So, What's the Haps on the Craps?

November 30, 2018 7:59 AM

For years, scholars have tried to pin down the exact date (previously) but after some debate, it appears that three decades ago today was, indeed, a very good day.
posted by Navelgazer (10 comments total)

I love this whole debate, but if Ice Cube shows up to an event commemorating the Good Day as January 20, then do we tell Ice Cube he's wrong, or that the pager correction was actually false, or that memory is the beach upon whose shifting, tide-beaten sands we build sandcastles to commemorate our most important moments at our peril?
posted by chrominance at 8:29 AM on November 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

I don't think you can declare it A Good Day until the Goodyear blimp shows up.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:59 AM on November 30, 2018

do we tell Ice Cube he's wrong

I don't want to tell Ice Cube he's wrong, do you?
posted by elsietheeel at 9:01 AM on November 30, 2018

Niiice try, Ice Cube. But even with the most noble of intentions, you can no longer wield your artistic control over this narrative. It has taken leave of you, sir. It has gone out into the world, heroically sought its own boon, staked a claim on the popular imagination and procured a tiny slice of Valhalla. What more is there, Ice Cube? What more could there possibly be, save your own wistful revery & hope - yes, hope - for this song, which you once cradled in its infancy and dandled upon your kind yet gangsta knee? Your have succeeded, sir. Lo, for from this point on, each and every day is now a good day, and by its own sovereign decree. And who are you or we - or anyone - to say otherwise? Let that be its own reward, sir. You have won.
posted by Bob Regular at 9:01 AM on November 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't want to tell Ice Cube he's wrong, do you?

Cube is like 5’3, so I’m not scared. Hammer, on the other hand, I would not touch.
posted by cashman at 9:04 AM on November 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

if Ice Cube shows up to an event commemorating the Good Day as January 20, then do we tell Ice Cube he's wrong

I think you may have failed to highlight the breakthrough research in this field by Professor Lahatiel which has really upended the entire discipline of Cubology. With respect to Dr. Chrominance -- whom I believe is in attendance this evening, and whose work on Ice Cube's dick running so deep, so deep, so deep I greatly admire -- by 2014, Donovan Strain's seminal paper had been accepted as canon by the lay community and it made sense as a PR-charity event to choose January 20 for the Goodyear Blimp Ice Cube is a Pimp Day.

Where Professor Lahatiel's work has been revolutionary has been in exploring the metaphysics of A Good Day. Is it important whether the Lakers actually beat the Sonics or is it enough that to Cube it felt like the Lakers beat the Sonics? Most of the details used by Strain, an admitted amateur researcher (though no doubt a talented one), to derive the Good Day date may be viewed as "fictionalized backdrop" to create a setting, to set the tone for a Good Day. The Lakers, the smog, Yo!MTV Raps, these are all things that were ubiquitous and Ice Cube would have included these to describe the setting of any good day and cannot be reliably used to pinpoint the exact Good Day unless you are interpret the work literally. I, and those in my department, believe this is a shallow interpretation. Ice Cube is an artist and not an historian. We believe many of the details, like the ICE CUBE IS A PIMP blimp, are embellishments.

Starting from that point, one must focus on the elements of the piece that are essential to the story. It is importantto the story that he is still living at home, it is important to the story that it was Kim's punnany that he killed when pulled out the Jammy. In my soon to be published paper, my colleagues and I show that the 2 am Fatburger is another essential element to a Good, some would say Perfect, Day. If we separate what is actually, literally true about the Good Day from what is metaphysically true or "feels" true, the best current evidence points to November 30, 1988 being a Good Day.

Thank you for attending tonight and I'll be available for questions during the poster session.

Have a Good Day.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:09 AM on November 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

Ice Cube looks like an angry teddy bear.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:24 AM on November 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ice Cube is an angry teddy bear.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:50 AM on November 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

It irks me unreasonably that the Wal-Mart version of the song got posted (you don't hear racial slurs or swearing like the album). As someone who never had MTV (except for a couple years in college), it disturbs me even today to see the 'Screw Bloods! Yeah Crips!' imagery even in the toned-down video (I'd forgotten that it wasn't "Nobody got killed today..." but "Nobody I know got killed today..").

Song's great. Terrible people and terrible money involved all the way around.
posted by cult_url_bias at 11:06 AM on November 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would've preferred the remix--that 'Let's Do it Again' sample feels a lot more like a good day than 'Footsteps in the Dark.'
posted by box at 2:48 PM on November 30, 2018 [2 favorites]