Perhaps it’s pointless to sweep the dust off of this one, but my conscience dictates that I say something, preferably in a “Blog” format:

Late last night, in an overworked haze and going over Steve Jobs’ business profile during a long render when, above the pages of my tome, I spied an E! Channel rerun of Saturday Night Live from early 1991. Joe Montenga briefly and unenthusiastically introduced the musical act, Vanilla Ice. So I put down my book and watched - if only to bolster my self esteem by watching a young dope at the top of the world, completely unaware that his dream is not only about to be merely broken, but shattered, shit upon by a very ill dog, prodded with a stick by a toddler, set ablaze, and finally fucked by a sailor.

My own sense of schadenfreude was mangled by how truly abhorrent the performance was. Had I really forgotten the sheer horror of the Vanilla Ice phenomenon? His backup dancers leaped in place to ill-conceived choreography; I had never seen such boredom on the faces of men. Boredom so intense that it rivaled the sadness of war, starvation, and oppression. It was the sort of boredom - at its apex, of course - that conveyed honest and deep regret. These men had sold their souls to the devil, and now they were stuck dancing for him. Meanwhile, Satan himself fronted this blasting disaster, with a smug self-assurance reserved for an acquaintance’s dickish boyfriend with the “pimped-out” Tercel and the part-time job at Sunglasses Hut. “Word To Your Mother” emblazoned in sequins on his back, Vanilla leaped in place as well. But his leaps were neither of joy nor boredom: they were sinister yet empty, as if each movement were a sloppy implementation of some master plan involving the End of Times and “Cool as Ice.”

Much like a kidney stone, it was truly painful and then passed, leaving a lesser, but still apparent, pain. How did America let this happen? Sure, his success was short, but were we so blinded by ephemera that we couldn’t see what a douchebag this guy was? Now we ridicule him, but to think that we once celebrated him is surreal, terrifying, and extremely discouraging. I suppose that humanity makes mistakes if only to learn from them, but we really dropped the ball harder and further than we ever have, and hopefully ever will.

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