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I saw The Gza perform live at the Knitting Factory last night. It was a tight show, and well worth the loot. It was even reasonably, in terms of timing (for a hip hop show) - the Gza went on at just past midnight.
The Gza, seen here in his pre-Wu days:
So The Gza had a few words yesterday for one 50 Cent... check it out
Wu! Tang! Wu! Tang!
Regardless of why he has beef with 50 Cent, I think I'll take this opportunity to put on the best Gza song of them all... Liquid Swords:
The opening DJ played for an hour. He also had this announcement at one point: "The Gza will be out in about 15-20 minutes. Also, the Knicks will be holding an open practice for a point guard tomorrow." The Knicks are a big ass punchline, aren't they?
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Speaking of Head Amputation and the Knicks:
Moving along (I was tempted to find an excuse to use the Prince Rakeem "Oooh, We Love You Rakeem" video in this post, too), here's a post by Tom Ziller (based on a Peter Vecsey article in the Post) that explores the unhappiness of some Knick players.
I was chilling with The Greek Professor yesterday. He recanted his experience at the Knicks-Mavs game on Monday:
"yeah, the Fire Isiah chants started early, even before tip-off. I was up in the 400 seats (the nosebleeds at MSG). The Mavs pulled away early in the first quarter, and by the second quarter it was super quiet, as the crowd was totally out of it." [Note: This is partially because the crowd is used to last season, where double digit deficits in the first quarter would be erased in the second by the bench. A lot of times I catch myself waiting through a poor second quarter, and even early third, waiting for the comeback that isn't happening this year. That's why the crowd on Monday didn't start really booing or chanting "Fire Isiah" until the middle of the third quarter].
"It was so quiet in MSG, even up in the 400s you could hear the sneakers squeaking on the court." The Prof's GF turns to him, and says:
"The last time we went to a game this quiet that you could hear the sneakers squeaking was 9 years ago, when we went to a Nets home game."
Indeed, that's how far the Knicks have fallen right now. Again, as the Prof and I talked yesterday, he pointed out that Knicks fans aren't "like Yankees fans", spoiled by their team's success.
"Knicks fans don't expect championships every year, just effort. They love guys like Ewing and Oakley and Starks, 6'10 guys who dove into the first row going after a loose ball."
"Anytime they put those guys on the scoreboard, even now, the crowd goes wild."
If you want to know the biggest difference from last season to this, it's all right there. Last season the Knicks players played hard to save Isiah's job. Yeah, they weren't great, and yeah, they missed the playoffs. But a lot of the games were at least exciting last year.
This year, the players have apparently thrown in the towel on Isiah. Half of them want out. It's time for Dolan (since he's made it clear repeatedly that he's the one in charge) to make some changes. Either remove Isiah as coach (or totally remove him), or let him make some trades to change the dynamic of this team. Something has to happen. This team looks as bad as it did in the waning days of the Larry Brown fiasco....
We'll be back tomorrow with a review of the game tonight against the Bulls (unless it's that bad), and Monday with part two of the Salary Cap Analysis (teams A-M), our next Olympic Country preview or two (the last ones until January, most likely) and some ideas on what the Knicks can do tradewise, among other things....
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Sad but true. last year and this year is completely different. They won 33 games last year, but played hard every night. What happened? Was it the game 5 benching of Marbury? Because it seems all downhill from there
Wow. That GZA (err... the Genius) song brought me back. I've still got his Words From the Genius CD. Personally, I think the only good song on there is Pass the Bone, produced by Prince Rakeem (better known these days as the RZA). And in a factual circle, the rest of the Big Daddy Kane sounding album was produced by Easy Mo Bee, who produced Take it Back on the 8 Diagrams album.
That concludes my Wu Tang facts of the day.
Hey Jordi: Funny you mention that... the two funniest things at the show (as the Marathon Man and the Prof can vouch for) were the following:
1. The guy who thought he was at a rave, and kept slamming into everyone while continously bouncing, no matter what the DJ played. He was quite annoying when he was next to you (I was this close to going '93 on his ass, and punching him in the face just for living), but when he was 3-5 feet away from you... highly entertaining. It was like the DJ could have thrown on Feliz Navidad, and homeboy would have been wilding out, like "Yeah! That's my jam, yo!"
2. The guy behind us who were determined to have The Gza play "Pass the Bone". Every pause between songs would be broken by this guy's thunderous call for "Pass The Bone".
We also had a discussion on the greatness that is Easy Mo Bee... he's a top 10 rap producer of all time, though like Erick Sermon, he just misses the cut in my top 5 (Primo, Dre, Rza, Marley Marl, Prince Paul).
WHY WASN'T THE INDIANPLAYA INVITED OUT LAST NIGHT?!