It has been a long time since I did the Bappie thing. I was never entirely comfortable with it, but I much preferred it to the alternative. And now thinking about Mr. Phillips, some smack Brother Brown tossed my way and the new website Stuff Educated Black People Like, I thought I'd interrupt my otherwise boring afternoon to write down some embarrassing semi-factual autobiography.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, BAP is black American prince. It's just what you would suspect. I had two out of three of the attributes when I was a whippersnapper. The three would be money, looks and brains. And I STILL ain't got no money and I get uglier every day.Oh well. To tell you the truth, it has been a long time since I actually paid much attention to the African American section of the Barnes & Noble, so there might be a chance that this all sounds very Terry McMillan or E. Lynn Harris. I wouldn't know but it comes from the real place.. and so I slip into the wayback machine.
It's a summer morning in 1988 and I'm 27. In fact, it's my birthday and I'm feeling kinda old. So I get up early and slip on the bike shorts. I've got the ankle socks and my Fishbone T-shirt. Yeah that'll work. On the wall of my bedroom is an ANC poster "Women Unite" it says. Directly across from it is a Spike Lee poster. I got it from the private screening of School Daze at Bovard Auditorium on the USC campus. Ha. That was a cool night. I went with frat and we all sat together.
My bed is a queensize directly on the floor with no frame. The linen is from Urban Outfitters and there are a half-dozen pillows of various sizes over the crumpled black comforter. There's not much Kente in my room, but Ezeilo did get me a deal on the real mudcloth. It's not a very large piece but it set me back 300 bucks. It's a fertility symbol with a very obvious phallus in the print. You just don't know how that works just above the bed. Which reminds me, J is coming over tonight for enchiladas. I do a quick nervous check around for signs of other females. Ahh, whatever. I'll take care of that after the ride.
I walk out to the kitchen, my roommate Ken is making another mixtape. Every Mardi Gras he heads down to Caracas and brings back a bunch of soca tapes. He has been trying to mix De La Soul and Soul 2 Soul with soca all week. It still doesn't work. At least he has the headphones on, but the TV is blasting. It's Jeff Smith - the Frugal Gourmet, known to us as 'Frug'. Rule number one. Whenever a babe comes over for the first time, have a videotape of the Frug on the TV. It's all part of the Killing Fields. Kenny is an accountant taking his Pepperdine MBA classes at night, but he's got the Caribbean bug. He wears his hair short - I joke that he looks like Lester Holt, the anchorman, but think he secretly wants to dread. Me, I got the severe fade with a texture. I grab a banana off the kitchen table and fill my water bottle with Super Socco.
I pull my Trek off the hook in my bedroom and roll it out the front door. I've got on the black fingerless gloves and a yellow bandana. I put the banana in my little drawstring backpack, slip on the Persols and put my feet in the clips...
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