I rediscovered some old photos that were taken right before the turn of the century, in the mid 1990’s. Yeah, that was a while a ago. I am amazed that I even found these pics. If I were not tidying up I wouldn’t have found them in a plastic bag mixed with my old family photos. Sometimes we find cool stuff when we aren’t looking specifically for that thing. But that is rare.
The photos were vestiges of my Cool Calm Collected graphic T-shirt days. The photos are not dated, but I know it was around the time when I was just a few years out of L.A. High School. All I was thinking about was designing my graphic tees. All I knew how to do was hustle my t-shirt throughout the Los Angeles streets. I fancied myself a designer with a clothing line because I printed my graphic on t-shirts, sweat shirts and jerseys I bought wholesale in L.A.’s Garment District. I am glad I found the pics to help remind me. But they could have been lost because I didn’t have a way to search for them.
At that time, I bounced all around the city of L.A. and met a few celebrities like Dr. Dre, who even bought one of my tees. One day while I was in Workmen’s Out shoe store, on Melrose Avenue, I got to meet Ice-T. I rush over to him with excited energy to talk to him, and shared a little about myself. He gave me his business card, and eventually I got the nerve up to call the number. I begged him to do a photo shoot for my t-shirt line. Ice finally agreed and invited me to his office for a photoshoot. I remember calling my photographer buddy, Alister Martin to see if he was free to do it. On the day of our shoot, we arrived at the Hollywood penthouse office where Ice-T was sitting on a wall sofa that took up an entire wall. Behind him through a ceiling height, south facing window was a view of the city of Los Angeles. I had never seen the city from that perspective before then. It was a cool vibe. When Ice first saw my design he said, That’s hot!”, I thought that I had made it as a clothing designer. I could not imagine wanting to do anything else.
The penthouse aesthetic was perfect, so I asked Ice not to move, and just slip into my basketball jersey right there. Ice was so accommodating, as he was in the middle of writing something. I did not imagine how much he and I had in common. For instance, I wrote in my journal. The raps of Hip-hop artists like him and Rakim were inspirational. Amazingly both these iconic men took their gift for the written word to the literary world to find even further success. Some may not know Ice-T has had a multifaceted career. He is a platinum selling hip hop / rap artist from back in the day; famous for the acting role of Detective Fin Tutuola on T.V.’s Law and Order SVU; and a bestselling author of several books.
When we entered I saw him in thought. He had been writing on a sheet of paper. I had assumed they were lyrics to a rap song, but it could have been a poem, or maybe content for one of his first books, titled The Ice Opinion published in 1994. As the photographer snapped off shots with his camera as Ice sat with pen in hand. You can see in the photos Ice is in his element, wearing my gear, and holding a pen to paper. That was the real Ice-T vibe. The interesting thing is I write too. I have a poetry book out now, and I hope rhyme pays for me like it did for Ice-T. Did you catch that reference to Ice -T’s debut album, titled Rhyme Pays, released in 1987?
The statistics say that most self-published authors will sell only about 250 copies of their book. Most will sell less than half that figure. But it seems like well known public figures are guaranteed to sell big numbers when they write a book. However, it doesn’t matter how known tan author is; no one can purchase their books if they cannot find their books. I have something in common with Ice-T in that I also have written and published my several books. But my books don’t have a chance to sell as many copies as someone with his public awareness. Not to mention the millions of authors’ books coming out daily. Unknown author like myself have one equalizer to employ in the effort to raise our book sells numbers. To give our books a chance to be found online we must utilize good book metadata. It is the very first thing that makes any book searchable and findable online. Even books authored by famous people need metadata to capitalize on their name and make book sells. That is because if they ( the audience ) cannot search it, they won’t find it. And if they don’t find it, they won’t be able to buy it.
