[PC Worship's Justin Frye is a devout Knicks fan, as he indicated in an earlier piece regarding his allegiance in a dueling NBA metropolis. Sunday the Knickerbockers were eliminated from the NBA Playoffs by rivals the Indiana Pacers. The following if Frye's eulogy to the season. PC Worship's Beat Punk is out now New Images LTD.]
In the middle of a salt drenched guitar solo & out of the corner of my eye I noted Iman Shumpert drop back to back 3's and J.R. Smith put the icing on the cake for a killer 2nd half comeback that took all of 1 minute in Game 6, the final game of the New York Knicks killer, yet off kilter 2012-2013 season and playoff run. As we finished our first set at the [name omitted] after party, celebrating a single fin surfing contest where contestants are judged on “wizardly maneuvers” and dress semi-formal in the water, the TV behind the bar glimmered with hope; a tied game with minutes left in the final quarter of what would either be a wasted season or fulfill the destiny of what most Knicks fans, myself included, considered the best run at a ring in the past decade. A reprisal of the 90's almost mimicked current fashion decay in NYC. The Knicks vs. the Pacers, an unlikely rivalry spurred by intensity of emotion and one man's pension for playing a game of human chess with himself, Donnie Walsh*.
Our first of two sets melted down with a heavy psych collapse and an ultimate arena rock ending to keep the jeering surf crowd pumped for round two. As DJ Lord Thomas spun into a Seeds venture, I made my way to the bar where the game lay shimmering in poor reception on the big screen TV. Still tied with minutes to go in the final quarter, I tried my best to ignore the anxiety of an entire season teetering on the brink of uncertainty. In the underground music and art world & even the surf community for that matter, I've found it safe to say that being a sports fan is often interpreted as having meat for brains, so in this instance of complete competitive insanity, my only move, as a die hard Knicks fan with 15 minutes to kill before the 2nd set, was to casually cast all notions aside and saddle up for hopeful game 7. This moment would be like watching your favorite TV show for 94 episodes and having the series finale laying in the helpless hands of an uncontrollable 2 minutes. Needless to say, the Knick's lost to a hard fought Indiana team & I felt a wave of solitude brush over my body, free from the vision and no longer a slave to a riveting season of ups and down, injuries and comebacks. The rogue DIY surf contest earlier in the day, which played host to an epic beach party with a Mariachi band, tons of pizza and crazy costumes, was broken up by the cops in a supposed conspiracy perpetrated by local angry legit surf contest organizations and politics. In my mind this became a parallel metaphor for my interpretation of the basketball season, which saw so many epic ups, that to myself, a dedicated fan, having the season broken up prematurely by the cops (Indiana) just couldn't downplay the greatness of someone crowd surfing atop a circle pit, to a mariachi band on the beach (the equivalent of Melo winning scoring champ, J.R. winning 6th man of the year and the Knicks breaking the all-time record for most 3's ever made in one season).
As much as I'd like to see a ring for the sheer glory, this year, that would have been icing on the cake for what I consider the most entertaining NBA season in years. After the Knicks lost and held their heads in their hands, soaked in sweaty discontent, I drunkenly tuned my guitar and slashed into a 10 minute annihilated cover of “Day Tripper” to kick off the 2nd set. All I could do was rage as hard as humanly possible to honor such an epic day and an epic season coalescing into an ultimate party zone complete with flailing bodies, sloshing a boogie to every bit of beer splashed in my face from a raucous crowd. As soaked as Melo, dripping sweat, myselff covered in beer, we shedded the weight of a “failed” day and shredded in the glory that there's always next year. Fuck the cops. Go Knicks.
*Donnie's prescence is interesting as he was the President of Basketball Operations during the Knicks most recent churn of talent and, last year, decided to go back to the Pacers, whom he'd spent 20 years with prior to 2008. Having been credited with the acquisition of Reggie Miller and long standing playoff caliber team, Donnie assembled the formative stages of the current Indiana roster, came to New York and suited up the late 2000's Denver Nuggets with some “playoff experience” and then went back to Indiana to seal the deal. It's not hard to see why both teams fought hand in hand for their regular season ranking and ended up with a hard fought Semi Finals series. 2 teams, 1 mind.
