, like in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, to determine if you need to be permanently committed. Just because it didn't seem crazy at all to you, with that little red beaver right there in front of you, the fact that she was 15 notwithstanding.

And therein lies the rub. No R. Kelly. Is there anyone in rap music that doesn't look at least kinda crazy. And I'm just talking about how these people look, mind you, not anything they've actually done. Walking around with their pants hanging off of their asses, wearing ridonkulous jewelry that looks like it might have belonged to someone's grandma, and getting all kinds of weird shit tattooed on your face could all be construed as signs of a crazy person by someone who wasn't aware that those are all important parts of a creative subculture. Then there's the music itself, which genuinely is crazy. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the process of declaring Gucci Mane crazy involved listening to that song "Lemonade," or whatever it's called. On paper, I'm sure those lyrics come off like the rantings of one of the crazy homeless guys who sleep on the HVAC grates outside the Kiel Center, and carry around a big pickle jar to take a shit in. No homo. Jay-Z would probably be considered the most normal, reasonable rapper of them all, and he's constantly referring to himself as Jay Hova.

This could be bad news, if the economy continues on the same course it's been on for the past couple of years now. It's already been revealed, on an episode of Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, that there really is a such thing as FEMA Camps. We were all kinda wondering how they were going to round us up and relocate us there, since that's ostensibly illegal. Maybe tossing all of these rappers in mental institutions is part of the plan. Just like how, if you're an Arab, they can ship you off to Gitmo and hold you there for a while, if not indefinitely, even if you haven't done anything, to see where you fit into the matrix. Don't be surprised if you start seeing a lot more black dudes committed to mental institutions, just because they look, sound and act like crazy people.

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