That. Was. Awesome.

I love cable. Today, VH1 treated me to a 1/2 hour of R. Kelly's Ghetto Opera, "Trapped In The Closet." I had caught the original performace of Chapter 3 (or was it Chapter 4) on the VMAs, but today I was exposed to chapters 6-8. The basic plotline involves adultery, guns, and every character being voiced by R himself. To bring you up to speed Sylvester went home with some lady he thought was single, her husband comes home early and Sylvester hides in the closet until his ringing cell phone gives him away. The jilted husband gets on his phone and calls his lover, some dude named Chuck. For some reason R Kelly pulls out a gun because he can't handle the madness. He then calls his wife and a dude answers the phone, prompting him to rush home and get a speeding ticket from a dude who ends up being his wifes lover, who returns to the scene of his love crimes and for some reason holds Sylvester and his wife at gunpoint. The gun goes off, shooting Sylvester's wife's brother (who just walked in the door after getting out of prison) and the cop goes home to his wife and declares, "you got something up your sleeve." The Chicago Sun-Times tells me that apparently, more madness awaits in the upcoming chapters.

The weirdest of the new twists and turns involves a white Southern woman cheating on her African-American husband with an African-American midget who defecates in his pants when the cuckolded spouse, a city police officer, pulls his gun. As in the past, Kelly sings the roles of all the characters himself with an impressive show of vocal bravura. Different actors lip-sync in the video, while Kelly plays the role of one cheating "player" (Sylvester) and the narrator.

I, for one, can't wait.