Pugilistic Linguistics

- Indy Rock Boom Bap: True-school apologist and beat-smith extraordinaire Joe Beats of non-prophets fame is finally releasing his anticipated Indy Rock Blues boot-leg album with trumped-up versions of a bunch of indy rock songs Joe was listening to when some dumb ho broke his heart. Joe is a ferociously talented dude with a sampler and this album should be good fun for all you emo dorks who wish their indy rock had louder drums. Case and point: peep this version of “Coxcomb Red”. The cover art is quite beautiful and is done by William Schaff. You will be able to order this jawn online only, straight from Joe’s website on November 8 (pre-orders) and I highly suggest you do so.

- Sixers 0-1: I absolutely love Allen Iverson. But, that being said, he is the worst player in the league at protecting a small lead going into the final minute of a game. The reason? Because it forces him to over-think basketball. Iverson doesn’t think the game, he just does the game. When he’s forced to deliberately calculate what he needs to do—something that is somewhat inevitable when you’re trying to simultaneously use up as much time on the clock as possible and score—he winds up almost always waiting too long and putting up a bad shot. In those situations, he loses the natural advantage he has as a wrecklessly creative, quick, and unstoppably clever player. He’s not the type of player that “let’s the game come to him,” especially in the waning minutes of a ball game, nor is he the type of player that can just walk down the court and impose his will in a half-court offense. If the Sixers are down two or three points in the final minute, they probably win that game. Why? Because Iverson is on the attack. He’s slicing and chopping up the defense and creating plays. He’s as close to unstoppable as it gets when he’s on the attack. But, when he’s resting on his laurels, trying “not to lose,” focusing more on using up the clock than attacking, he makes bad decisions, puts up bad shots, or passes the ball to an unsuspecting player in a position where he isn’t capable of doing anything. You can’t really blame him, I guess. It’s just not the type of basketball he plays. But, he’s got to get better at that if the Sixers want to win. But, put aside the final minute and overtime and I’m not mad at all about that performance. Iverson and Webber both scored over 30 and they had under 10 turnovers for the game. Can’t be mad at that. We’ll see how it goes, but if AI and Webber continue to play well together, this team will be pretty damn good.

- Scoop Jackson is trill: Scoop Jackson wrote a great article attacking the Zen master’s recent racist comments. And, not for nothin’, I fux with his CD player, too:

“Last I looked, Lord Finesse's ‘The Awakening,’ Scarface's ‘The Fix,’ TI's ‘Urban Legend,’ Lil' Kim's ‘Naked Truth,’ Ghostface Killah's ‘Supreme Clientele,’ and Eric B. and Rakim's ‘Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em,’ were the six CDs in the chamber.”

Additionally, this is on-point:

“Or maybe in your next comment about 'us'…you'll remember to mention that most of the ‘thuggery’ clothes we buy (especially those worn by NBA players) come from Neiman's, Macy's and Saks, where entire floors are devoted to our fashion and designers….Clothing not cool for your players to rock, but OK for Fortune 500 stores to sell?.”

Scoop Jackson really gets in dude’s ass. It’s hot.

- Shabba Ranks Parody: “Champion lover you look like you lost a fight.” Hilarious. Here’s Jim Carrey as Vanilla Ice, too. Jim Carrey ain’t terrible at the worm.

-e