Words and The Wu Fang Clan

May 7

The Wu Fang Clan has called a gathering tonight for Game 3 of the Phoenix Suns/San Antonio Spurs series. This kind of drama has always gripped The Clan, causing many to bludgeon their beverage or catapult finger foods into the fires of frustration. The drums begin and the tintinnabulations of the bells reverberate throughout the Compound. The alarms are sounded; they are needed. There will be blood.

This kind of stand is why we of the Wu Fang dance around and sacrifice the wings of chicken, tearing flesh from the bone in a single wing-first-with-a-twist move. We know what is coming. We know it is coming. We know the moment when the game is on the line there will be yelling and screaming; there will be roars of approval from warriors and shrieks of pain from Warrior Queens.

Win or lose, we of the Wu Fang Clan will stand in honor for what these men are trying to do. Competing against another willful, capable human being has never been an easy task, especially when the desperate are counted out from those that would oppose you. This has always been the charge for men that dare to look others in the eye - dead level - and say, "You shall not pass." Why? Because there will always be neighboring tribes that dare to respond by saying, "Oh yes I shall."

Let the games begin. We of the Wu Fang Clan rejoice at the beating of the drums and the tintinnabulation of the bells. Pull the skins tight, sound the thunder, hammer the bells and listen to words of Edgar Allen Poe:

April 25

The Wu Fang Clan lit the fires and stuck a pig's head on a stick when the Cardinals unveiled their new, alternate jerseys. They are black. They are the color of all colors. They are the color of imagination. They are the color of The Testing. They are the color of danger. They are the final color, the color of the end, the end we all face.

We of the Wu Fang Clan know what it's like to peer into the eternal pitch of the color black. Coming of age in The Clan means making your way through this pitch, surviving, and embracing the light; we appreciate the light because we understand the darkness.

When it comes to competing in The Bloodsport, the book of our ancestors makes it clear:

A Black Flag will be flying on a Red Sea this fall at University of Phoenix Stadium. Big Red has inspired its players, appealed to their wanton lust for aggression and energized the soul of its people. Black Flag Sundays loom on the horizon of a tumultuous sea of red.

As the fires were burning in The Clan's Compound, the conch was sounded, the Wu Fang gathered, and the heralding was clear:

"Hoist the colors!"

This is the way of The Wu Fang Clan.

March 19

The Wu Fang Clan doesn't slide on sackcloth and sit in ashes for college basketball to begin but March Madness makes us paint our face and pace the compound, murmuring to ourselves in the soft glow of HD.

In places like San Jose, Providence and Jacksonville, the uninitiated, the unwashed, compete against their "betters" and are not always found wanting. Teams like Murray State, Ohio University and Cornell drive their spears through those that would dare oppose them. They are the victors, the card-counters of Vegas - winning when the odds say you won't or can't.

How is this possible? The murmuring begins. The Clan grows restless. Talent is talent and talent always wins. This is a Wu Fang axiom.

Facial tics start to form and hands explode in front of 52" of LCD goodness; they become as uncontrollable as some of the kids on the floor. With each bone-headed pass or ill-advised shot, the gestures intensify, the dance begins and hands cover the face; they turn into claws and are pulled down the contours of skin and bone with such ferocity we run to the mirror, the pool of still waters, expecting to see blood.

Whether by seeing our reflection or relieved by the lack of skin under our nails, the murmuring stops and the hands settle. Clarity comes to the Wu Fang Clan: these compound combustibles are nothing more than manifestations of our own failure. These inaudible grunts, groans and lamentations should not be happening. What we are seeing in HD has been written in the books of our ancestors and passed along to our young:

This is especially true when the desperate were passed over by those that refused to recruit them, told they were not good enough to compete against their betters.

Suddenly, all is well.

This is the way of the Wu Fang Clan.

March 15

Amare is a different player. He's not the same guy. The Wu Fang Clan believes there has been a paradigm shift in Amare's person.

Much has been said about Amare receiving a max-contract and whether or not he's playing the way he is in order to secure that max-contract. It's a valid point.

We'd like to offer this sidebar in the Amare Max-Contract spectacle:

Amare destroyed the Hornets last night and it occurred to us: if Amare Stoudemire ever receives his coveted pay-day and then promptly proceeds to become sluggish on the floor, to some degree, we will know what manner of man he is, we will know who his master is, won't we? We'll know he serves money and bows before the golden calf adorning the golden throne...the golden throne of money.

A man should care about a "days wage" and harvesting the fruits of his labor, but if services are promised and then not performed the man has defrauded himself and the persons employing him. If Amare continues to play the way he is, gets his pay-day and then backs off on the floor, we'll all bare witness to his thievery.

This thought makes The Clan huddle before the tube/transistor, watching Amare's every move, recording his effort to memory. We do not believe he will return to his torpid ways.

We think this is the real Amare. This makes us grab the spear and dance around the fire in celebration of a player becoming a man. After all, he must know we'll be watching, right? He must know we'll all be able to see the difference? He must know...right?

March 8

"Familiarity breeds contempt." Mark Twain wasn't talking about free agency in the NFL but his quote has become prophetic in the dusty corners of pro personnel directors around the league.

In terms of big-time free agents, the problem with free agency has always been and always will be that almost all of these players become overpaid and their performance never lives up to their compensation. How could they? They're overpaid from the beginning. That's why they're…overpaid.

In regard to these big-time free agents, the insipid taste in The Clan's mouth comes from explaining why players are overpaid. One must focus on their shortcomings, focus on their weaknesses, focus on why they will probably never live up to the contract they signed and focus on things that may doom them from the start.

We do not enjoy this; it is not the way of the Wu Fang Clan.

When players are underpaid, you get to focus on why they are underpaid - you get to focus on the positive things they bring to the gridiron. Knowing how difficult it is to play the bloodsport well, The Clan prefers to comment on players that are underpaid.

This is the way of the Wu Fang Clan.