"What's Beef?" (Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death double LP...though it'd've been a better single)

(originally posted on The SNR Isthmus)

What's beef? As defined by prominent wordsmith Biggie Smalls aka The Notorious B.I.G., beef is when you need two gats to go to sleep. No such problem for me; I sleep well with a wiffleball bat near my bed, or the maple bat when my roommate's threatening to put toothpaste in my ear while I sleep.

In a loose sense of the word, though (and not the sense that applies to beef tenderloins, the double beef burger, or, God help us, beefaroni), I got beef. Pounds of it. Carcasses, even. Here's my beef list as currently constituted:

the EasyInternet Cafe in Times Square (you bitches owe me $2)

the New York Daily News (y'all owe me like $250 from an article I wrote for you in 2003. seriously. gimme the loot or, um, I'll keep buying the Post?)

Dan McCoy (ongoing, but on a low simmer)

Andy Rooney (you know what I don't like, Andy? you.)

Mickey Rooney

Kanye West (it's complicated. y'know that song "Gold Digger"? My verse got cut from it, only because I'm a better rapper than Kanye. But so are you, you, and you.)

2Pac (possibly squashed. depends on status of Cuba rumors.)

Hormel Chili

the "city" of Bridgeport, CT (barred from entering? I didn't want to enter anyway.)

Kelly Ripa

Western Beef

Beef Helper (y'all got nothing on Chicken Helper.)

Ray Kroc (posthumous beef.)

Alexander Pope (stop entering my dreams all satirically and shit, ya dead English poet. I don't care what lock got raped, and The Dunciad sucked.)

Paper clips

Cigarette taxes

Your sister

You