My local library is collecting donations for a fund-raising used book sale. What an excellent excuse to go through my towering stacks and cull the tomes that I will never, ever pick up again. I like the idea of owning paperback books by the likes of Katherine Anne Porter, Jack London, Daniel Dafoe, Simone de Beauvoir, and Victor Hugo, but I must admit to myself that if I am someday compelled to re-read, say, Of Human Bondage, I should go to the library and get a version without a cracked spine that doesn’t smell vaguely of mildew. To the donation pile you go!
Yet for all of the fine literature that I rid myself of, I somehow could not stand to part with this:
I am really at a loss to explain how, when, where, and most importantly WHY I acquired Ice Ice Ice: The Extraordinary Vanilla Ice (an “unauthorized biography” published in 1991). It definitely came into my possession sometime before college, and I assure you that my interest in the book and its subject was purely in snide jest and not out of fandom for Vanilla Ice, whose contrived rap-pop is the sort of bubblegum bullshit that I had long evolved past. In fact, this seriously great picture sums up how I have always felt about Vanilla Ice: the girl on the right is outrightly laughing in his face, while the guy on the left is looking at Ice like he’s a total fucking idiot.
Dear lord. He looks like a newbie in a yoga class.
For whatever reason, I couldn’t bring myself to donate this book to the library without reading it just one last time. Actually, I don’t believe that I have ever read this book before, or maybe I’ve blocked it out. The book’s introduction seeks to establish Vanilla Ice as a musical act worthy of an unauthorized biography by extolling his musical hits (“Ice Ice Baby” and “Play That Funky Music”) and, based on these successes, comparing him to Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson. Then, the book launches into some very alarming diction:
That totally reminds me of the time when my seventh-grade math teacher tried to “speak our language” by repeated saying the word “awesome.” Who could have possibly written this, you wonder? Why, famed celebrity biographer Mark Bego:
The first chapter hits all of the burning questions that fans must have about Vanilla Ice (who is alternately called both “Vanilla” and “Ice.”) What was he like growing up? (He was ‘a kid that grew up in the ghetto’.) What’s his real name? (“I’m from the street — that’s why I don’t give out my name.” How does he feel about his audience? (He has the “ability to cure his audience like a rapping witch doctor.”)
The rest of the book expounds on these themes, revealing that Ice claims to be “part Apache. I am also part Cuban, but other than that I’m really not sure.” Surely any self-respecting unauthorized biographer would investigate these claims a little further, but the book quickly moves on to Vanilla’s realization that other white people couldn’t dance and rap as “naturally” as he could due to his “ghetto” upbringing. But the ghetto wasn’t all cold kickin’ it and rockin’ the house. Having been stabbed 5 times and forced to conceal his true identity to keep old gang rivals from finding him, the Iceman would caution any of his fans who are thinking of joining a gang: “Negative! I’d say, straight from the heart: stay off the streets. It ain’t cool. The gang stuff ain’t cool, take it from Vanilla Ice.” Since he was in it, he knows what he’s talking about.
The book does not shy away from the many, many controversies surrounding Vanilla. After all, this is an “unauthorized” biography. But Vanilla claims that he never called himself “the Elvis of Rap,” he never lied about what high school he went to, he never distorted his Motocross accomplishments, he never dissed tour-mate MC Hammer, he hid his identity to protect his mother, and his raps aren’t soft or inauthentic. Over and over.
Jesus. After 99 pages of this crap, whatever lunacy that compelled me to hold onto this book melted away into a puddle of water. Sort of like Ice did.
