Welp, I promised y'all. https://twitter.com/booksandbbq/status/1286521918800244737?s=20

Twenty years ago, I turned 18. My hometown was 80 miles from Myrtle Beach, so, in high school, we'd often drive down to the Hose of Blues to see concerts. In late June, my friends note that Vanilla Ice is playing there, on my birthday. We buy tickets, mostly for the (proto)memes.

At this point, V-Ice (as he as then known) was doing Korn/Limp Bizkit-inspired NuMetal. All my friends figured it'd be bad, but cheesy fun, so you know, cool.

My neighbor Courtney and I ride down together. We stop at the mall and buy cigars, because 18.

When we get to the House of Blues, the rest of the gang is there, and there's a sign by the ticket window: "Due to unforeseen circumstances, tonight's show will not be a rock show, as advertised. It will be a rap show. Those wanting refunds will be given them."
How lucky were we?

So we get there, there's like 80 people in a venue that holds over a thousand. There's some DJ comes out for like 10 minutes, rather than an opening act. Then, the Iceman himself cometh. He just wanders out, doesn't do the hype-man thing, just talks to us.

"The band's equipment trailer broke an axle in Atlanta. We know a lot of people were looking forward to that kinda show, but we're still gonna have a lot of fun. Y'all ready? Y'ALL READY?"

We actually start getting hyped up. The DJ lays down a beat. And Ice...starts rapping.

Now, I know nothing about rap music, honestly. I don't know what's good or bad and didn't then. But the dude rapped, steady, without stopping, for a good 45 minutes. The DJ kept switching up music, sometimes one of Ice's songs (which he would rap) sometimes just some beats

with him free styling over them. Forty-five minutes, non-stop. He finally gets around to "Ice Ice Baby" and all 80, 85 of us go crazy and are having a blast. After that, he takes a long pull from a beer and starts catching his breath. Then...

"Who here thinks they can rap?"

Like twenty dudes, some the kind of white guy who's really into rap, some that redneck guy who just wants to look cool, some just fratbros trying to show off for the girls, and Michael raise their hands. So, he pulls them all on stage.

Now, let me tell y'all about Michael.

He's 16 at this point, wearing bib overalls, brogans, and coke-bottle glasses held on by a purple neoprene strap. He's got a bad high school beard.

So, he gets up on stage with the rest. Ice sets them up in a tournament style.

Also, by this point, a lot of college girls had

gotten on stage and were dancing. Naturally.

So, Michael's turn for his 30 second rap comes around. His opponent tries to mock how he looks, but then Michael goes full 8 Mile on the dude. Everybody's jaws are on the floor. Suddenly everybody is losing it for Michael.

He just starts murdering everybody he gets in the rap battle against. I mean, it's not that he's good at rapping, but he's not bad, the other dudes are awful, and he's so un-self-conscious that he's just obliterating everyone and having the time of his life.

So Michael, in bib overalls, brogans, and coke-bottle glasses, wins the freestyle tournament running away. Ice gives him a bro hug and says "Who wants to hear this dude and me rap some?" EVERYBODY.

So they do like a 5 minute freestyle duet and Ice says goodnight.

So Michael goes backstage and we all hang around, figuring he's getting an autograph or something. 30 minutes later, he's still not back out. This was pre-texting, only like half of us had phones, keep in mind. So, one of the group decides to hang around and wait for him, the

rest of us go to the Plantation Pancake House on King's Highway, North Myrtle Beach, where we always went after a show.

The friend who waited around and Michael show up at the pancake house at about 2am, a good hour after we'd left. Michael waves at us from outside. He shows us

an autographed case of Heineken Ice gave him. He comes inside, has some food, and tells us how him and Ice just chilled, telling stories, for a while. Ice offers him a beer and Micheal says "Nah man, I'm underage & a Christian, I don't drink" and Ice was so taken by the candor he

just signed an unopened case and said, "for you, for being a stand-up dude" and, last I heard, Michael kept that case for years to come.

And that was my 18th birthday. That's a true story.

Some of y'all might be asking, "What were high schoolers doing out at 2am?"

The 90s were wild, man.