Showing posts with label Book Club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Club. Show all posts
April 30, 2019
Max's Book Club #2: Raw: My Journey Into the Wu-Tang by U-God
September 12, 2017
Max's Book Club #1: Once Upon a Time In Shaolin
As the asshole that ultimately purchased the only copy of the album, pharma-bro Martin Shkreli, is again a part of news cycles today, thanks to his recent fraud conviction and his current attempt to sell Once Upon a Time in Shaolin on eBay, I thought this would be a good time to pick the ear of your two and find out what everyone thinks of Cilvaringz, the RZA, Shkreli, and the entire project itself, which attempted to create an art-world analogue for music, and may or may not have succeeded, depending on how angry you are about the existence of a Wu-Tang Clan project that you may never get to hear. Although if this post convinces some humanitarian to purchase and/or steal the album from that dick Shkreli and unleash it onto the general public, thereby negating Cilvaringz' pretentious-as-fuck goal of assigning artificial significance to an album of his that would have never seen itself on any label's release schedule otherwise, well, I wouldn't be upset, is what I'm saying. And yes, I realize that you may have inferred how I feel about this entire endeavor with my last sentence, but the hell with it, you know I'm right.
I found some aspects of the book fascinating, especially Bozorgmehr's attempts to justify Cilvaringz's actions and the underlying subtext of The RZA, the de facto head of the Wu, in case you forgot, kind of entertaining Cilva's whims (as though there were no other members of the Clan that wanted to run ideas by him, which was fucking weird) by the mere fact that he was too fucking busy to take charge, allowing Once Upon a Time In Shaolin to happen almost through inaction on his own part at first. And then he segues into stories about hanging out with the RZA in a Buddhist temple while listening to Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) for the first time, because despite actually appearing on the fabled album (in a skit, but still), he never bothered to listen to it, and never actually wanted to, because he isn't a fan of hip hop. There's also some stuff about Cher and her guest appearance, which never personally interested me but I guess is a big deal, and there's an awful lot of ink wasted on trying to make Shkreli come across as a decent human being who was merely playing the "role" of "a complete fucking dick". But whatever.
I'd love to know what the rest of you two think of the book (so you may want to read it first), or even the album itself, since, as far as I can remember, I've never opened up any sort of forum for Wu stans to talk about how upset this move made them. Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and we'll chat. And if this works out, maybe we can keep the book club running...
EDIT: ADDED 9.15.17
I wrote my above comment about this being a failed Cilvaringz solo as a passive-aggressive dig, but as it turns out there's a chance that, as with everything else, I'm right. And so the saga continues.
EDIT #2: ADDED 9.21.17
This story will never end, apparently, as Wu-Tang "affiliate" (I use that term loosely, as most of you two will have never heard of him even though he's actually been featured on this very site) M-Eighty throws a monkeywrench into the machinery, adding a layer of doubt on Shkreli's "sale" of the album. But at least M-Eighty wants to release the album to the masses, so maybe we'll be able to finally listen to it and then dismiss it entirely, as it will be just a Cilvaringz album with maybe a handful of good performances (mark my words).
-Max
(Purchasing the book on Amazon helps support the blog, thereby providing me with more money to try to keep the site running.)
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