Play That Funky Music, White Boy

The first boy I ever kissed looked just like Vanilla Ice.

Just shorter.

And a little heavier.

Okay maybe he didn't look a thing like Vanilla Ice except for his hair and one shaved-into-stripes eyebrow.

And the Hammer Pants and Z Cavaricci shirts.

My first kiss was at the end of our Homecoming Dance, freshman year. I think a Poison song was playing.

I won't lie, the Vanilla Ice resemblance mostly did it for me. He was hot ya'll. In a yummy older bad boy even though he was soooo a poseur bad boy way.

My Vanilla Ice crush lasted for many years. As a grad student, I'd get sucked into the Vh1 Behind The Music episode about him every single time. I'd be in the middle of some serious lit review on some 18th century Criminological theory...and I'd hear his gangsta even though he's never been in the hood voice, and that was it. I was glued to the TV for an hour.

Before I left Florida State, my friend Kim took me to some backwoods bar and we stood in line with a bunch of other losers big Ice fans. Imagine my surprise when my fantasy in the flesh Rip Van Winkle Vanilla Ice took the stage, screaming and raging with some "hate yo mama" music. Vanilla Ice had gone death metal, ya'll. Who knew?

But in a scary bad boy who probably does bad things way, the new Vanilla Ice was pretty hot. Even without the striped eyebrow.