A Castle in Brooklyn, or Hip-Hop Heaven

            When Whitney Houston died of a drug overdose some weeks back, her passing inspired the sort of public mourning that makes my skin crawl. I mean, what was so great about her that her passing was any more significant than any other stiff listed in the obits that day?  And, more to the point: did you seriously grieve at her passing? Were you filled with melancholy? I was dubious on all points. She led a train wreck of life, and her death seemed little more than TMZ fodder. So, why is it that I now find myself participating in public mourning over the passing of Adam “MCA” Yauch? Good question. [continued after the jump]

           As a professor of first year writing, I am constantly searching for ways to bridge the gap between myself and my students. I mean, I’m cool, right? I leave my shirt untucked over designer jeans. I pomade my hair in ways inconsistent with the laws of gravity. I look at you with eyes framed by red Ray-Bans. I wear sneakers; in fact, it’s all about the sneakers. I could button and tuck and khaki and tie, but the sneakers on my feet always belie the fact that I’m down, that I’d rather be causin’ a ruckus and raisin’ the roof, that I’ve spilled more cheap beer than you’ve ever drank, ya’ little ankle-biter.

Still, every once in a blue moon one of those little ankle-biters questions my cred.  In fact, a few semesters back, some socially-retarded, red-headed kid who had yet to finish up puberty audaciously poked at my sense of style: “You can tell that you really think you’re cool…but you’re not. I mean look at those shoes.”

It was that last part that left me stunned.  “My shoes? These are Stan Smith Adidas.  I think the Beastie Boys would approve.”

“The Beastie Boys?  The Beastie Boys aren’t cool.”  I was momentarily stunned, but I quickly assessed the source: no matter how much younger he was than me, this kid was certainly not cool. I looked around the class for resounding contradiction.  It’s a teacher instinct.  I do this whenever some student says something crazy, like that Hamlet is decisive or that writing won’t be very important for their professional success…or that the Beastie Boys aren’t cool.  But all I found were nodding heads and eyes filled with pity, as if I were the last kid in class to believe in Santa.

This was not possible. It’s not just that the B-Boys are cool: it’s that they are the very definition of cool for my entire generation. This naysaying must be a St. Charles thing: certainly across the river the more cosmopolitan youth would know better.

Now I live in Clayton, but the only young people I know in Clayton are the baristas that work in the coffee joints where I grade.  So later that afternoon I marched up to Kaldis to do some research.  The line was rather long that day, but the rather curvaceous brunette working the counter seemed to be just what I was looking for. She had on t-shirt and jeans that she had bought at either Nordstrom or a thrift store; more importantly, she was wearing sneakers. Perfect.

The line hadn’t gotten any shorter, but now I was at the front of it.  It was kinda difficult with all of the impatient clearing of throats behind me, but I was able to share with her the entirety of the above anecdote.  “So, whaddya think?” My desperation was palpable.

“Well…” She seemed reluctant to hurt my feelings. “My dad likes their music.”

“Well, my dad likes the Beatles but that doesn’t mean that they’re not cool!”

“Um…the Beastie Boys aren’t…the Beatles.”

“I’ll have a tall coffee…black.”

*          *          *          *          *

I’d turned twelve in February of 1987 and was really not very comfortable with where this whole puberty thing was going.  And I’m not talking about the hormonal thing so much as the social results that hormones brought about in my peers.  February of 1987 represents the depths of 80s culture.  Many of the cool bands from earlier in the decade had disbanded—like the Police—or surpassed their prime—such as Van Halen.  U2’s The Joshua Tree would be released the following month, and GNR’s debut wouldn’t come until the summer.  And while Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were around, I was not nearly cool enough to have any inkling who they were.  Frequent readers of this blog know that I use popular culture to anchor my sense of self more than any therapist would recommend, and at this crucial juncture I identified in nothing I saw in the world around me.

And that’s when the bad people showed up at the party.

We didn’t have cable.  And I didn’t party.  Hell, I didn’t even know they were a hip-hop act. I mean, the song had a friggin’ guitar solo. But for some reason the first glimpse I had of B-Boys shouting demands into a phone was something that was me, and I was not alone….  We had to fight, my fellow Gen Xers! We had to fight for our right to party! But, more immediately, I had to buy that album.

When I popped it in the tape deck, I was at first confused.  This is rap?  I’m white: I don’t like rap. My mother was horrified. “Beasty Boys?! It’s beasty alright!” I decided I liked rap after all.

My poor mother. When we went on vacation to California that summer, the tape came with us. We made a long drive up the PCH toward Carmel, and I rode in the back of the station wagon with my cousins Donny and Danny. In those dark ages before smart phones, we had to get a little creative. 

     Donny had the boom box,

     Danny made the noise,

     and I brought the tape of the Bees Tea Boys.

We dedicated the trip to learning “Paul Revere” word for word.  I forget who played Mike D, MCA, and AdRock, but I still remember the little story the three bad brothers had to tell…word for word.  And by the time I entered junior high, I’m sure I knew every word of every rap.

And then Joshua Tree came out. And then Appetite. And then Mother’s Milk.  And I survived puberty with a sense of self intact, boys and girls…

Is it that cultural phenomena like the Beastie Boys tend to shape our experience, or did they just always seem to show up as my life entered formative moments?

In the year between my junior and senior high, the whole family uprooted and moved to Ventura, California.  It was a traumatic teenage apocalypse, and the whole mess caused me to cling more tightly to the release in July of ‘89 of what may be the B-Boys best album: Paul’s Boutique. 

As my class set to finish up junior year and inherit the seniorship of Ventura High School, The B-Boys released the seminal Check Your Head, an album that would easily coexist with the new grunge sensibility.

By the end of freshman year at UCSD, the frat parties would always—and I mean always—feature tracks from each of the Beastie Boys first four albums.  And when Kurt Cobain killed himself that April (a formative event in the history of my generation like it or not) the Beastie Boys (along with Smashing Pumpkins) would replace Nirvana at the top of the bill.  They followed George Clinton and the P. Funk All-Stars in funking an undulating sea of fans in the best concert I have ever been to…hands down. And, thus, like many other Gen Xers, the B-Boys grew to form an integral portion of the soundtrack of my life.  And I am not alone.

*          *          *          *          *

Just last Thursday, the day before Adam Yauch passed away, a student asked me in front of a class whether or not I had ever been to Lollapalooza, which she is visiting for the first time.  I assumed the role of grampa in the rocker.

“Why, yes, youngun’, I certainly have.  But back in my day, you didn’t go to Lollapalooza: Lollapalooza came to you.  You see it was started by Perry Ferrell, but you don’t know who he is. I went in 1994.  And, get this: my ticket read, ‘Lollapalooza featuring….” I paused for dramatic effect. “’Nirvana!’” A rumbling gasp circulated the room. “But as you all know, Kurt Cobain killed hisself in that fateful year.  Instead, we saw a double headliner of Smashing Pumpkins and the Beastie Boys.  But they’re not cool anymore….” And there I looked down and expected to be sad for a little minute.

“Yeah they are!”

I don’t know which student said it, but I looked up to see most of the students nodding in agreement.  And I felt a little warm and fuzzy…and I’m not nearly sentimental as I am nostalgic.  The B-Boys are cool again. Amen. And that’s a true story.

So, when the graying temples and tired eyes of Generation X tell you that MCA’s death makes them sad, it’s not because we are fascinated with a train wreck.  It’s because, to us, the Beastie Boys are the very symbols of fun, and youth, and cool.  The Beastie Boys are fucking cool, and when Adam Yauch died we kinda feel like fun and youth and cool died with him…and that fucking sucks.