Kanye remixes: I am the next Steve Jobs

Dear readers, I hadn't thought to mention this before, but I am the next F. Scott, Fitzgerald, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. There's more than a soupcon of Hunter S. Thompson here too.

There's also a touch of Walt Whitman, and I do have my John Updike and Arthur Miller moments. The latter I call Miller Time.

I apologize for such sudden immodesty, but I have been inspired by the great producer, rapper, fashion icon, and Kardashian-impregnator Kanye West.

He, you see, believes he's the next Steve Jobs.

You might think this is a temporary aberration, brought on by a touch too much Maker's Mark.

But, no. When Kanye makes his mark, he sticks to it.

In an interview with The New York Times published Tuesday, the Great Jobsian Creator insists:

I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump. I honestly feel that because Steve has passed, you know, it's like when Biggie passed and Jay-Z was allowed to become Jay-Z.

I sense a certain wistfulness in my audience, wondering what it would have been like if Steve Jobs had also referred to himself in the third person.

I also sense a scoffing sound coming from certain quarters. Especially as West made some similar remarks in February about his carrying the torch for the Apple CEO.

Then, to a culturally sensitive Parisian audience, he also compared himself to Picasso and Walt Disney.

In the Times interview, he offered: "I've been connected to the most culturally important albums of the past four years, the most influential artists of the past ten years. You have like, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Nicolas Ghesquière, Anna Wintour, David Stern."

Yes, he really did say David Stern. I believe that may be the David Stern who has been running the NBA with such grace for many years.

West's musical grace is of the very highest order -- more exalted, I would say, than Stern's stewardship of basketball.

West understands the responsibility that Jobs must have felt in moving the culture forward, when the culture is such a recalcitrant being.

Who would not have dreamed that Jobs had come up with something along the lines of Kanye's own summation of himself: "I will be the leader of a company that ends up being worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers. I understand culture. I am the nucleus."

Being the nucleus is not easy.

One is often subject to fission, in which one's inner core begins to decay, as one's central mind splits into various parts under the strain.

I can only hope this doesn't happen to Kanye West. I hope, indeed, that it hasn't happened already.