I Shit You Not: Now Twist, and Curl

and do the jheri curl

-Keenan Ivory Wayans as Jheri Curl in the classic film "Hollywood Shuffle"

I know it's been a while since y'all heard from me like this fam, but The Champ has been on a few adventures and is in the process of properly chronicling them. The updates will be much more frequent in the coming weeks, I promise. In the meantime, I plan on telling a story today that not many of you have ever heard. There is an underlying purpose to this. One of out fellow piff purveyors is going through it right now and I think that she will benefit from this story. I hope that you all will. Gather 'round.

The year, 1995. The place, Philadelphia, PA. Temple University to be exact, the spring semester of my sophomore year. Spring had not quite sprung yet and the unforgiving Philadelphia winter was still in effect. Around this time, the one known as Sugar had her sights locked onto King Slick like none other before and few others after her. Me, I was not quite The Champ yet, but had shown flashes of the greatness to come. Think of it as an early Magic Johnson, just trying to fit in with the Lakers. Playing out of position for the good of the team, not trying to step on Norm Nixon's toes, but doing all he could to be apart of the greatness. Those early experiences helped Magic find and define himself and molded the great player that he is now known to be. Think of Tony Gwynn, who "only" hit .289 in his rookie year, or Mark Messier who only scored only 23 goals his second year in the NHL while playing in the shadow of the Immortal Wayne Gretzky. These players are known as 3 of the greatest ever in their respective games, as I hope to be once my T-Shirt is raised into the rafters.

These players all overcame adversity in their beginnings before attaining the greatness that we recognize today. Gwynn was an over eager, free swinging rookie that had little protection in the line up. He revolutionized the sport by becoming one of the first athletes to take advantage of video technology by recording each at-bat and reviewing the tape, making notes of pitchers' tendencies while studying his own mechanics. Messier played in the shadow of one of the greatest athletes of our time and battled a rash of injuries while adapting to the speed of the NHL game before getting healthy and confident enough to achieve greatness in his own right. Magic played behind Norm Nixon and often out of position before a new coach, an assistant by the name of Pat Reilly, handed him the reigns and the keys to the franchise. When history looks back at the life and times of The Champ, there will be many struggles overcome to evaluate. While some struggles hold greater significance on the scales of life and death, few are as important as me having my bunny taken by a dude with a jheri curl.

You read that correctly. In 1995, a younger version of The Champ had his bunny taken from him by a dude that was sporting a jheri curl. Not 1985 (when a pre-pubescent version of The Champ use to wholly CLOWN those with jheri curls. Eddie Murphy and Robin Harris both owe me royalty money) when a curl would have been socially acceptable, but 1995 when Bad Boy ruled the radio and no one knew or cared if the President was getting head from his intern. By most reasonable time frames, the day of the jhrei curl had ended in 1990. Even our west coast brethren had managed to abandon the curl by 1993. This dude obviously had not gotten the memo and maintained the drip well into the middle of the decade. Greasy Rick, as we referred to him for the aforementioned reasons, was a co-worker of the one called Sugar. Sugar had another co-worker, one that saw a picture of The Champ one day and inquired as to what was really, really good, we'll call her Mary Beth.

Mary Beth was older than me, not Blanche or Dorothy older, but not college aged either. See, back then, I kinda had a fetish for that. In the summer of '94 I managed one of the greater pulls of The Champ's history in successfully macking The Queen from Queens. The Queen was 5 years older than I and worked full time where I worked for the summer. A little mutual attraction and good timing led to a GOOD summer. It was my interaction with her that would spawn the then catchphrase "I'm 19 and have a strong back!". That unfortunately ended shortly after I returned to school for the fall when the dude that use to be her boyfriend came back packing hardware (not the first time that happened to me that year) that I could not, nor had any intention on equaling. The Champ was a little more than a little bothered by that and decided to take a little break from the fairer sex for a while. The 18 months preceding this decision had been quite the emotional roller coaster and I figured that a break would do the mind and body some good. It did lots of good as I was able to hash some things out and outright deal with others. Then Mary Beth came along.

While far from a mud duck, she wasn't the most flavory bunny in The Champ's history. There was just something about her that I really dug. She was real cool, and really funny. Those 2 things have always gone over REALLY well with me. She could also sing her ass off. In particular, I would damn near melt when she sang Anita Baker's "Sweet Love" or "You Bring Me Joy" and she knew that. I'd come in from class to find that I had 10 messages on my answering machine because she had sang as long as each message would allow, then call back picking up where she left off. Dare I say, that this took a little edge off of The Champ. There weren't any picnics in the park or long walks on the beach, but there were late night trips to her apartment and some of the finest cheesesteaks from some of the grimiest places North Philly had to offer. Looking back, although I had only got picked off trying to slide into third, I didn't think that I could be much happier. Because all things end badly (otherwise they wouldn't end), it was only a matter time before the bliss would halt. Mary Beth and Greasy Rick apparently had a past and would also have a future. Yep, Greasy Rick came back on the scene spittin' that lovely (or pathetic, depending on your point of view) game and Mary Beth ate it up. King Slick has his own version of this story that he likes to tell, but it ends the same way. Greasy Rick - 1 Bunny, The Champ - 0 Bunnies. No matter what way you slice it, a dude, with a jherri curl in 1995, that wore Payless sneakers and a size smedium leather jacket (when he OBVIOUSLY needed an extra large) and stained t-shirts, took a bunny from the likes of me, period.

If you are wondering why I hold onto this story so, it's simple. To be truly great, one has to prove that they can survive and even thrive after dealing with adversity. It's difficult to come up with the words that can adequately describe the trauma involved in getting your bunny taken by a dude with a jheri curl (in the mid 90's). This experience turned my world upside down. All that I thought I knew, was irrelevant. Right was wrong and left was right in my world. I recall going to the Jedi Council from whom I imparted a great deal of knowledge to make sense of it all and not totally understanding the wisdom that The Council has passed down. The Council had always been no holds barred and told me that you just can't win them all. It was at this time that The Council explained, that there are things that dudes with jheri curls (and that are just outright ugly) will do to keep a woman that is out of their league and because of this will to succeed at any cost, that dudes like me just could not compete. The Council advised that I use this knowledge, and press on in my journey, but I couldn't. I pretty much laid low for the rest of the semester and a bit into the summer. The utter shock just did not wear off for quite some time. This experience did make me stronger. Wedding bells didn't exactly ring for The Queen and she thought that since I would be home for the summer, I would jump at the chance to be her cuddle bitch (a slang editorial explaining the true meaning of this term is on it's way, but for now, think: emotional tampon). I am not sure whether it was because the jheri curl experience had hardened me or because I had greater confidence knowing that I could mack older bunnies in many states, but I made it plain, that I would not be the cuddle itch that or any other summer. This bravado led to one more GOOD summer in the city.

I'll wrap up here so that we do not lose sight of what's important and that is this: Even the best cats, go through adverse situations. Some would say that in order tobe considered great, you must overcome some forms of confidence shaking adversity. Our character is a reflection of how we handle those situations. It's healthy to vent and to a lesser degree wallow in your emotional state, but at some point, you have to examine the situation, make peace with it and continue living life. As much as we would like, the world does not stop or wait for us while we are down, which is why we have to get back up, and get back on our game. All of the things that made you great and led you to your traumatic event are still there, you have to trust in those things and let the hurt go. That is, unless you got your bunny taken by a dude with a jheri curl in the mid 90's, then it is totally understandable if you have some issues to deal with for a little while longer.