If you've watched the Knicks on MSG for the last few years, you knows there's a supernatural entity with far more sway over the outcome of games than any player or coach. Every Friday, the network invites Robert Randolph and his Family Band into our homes to play the opening theme song to "Friday Night Knicks" (NSFW if your workplace doesn't permit hexes). The song is cursed-- every time Randolph wails away on his pedal steel guitar, he sics ghouls aplenty on the competing Knicks, dooming their chances of victory. This much has been demonstrated, proven to be statistically significant, and combated with limited success here at P&T.
Now, it's possible that Randolph himself is not the bearer of the curse, that he merely wrote a haunted song by accident (My mom's not cursed or a witch or anything, but she once inadvertently baked an evil banana bread and turned my entire kindergarten class into incontinent serpents. Mistakes happen). Mr. Randolph himself has recently considered this fact, which is excellent news.
See, after the schedule release last night, I went on Twitter and said something flippant about the Knicks playing 16 "Friday Night Knicks" games, presumably with the Randolph opening, this year, thus limiting themselves to no more than a 66-16 record (knowing what I know about how specters age, I expect the curse to only increase in potency). This educated prediction got re-tweeted by a follower who actually knows how Twitter works and mentioned Randolph's handle instead of just naming him, sending my message into the Twitter mentions of the vector of doom himself. In an amazing turn of events, Randolph acknowledged the tweet and replied thus:
Ok ill write a new song lol!!!RT @TheoRabinowitz: RT @seth_rosenthal: I count 16 Friday night (cont) tl.gd/ihtc6j
— Robert Randolph (@rrtfb) July 27, 2012
If you don't understand the way Twitter organizes things, that's Randolph (a diehard Knicks fan, mind you) recognizing the potential to further undermine the team's success and vowing instead to try his hand at a new, hex-free "Friday Night Knicks" theme song. The "lol!!!" makes me worry that Randolph fails to grasp the seriousness of the situation, but at the very least, this means that the cursed piece of music hasn't accumulated enough phantasmal power to possess Randolph's brain. He still has the wherewithal to deny and replace it. And if you take him at his word, he's going to attempt to do just that.
You're a brave man, Mr. Randolph. I hope you meant what you said, and that you'll deliver us a song free of any ghoulish impurities. If you can find a way to exorcise your pen and your pedal steel, we might finally get the 82-0 Knicks season we all deserve.