How could I know it then, as it happened, that this would be my most distinct memory of being a young boy in Ridgewood, New Jersey? After all, we were too young to think of memory. Or even of respecting the dead, for that matter. The older kid-- who we deemed "cool" solely because he was older-- came up with the idea. He'd even tied the rope around the neck of the bird, which lay slumped in the wet leaves by the roadside. But he couldn't commit the final act, leaving it instead for someone younger and more impressionable. Someone who wanted to be seen as cool by the older kid.

Someone who wasn't me. My best friend and next-door neighbor stepped up, grabbed the string, whirled the bird. I believe he yelled, "Lasso!" just as the body separated from the head and flew aloft in an NFL Films-style slow-motion arc. With onlookers mouths' agape, it descended through the sunroof a yellow Le Car that had come to a stop at the nearby intersection. The denouement wasn't enough to instill laughter, fear, the flight response, or anything else related to emotional shock or physical paralysis.

The car door flung open, as car doors have a tendency to do in such moments, and a tall, hysterical, mini-skirted woman flung herself from the small cab. Her long brown hair danced in the wind, and her white blouse rippled like the main sheet of a jibing sailboat. But that tight skirt kept her legs from pumping hard enough, so that despite our delayed reaction, escaping was relatively easy. Once safe, the other emotions kicked in. We laughed in disbelief, then felt fear that she recognized one of us, and finally "broke up," fleeing to our respective homes to avoid capture and reduce suspicion, as all smart suburban guerrillas will do.

I bet Paul Barman had an experience like this. Not exactly, but something like it. Everyone who grew up in Ridgewood had at least one. But then again, like most aspiring rappers these days, Paul left Ridgewood to attend Brown University. So maybe he was always smart enough to avoid such inhuman behavior as ours. But Prince Paul must have heard something he liked because he decided to produce this EP.

Thus, the opening track, "Joy of Your World," begins with a stuttered beat that rises in volume before breaking into a steady, unchallenging groove, accompanied by a leisurely clarinet and harp swipes. A lounge piano is haphazardly beaten during Barman's rhymes, but-- in typical Prince Paul fashion-- that's all you get. You shouldn't, wouldn't and don't buy this album for fresh, inventive beats.

The first six lines are a perfect representation of the "not so enigmatic as the press seems to think" MC Paul Barman (see the right column for a quick breakdown):

Lines:                               Means that Paul Barman:
"My brain makes the earth dark"      ...is arrogant
"but I'm hung like a birthmark"      ...and self-deprecating!
"I like to suck toes"                ...is a sexually repressed
"Yours secrete fructose"             [change "repressed" to "disturbed"]
"I make paintings based on grids"    ...likes to draw [see back page of Spin]
"Just like Chuck Close"              ...pretends he's erudite [it's pretentious]

What saves Paul Barman is that his lyrics, while sometimes offputting, are often very funny. "Joy of Your World," for instance, is a slight parody of Lauryn Hill's "To Zion." During the chorus, he sings, "Now the joy/ Of your world/ Is Paul Barman," immediately followed by a high pitched "beautiful, beautiful Barman."

He's funniest, however, when rapping about sex-- "I'll still be rhymin' when I'm in your hymen.../ I'm a hunter-gatherer, a cunter-latherer"-- or lack thereof-- "Those ancient Hamptonites/ They're always like, 'I can't tonight.'" Reading those first two lines, you might be slightly disturbed. But given his obvious lack of seriousness, as well as the frequency with which he criticizes his sexual inadequacies, Barman won't have you crying, "Misogyny!" as Eminem would. Rather, it's just the subconscious musings of an Ivy League rapper whose distorted-speed flow sounds like a warped cassette in a broken tape deck.

Like wrapping a string around a dead bird, spinning it through the air, and seeing its body fly into the sunroof of a Le Car, MC Paul Barman is odd, funny, and mostly harmless. The main difference is that, in a few months, he won't be decapitated-bird funny. He'll just be ha-ha funny.

-Ryan Kearney