Chapter 10: Ladies Love Cool Spams

In 1989, LL Cool J released the popular hit, "Jinglin' Baby" off of his smash hit CD "Walking With A Panther". I hadn't heard it in forever, but I remembered that the line that goes after "They're jinglin' baby!" is "Go ahead baby!" I mean, it's a pretty famous chorus from a pretty famous rap tune.

Spam Boy had never heard this tune before in his life.

One day, my buddy Ryan decides to hit him up with:

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"Um, what?"

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's a song. You've never heard it before?"

"No."

"Yeah, when you hear somebody say 'They're jinglin' baby', you're supposed to say 'Go ahead baby'."

"Oh, okay."

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"Go ahead, um, Ryan."

And it went on like this for weeks. And since he's a big fan of mine, of course my name got thrown into it.

"They're jinglin' Wolan."

"Go ahead Corbett."

Lovely.

Spam Boy's next foray into rap was when Ryan and I were getting nostalgic about some of the 80's rap we were familiar with, so I asked him if he could bring some in.

So Ryan brings in an assortment of tapes... one of which is Public Enemy's seminal work, "Fear of a Black Planet" and 4 different 2 Live Crew tapes. (I didn't realize they made more than 1.)

Now, if you don't remember, 2 Live Crew was absolutely filthy. They would even get arrested at their own shows for performing lewd sex acts on stage.

So they were pretty rough... especially for somebody who wasn't rap-friendly, like Spam Boy.

But Spam Boy had this equipment set up at home so that he could easily convert cassette tapes into CD's, so we asked him if he could please make us digital copies of the tapes in question. After badgering him about it for a while, he finally caved in and took the tapes.

When they aren't returned in a timely fashion, we begin to hound him for it and telling him how much he'd enjoy them if he actually listened to them.

"Come on, man. Give them a listen. They'll change your life. Especially that 2 Live Crew."

Months go by without mention of his progress on this front. Ryan decides to ask him again, but gets a confusing answer, leading him to believe that no movement has been made on that front.

"Is he really going to make the copies?" I asked.

"I don't know, dude." said Ryan.

After a few more months of no mentioning of the tapes, Ryan decides to ask for them back. Spam Boy pulls them out of his desk drawer. He had never taken them home! This lead us to believe that he was totally appalled at these tapes and ashamed to have them in his house. I wish we had fully addressed it with him, but it was just funny that they were still in the same paper bag in the same drawer in which they were when they were first given to him.

I guess he didn't think they were jinglin' after all.