We've got royalty among us, a monarch-to-be who has been eluding detection from under our very noses for nearly four years.
And I bet its news to you.
"I knew about John Grisham's kid," you're thinking. "Same with Justice Alito's son, John Elway's daughter, Bob Parsley's boy and Howie Long's heir apparent ... but I somehow miss the fact that U.Va. has gone REGAL?"
Some of you may have met Jamaar Joseph, but most of you haven't -- which suits him just fine. The man who disdains attention almost as much as eye contact hates it when I do this, but ... Jamaar, I'm sorry. Your cover is about to get blown all the way to Chesapeake Bay.
Jamaar Joseph is the nephew of James Avery, a man better known as Uncle Phil from "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air."
Because he can truly call Uncle Phil an uncle, Jamaar is therefore the "real" Fresh Prince.
Deductive reasoning leads us to the following conclusion: Because he's the real Fresh Prince, Jamaar Joseph is Will Smith -- but he's not exactly from West Philadelphia.
"In Northern Virginia, born and raised, on the playground is where Jamaar would spend most of his days. Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool and playin' some tennis outside of school ... when a couple of guys, who were up to some good, said 'Ya gotta go to college like Uncle Phil said you should.' ..."
If you've seen the show, you get it.
Take a minute to process this information. When Jamaar refers to his celebrity relative as "Uncle Avery," he is referring to the most famous uncle in American entertainment. Get Uncle Joey and Uncle Jesse out of here -- neither of those dorks were half as revered by all of Generation iPod as Uncle Phil is to this day.
So don't even get me started on the topic of graduation. After my name mysteriously appeared on the Virginia Commencement & Convocations Subcommittee list (and I mean mysteriously), I tossed a golden idea around with a few of the other members: Use the University's Jamaar connection to lure James Avery to the Lawn this May as our keynote speaker.
The unanimous response was nothing but a collection of chuckles and shaking heads: "Good one, Bayless. Uncle Phil ... bahaha."
Tom Wolfe, the speaker deemed more worthy than Avery, is said to be a great author or something ... but seriously, raise your hand if you're under the age of 23 and you've read a single Tom Wolfe book.
Now raise your hand if you've seen an episode of "Fresh Prince" and see Uncle Phil as someone you'd entrust your children to for a long weekend.
The people have spoken.
"Bonfire of the Vanities" was all right, but I decided to interview Wolfe's discredited competitor, just to find out who really has "The Right Stuff" to address the Class of 2006.
-- James Avery is a Vietnam veteran who spent four years in the Navy before returning to California and going to school.
-- The role that turned James Avery into an icon for our age bracket was not what you might think. Before "Fresh Prince," there was "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." And guess who the voice of Shredder was.
None other than James-freaking-Avery.
I really don't know which person accomplished more in one lifetime: Jamaar's uncle or Benjamin Franklin. By no means am I knocking the lighting rod, bifocals or good relations with France, but doing the voice-over for cartoon Shredder and playing Judge Philip Banks?
I smell a lifetime achievement Emmy coming around the bend.
(My previous "coolest thing ever" was when two of the Budweiser "Wassup" guys gave me a personalized "WAAASSSUUUUUUPPP!" at an October 2001 Astros game -- outstretched tongues and all. After convincing The Shredder to deliver a line in that unmistakably sinister voice, though, I have a new winner.)
-- James Avery, unlike Uncle Phil, does not actually live in Bel Air -- he claims it's too "frou-frou." I'm sure Wolfe, progenitor of the white suit movement, knows nothing about that.
-- Jamaar brought Uncle Avery to his first grade show-and-tell.
-- To this day, anytime Avery is out of Los Angeles, people feel the need to scream out, "UNCLE PHIL!" when he's in public. You ever heard of any boys who cried "WOLFE!" for old Tommy?
-- Buckle your seatbelts for the final revelation: The man we know from television conveys a wholesome father figure image; the man Jamaar knows from Thanksgiving dinner is a self-professed "old hippie."
Don't take my word for it; just listen to Avery's California Dream of a life as a UC-San Diego student in the 70s:
"In the 70s, everybody got laid and everybody smoked dope," he said, the bluntness hitting me in the face like a sledgehammer. "We had a fabulous, fabulous, fabulous time. Anything you caught could be cured with penicillin, woke up in the morning: 'Hey baby, who are you?' You'll never have the time we had -- you have no idea."
First Bob Sagat's infamous line in "Half Baked," and now this? Don't tell me Mr. Belding is the next president of NORML.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but I quickly realized that the Wolfe-pack had already won the fight, and that Tom couldn't be even be replaced by President Bush himself. I briefly tried to see the cup as half-full but eventually downed the remainder in my despair. My initial acceptance gave way to a decision to go down swinging, and I haven't stopped singing that tune:
"If anything I thought that Tom Wolfe was fair, but I thought 'Man, forget it.' Yo homes, to Bel Air!"
Bayless's column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays. He can be reached at bayless@cavalierdaily.com.
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