Wake n Bake

In which Erin informs you of the best movies to blaze to

We might as well face it–as long as it’s not happening to us, failure is hilarious.  It’s often uncomfortable, especially when executed with a lack of confidence–like inexperienced comics bombing in a silent nightclub, stammering over their bits, their sweat affecting the room’s ambient humidity.  But by Jove if it isn’t like salsa with ghost peppers–it hurts like hell, but we lap it up anyway.  It is precisely this strange human behavior that spawned “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and the website Failblog.org.

Of course, some things are complete failures even when they turned out exactly how the artist wanted it–and these generally induce less feelings of guilt when we laugh at them.  Trapped in the Closet, by R. Kelly, is one of these.  It is singularly terrible.  This “series” of sorts is presented with baffling bravado, with a conviction that borders on delusional, considering how half-assed a lot of it is (including the rhymes–“clothes” doesn’t rhyme with “door.”)  And you’re never quite sure if R. Kelly is taking this completely seriously, or whether or not he expects you to do so.  Early on in the series, he sings the words, “If you can believe it, it gets deeper from here.”  Really?  Because we’re pretty sure that’s the only viable direction.

Trapped in the Closet concerns a guy named Sylvester who wakes up in a lady’s house after an alcohol-fuelled night of clubbing–a lady that is not his wife!  He doesn’t remember everything that happened last night, but before he can piece it all together, the sexy lady tells him to hide in the closet because her husband’s coming home.  He gets found out (duh), but it turns out the lady’s husband has a secret of his own. He’s also sleeping with someone else–a man!  (Sylvester’s quaint shock at homosexuality is ripe for laughs, given R. Kelly’s predilection for pissing on minors.  And his decision to actually name the series “Trapped in the [Fucking] Closet.”)  From here, the series goes… well, in basically whatever direction it damn well pleases.  We eventually meet Sylvester’s girlfriend, her brother Twan, a cop, Rosy the Nosy Neighbor…  One odd thing about this series that that its tone actually becomes progressively less serious, which generally works out just fine if you’re in an herbal mood and there’s a gathering of like-minded people.

At the time of this writing, there are 23 “chapters” in the series that each last a few minutes.  (R. Kelly has publicly stated that he has more material planned, which means that nobody loves him enough to tell him that this was and still is the worst idea ever.)  The entire thing is sung–an R&B opera buffa of sorts.  But there aren’t any choruses, memorable hooks, or strong musical themes.  R. Kelly hasn’t even provided us with a variety of songs.  It’s the same beat each chapter, played over and over, with R. Kelly squishing in a bunch of words into each musical phrase.  (There are many dramatic players, but anyone who isn’t R. Kelly simply lip synchs under his vocal recordings, which leads to hilarious results–for instance, his approximation of a white lady.)

Some of the lyrics are strange:  “I close my mouth and swallow spit/As I think to myself, ‘This is some deep shit.’”  (Spoiler:  It’s not.)  “I bought you some pears./I’m gonna eat this chicken.”

And then some of the lyrics are straight-up laughable:  “And that’s when I started goin crazy/Like I was tryin to give her a baby.”  “She’s three months pregnant./And then we all say, ‘Oh, shit!’”

But many of these lyrics are just dry and explanatory:  “Next thing you know a call comes through on my cell phone/I tried my best to quickly put it on vibrate…”  “I’m in the closet like, man, what the fuck is going on?”  I’ve read office memos that were more compelling.  What’s more, they exhibit so much clutter.  The banality of R. Kelly’s words require unnecessary clarifications and details to beef up the lyrical content:  “Please sit down in this chair.”  “Why do you have that smile upon your face?”  Really?  If your fictional ideas are this boring, why even bother trying to illustrate them by rhyming words (let alone paying people to act them out?)  Oh, that’s another thing; the lyrics will often spell out the most obvious character action as it’s happening on screen–for example, “She blows smoke,” “He checks his watch,” “She answers the phone,” etc.  This is much more tolerable if you’re stoned out of your gourd, of course, but the absurdity will not be lost on you.

Even though each chapter is incredibly thin, they’re already much longer than they need to be, all because of those damn lyrics!  R. Kelly’s idea of dramatic tension is to frustrate the hell out of his audience. To accomplish this, half of the lyrics are non-descriptive placeholders that don’t move the story.  Here is my approximation of these moments:

“You better start talking right now!”
“Alright, alright, let me calm down.”
“If you don’t tell me right now, I’m gonna get mad!”  (character waves around Beretta for the umpteenth time)
“Well, you still haven’t told me whatever from 5 minutes ago.”
“Wait a minute, let me think.”   

The amount of time this story-telling tactic sucks up is considerable when there’s at least one of these moments every chapter.

But I’m telling you–despite all the shit I’ve just talked about Trapped in the Closet, it is worth a baked watch.  The whole thing is absolutely fucking ridiculous, and trust me, the laughs come big and easy with this one.   The colorful characters, meandering plot, and atrocious dialog make for a wonderful compliment to your evening kush.  And you won’t have to worry about walking away with any recognizable song stuck in your head.