Happy Birthday Eminem! Oh, and Me Too I Guess

Remember when we all asked for the Real Slim Shady to please stand up? We were teeny boppers and Eminem was the coolest CD in our walkmans. Well, I'm no longer (as) tiny and Eminem is no longer that awkwardly cool white kid who's talking really fast instead of singing.

I like to believe that I can muster a stare of equal intensity.
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Much to my disbelief, Eminem turned THIRTY NINE FLIPPING YEARS OLD TODAY. What the what? Is our beloved Slim Shady really that close to the big 4-0? Not that it matters. He's still rockin' it as hard as he did in the '90s; I must admit that I've listened to "Lighters" an obscene number of times in the past few months (including at this very moment).

Eminem AND Bruno Mars. That's gangsta bliss.

I like to think that sharing a birthday with Eminem gives me... I don't know, a thousand gangster** points? I might not be from the wrong side of town, but that that doesn't leave me completely devoid of hoodrat qualities (although that last sentence might have done it). Okay, I'm sort of totally a country girl, but I would still hang out with Eminem and lay down phat beats and engage in other wild and crazy hoodrat shenanigans.

Now don't tell me that I'm sipping on the haterade, because I actually think that Eminem's sweet. He started rapping at the age of 14 (I'm pretty sure I was just discovering MTV and thinking that Room Raiders was super-scandalous at that age) and dropped out of high school when he was 17. Okay, I don't condone the education-fail, but he sure was progressive with his career.  He raps like an utter champ and has a beat-your-ass-but-perhaps-in-a-friendly-manner persona. I mean, doesn't he just lose some of the scary when he's wearing glasses?

Bespectacled gangsta. Charming?
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Well, that's my homage to rap star with whom I share that special October 17th hoodrat bond. And here's a classic video to end on.

**Sometimes I just can't help but use correct spellings. Judge me.
***Also, all the info in here came from Wikipedia. Call it research.