The always provocative Jim Goad takes a considered view of Vanilla Ice’s career.
A little over a dozen years ago, a dozen million people purchased the first album by the high-cheekboned motocross racer born as Robbie Van Winkle. Mr. Ice Ice Baby was rightfully celebrated because he took a rough-hewn genre of urban mating songs known as “hip-hop,” made it palatable and digestible to countless real people instead of a handful of criminally inclined coconut-throwers, and exposed Middle America to the unbridled joy of what the kids call “street dancing.”
Yet like Icarus, our hero flew too close to the sun and his wax wings melted. He fluttered down to earth level, only to be picked apart and gnawed at by the same jealous poopstains who’d previously purchased his albums and shaved their eyebrows as homage. Mr. Van Winkle is left to sit in the wings as talentless wiggersicles such as Eminem temporarily convince America that they are something more than the modern version of blackface.
People always think I’m joking when I speak of my fondness for Ice’s music or when I express my belief that Cool as Ice is one of American cinema’s meisterwerks. Yet I am utterly sincere when I assert that he is a vessel of intergalactic higher learning, and that his cometlike spurt of stardom will one day be placed in its proper messianic context.
Vanilla Ice relcaimed his dignity on MTV when his “Ice Ice Baby” (or whatever) video was being banned by said Music Television network forever by a panel of judges that included Greg Dulli groupie Janeane Garafalo and “Who’s the Man?” star Denis “the cure for comedy” Leary. Ice appeared as if being a good sport about it, then proceeded to smash their on-stage TV to bits with a bat and wipe the smug smiles off the faces of the panel whose claims to fame now rival Ice’s in the public’s “what were we thinking?” slot of celebrities. I don’t know about Ice’s movies, but imo, his VJing skills are unrivalled.
Wasn’t Jon Stewart also on this panel?
Today’s MTV fixtures are tomorrow’s laughing stock (on MTV). That said, I really liked the Denis Leary angry-fireman TV show on Fox cable (which was pretty similiar to the Denis Leary angry-policeman TV show on ABC).
Yeah, Stewart was on that show. He can now be seen hawking books by Pat Buchannan on something called “The Daily Show.” The 4th comic was Chris Kattan, ex-SNL, who will no doubt be seen on “Blind Date” any day now.
http://www.homunculus.com/articles/garofalojaneane/garofaloap990507.html
“coconut throwers”??? What’s up with that?
correction, my fair lady, Jim wrote “criminally inclined cononut throwers”. Please, take it up with him, he’d love to hear from you.