Getting With The Zero

I was feeling a little under the weather today, so I decided to work from home. What does that mean? Well, I actually do work, probably more than usual since I have nobody to schmooze with and I don't have a commute where I can't work. Putting that aside though, there is some crucial TV with Saved by the Bell on TBS from 8AM to 9AM and, of course, Maury from 1PM to 3PM on wherever it airs (I think it's CW50 here in DC). I've expressed my love for Maury many times. The rest of the day is a mish-mash of History, Discovery, and whatever else looks good (Saved by the Bell is on again from 3 to 4 on The N, but it's hard to go there after two hours of paternity tests and cursing). SoapNet starts showing 90210 at 5, so that's the sign that your day is winding down. The worst part of the day is always around 4PM, where there's nothing on TV if you don't watch Oprah and you get to that point where you realize you're going to work past 5 because there is no time constraint at home. Right at 4 today, I was flipping through various movie channels when I came upon it. I saw the listing and I knew right away that I had to watch, a movie that I had only seen once, which is one more time than almost everyone else in the world.

Cool as Ice.

Yes, I said it. I watched Cool as Ice. For the second time. Let me give you a synopsis of the film. Vanilla Ice (a year after his explosion on the scene) plays Johnny Van Owen, a bad boy who comes from nowhere with no family. He seems to exist to just rap (badly) and dance (weirdly) at clubs, which is where he sees a goody-goody girl and decides he wants her. He rides around on cheesy Japanese motorcycles with his gang and no parents like him. He goes after said girl and, much to her parents' chagrin, she begins to actually like him. But get this... See, the girl's father was a cop who helped take down other corrupt cops and then went into the witness protection program. Now the bad guys have found him and it's up to Vanilla Ice to save the day. It's like Rebel Without A Cause meets My Blue Heaven with the production values of Plan 9 From Outer Space. Also, the director, David Kellogg has one of the great IMDB resumes, only directing this movie, Inspector Gadget, and lots and lots of Playboy videos.

But I feel Ice! I totally used to live only to bust sucker MCs and ride my neon yellow Yamaha. I used to start every sentence with either "Yo" or "Yup, yup". I used to have dark soulless eyes (like a doll's eye!) and say everything in a monotone. I used to be a white kid who had weird designs shaved into my high top fade with frosted tips. I used to wear overalls that had so many colors that it looked like Sherwin Williams had puked on them.

Seriously though, we actually liked this guy back in 1990. We were legitimately concerned with whether we should listen to him or MC Hammer at any given time. We didn't laugh because his name was so stupid. We were tired of Poison and Motley Crue and Def Leppard and, no matter what we think of N.W.A. now, gangsta rap wasn't hot in the suburbs until The Chronic. We think back to the greatness of 1992 with the emergence of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Dre and Snoop, but those albums were made all the greater by what we were subjecting ourselves to prior to their release.

The next time you wonder why kids these days listen to whatever crap is popular on the radio, you remember that we took Robert Van Winkle seriously for a time. We allowed him to be paid an even million dollars to star in his own movie. We thought phrases like "Word to your mother" were badass. Ain't nobody innocent in this whole thing. I'm not ashamed of what I liked when I was younger! So what if I watched tons of Saved by the Bell and 90210? Oh... crap... Well, um... Yo, peace out!