I remember this one night when I met up with a guy I was totally crazy about, and as we sat and ordered drinks, Kanye West’s “Stronger” began to play. It had been recently released and my crush was way into it- in fact, I think every time I got in his car Kanye was there with us too.

My sister and I danced to “Stronger” like we had completely lost our sanity, while outside a hotel in Mexico City. I guess being stranded for over 24 hours might make you do things like that.

All this to say that I have some great memories that involve West’s music.  The man is talented, and I respect the work he does as an artist. But I’ve never really been able to respect him as an artist. People who demand, command, and use their loud voice to claim authority over other artists and people, in general, well, it makes that person look less like a decent creative and more like a huge jerk. And Kanye West, in his recent NY Times interview, which you can read in full for maximum laughs and context for this post, sounded like one bizarre jerk. After reading it, I realized something; here’s a celebrity who never ceases to surprise me and at the same time is exactly what I expect. So these are some of my favorite highlights from the interview:

“You know, if Michael Jordan can scream at the refs, me as Kanye West, as the Michael Jordan of music can go and say, “This is wrong.” 

I’d love to hear if Jordan enjoys the correlation drawn here.

“I don’t know if this is statistically right, but I’m assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven’t won against a white person.”

Actually, you have won against white people, but I think I get where you’re coming from. You still see major racial divides in music and you’d like to see that change. So why not say that instead of being inflammatory and alienating in trying to get your point across? Just a thought.

“I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things.”

Everyone, just resign your position and ballots for any music award ceremony ever. Kanye West has got this.

While we’re on the topic of music awards, he’s really not sorry about what he did to Taylor Swift at the MTV Music Awards (yeah, I know I thought we were over talking about it too). Taylor Swift’s song “Mean” still stands. This is how he feels about following his instinct up on that stage, hijacking her award moment that night:

“It’s only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It’s only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That’s all it is.”

I get it. Being rude is awesome and totally acceptable if you’re just following your instinct. This awesomeness you speak of sounds, really awesome. I hope I get to be exceedingly rude in front of millions of people someday.

“There’s no opera sounds on this new album, you know what I mean? It’s just like, super low built. I’m still, like, slightly a snob, but I completely removed my snob heaven songs; I just removed them altogether.

I really can’t wait to hear your new track, “I Am a God”.

“Yeah, respect my trendsetting abilities. Once that happens, everyone wins; fresh kids win; creatives win; and company wins.”

Well, Kanye, since you’re the new Steve Jobs, I’ll be waiting with baited breath to see what you might create next. Or whose wardrobe you might throw out and replace with clothing items that win at all things.

Alright, that’s all for today, I need to go for a run and listen to “College Dropout” and by run I mean a run for coffee.

P.S. Oh, and Kanye, your album comes out next week, and I’ll definitely listen to it. In fact, I might listen to it as I ride the escalator in Barnes and Noble and think to myself, “Imma own this place.”