“You’re crazier than a fish with titties if you think I’m gonna let you smoke that shit up in my car.”
Who said that, you ask? John Donne? Try again. William Wordsworth? Next. No, even they couldn’t have conceived of a line wrought with such symbolism and genius. It could only have been one man. It was none other than R. Kelly as the complex Sylvester in his masterpiece, Trapped in the Closet. I have never seen a “fish with titties,” but I can imagine it would be pretty wild. That’s the genius of Kelly, plain and simple. He is a master of words. Why else in the first chapter would he rhyme Beretta with dresser? Generic rhyme schemes don’t faze the musical visionary, and like Shakespeare, given the opportunity, Kelly invents his own words. No, he’s always thinking outside the box, outside of the closet.
The “hip-opera” of Kelly’s recycles the same beat throughout all 22 chapters.
It is always repetitive, becoming beautifully trite. The simplicity of the music is juxtaposed with the complexities of the plot and characters. Trapped in the Closet is a tale of sexual escapades, lies, and deceit. Characters like Rufus, the Gay Reverend, Big Man, the well endowed midget, and Rosie, the nosy neighbor, will certainly live on in the annals of history alongside Don Quixote, Hamlet, and Antigone.
A love triangle was not enough for Kelly; that’s why he created a massive love n-gon with no end in sight. Everyone cheats on everyone else and more hardships ensue in this comedy of errors. I mean, Sylvester slept with Cathy who was really Mary who was married to Rufus who is gay and sleeping with Chuck while Mary is friends with Gwen who is married to Sylvester and sleeping with James who is a cop with a wife named Bridget who’s sleeping with a midget. I could use a shower after that.
The latest 10 chapters deal with a secret package veiled in a thick cloud of mystery. What could the package be? Rufus supposedly has it. Perhaps it’s a puppy from the missus just in time for the holiday season! No, maybe just a box of really nice chocolates would be nice. You know, the ones from Switzerland with the descriptions in a foreign language? Yeah, those ones, I like them and I don’t really like chocolate. On second thought, it’s probably just HIV/AIDS. Yeah it’s definitely AIDS. No doubt it my mind now. Looks like everybody has the package now. Similar to AIDS, but in a good way, Trapped in the Closet has no cure and no end in sight. But this is a global pandemic worth embracing.
Some people have expressed the feeling that Trapped in the Closet is a farcical work in the vein of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. Well, if that is the case, I’ll be the first in line to see another doctor. Dr. Kevorkian.
Here’s some advice for you, R. Kelly. I know you’re planning on releasing more chapters in addition to the already cumbersome 22. Don’t do it. Keep them trapped in the closet. Better yet, lock them in the closet, shut the door, walk out of the house, and before you leave to pick up the morning paper, hurl a Molotov cocktail through the nearest window, and watch the entire place go up in a raging inferno. That way, we won’t have to try and forget chapters 23 and on. Because you can’t forget something you never had the chance to remember in the first place.
