Mad Dad

All dads are conflicted — most just want to be kids but have to be adults — but few have do the fighting with themselves in public like Marshall Bruce Mathers III, AKA rapper Eminem. This week's Objet d'eBay is a 12" promotional vinyl single for the father-of-three's1999 song Role Model.

Like many of Eminem's works, the song can be heard as a mid-career (unless he really starts it all up again) near-curse of those who slavishly try to live their life according to the outlandishness of acts imagined in his lyrics, not being able to see beyond the caricatures he celebrates in rhyme. Once again (always), he seems to be caught between the dreams of his youth to escape the grind of no father hopelessness into celebrity and to escape the 24-hour job as celebrity to be father of three — one biological daughter and two girls "adopted" because of the inability of their mothers to give them a settled home.

While it's been nearly four years since he commanded the stage he does seem to be bringing his conflicts back to the public marketplace, releasing both some new sounds and a book in which he paints his angst, The Way I Am.