Just keep your head down, I kept telling myself…
The meta irony that Suge Knight is awaiting trial for the murder of a guy who he killed on the set of Straight Outta Compton, a movie in which he is a central character and of which the script features him threatening to murder several people, is not getting enough attention.
If Christian Bale got into a fist fight with Mickey Ward on the set of The Fighter, or Whitey Bulger ordered a hit on Alec Baldwin while he was filming The Departed, it would probably be noteworthy.
I had seen Suge Knight around town at parties before and typically left shortly thereafter. He carries with him an icy fog of homicidal intention which he seems to conflate with Alpha male status. He’s patiently and consciously waiting for someone to step on his shoe so he can order his posse of armed pseudo Blood bad teeth losers to commit a crime.
He’s a fucking dork. His stupid cigar and Maxim Magazine fashion section attire.
I wouldn’t say that to his face. That’s what the internet is for.
Suge Knight has been responsible for more murders than your average cinematic Mafia character. The Mafia might still exist, but they’re getting old. There are more people playing Mafia characters on TV than people in the actual Mafia now.
Eazy E’s son, Yung Eazy, is convinced Suge Knight injected his father with AIDS as a form of vindictive street justice. While that obviously sounds insane to the laymen, Suge Knight stated this very fact while clearly intoxicated on Jimmy Kimmel in 2003 (see video above.)
Knight awaits trial without possibility of bail and is staging prat fall fainting spells in court and basically using the same tactics I did when lying to the nurse that I was sick in grade school. These are stalling techniques so his thugs can have ample time to intimidate witnesses.
None of this is lost on anyone, but it should get credit for the high entertainment spectacle it is. Knight is exhausting all incarnations of the prototypical villain in popular fiction. He was the calculated psychopath archetype, and that worked for him for a long time. In his old age he’s becoming more wily, co-opting an insidious yet increasingly buffoonish Bond villain persona.
A real life Dr. Evil, who is actually evil.
I walked into the 7-11 on Santa Monica and Hayworth in West Hollywood. It was around 6 a.m. Roughly 25 sketchy black dudes were hanging out in the parking lot sitting on the hoods of their cars.
That’s odd for this neighborhood, I surmised.
As I walked to the coolers I saw a large man standing there and realized it was Suge Knight.
Just keep your head down…
Maybe I’ll take a lap around the store to avoid him. A little detour to the protein bar section. He was just kind of browsing.
Luckily I was wearing a baseball hat, so I pulled it over my brow. You don’t ever want to make eye contact with a psychopath. I picked up an 18 pack of Miller Light and went to get in line. Since I had taken this self imposed No Eye Contact policy a little too far, the bill of my hat was pulled nearly over my entire face, the bill at a 90 degree angle to the floor.
For this reason, and because I was walking briskly in an aim to leave the store as soon as possible, I slammed directly into Suge Knight, who had now selected his items and was approaching the cashier. He was a wall. It was a decent hit. I felt my spine crunch.
To my horror, I had knocked a bottle of Strawberry Fanta out of Suge’s hand.
It would have made the story better if it exploded and fizzed red liquid all over the floor of the 7-11, but it didn’t.
It just bounced and laid there.
I don’t remember what I said, but I was trying to play it cool, something like Whoa, sorry dudster, I didn’t even see you there. I’m so baked right now, lol.
I pulled it together, acknowledged the cashier in front of us, and said Sorry again, go ahead.
He looked at me and calmly said, That’s ok. You go ahead.
I paid for my shit and power walked across the street looking over my shoulder as an increasing amount of dudes were smoking giant blunts in the parking lot.
Had I not known this was the notorious Suge Knight I would have been generally pleased with the humanity of the situation. I ran into this dude and he didn’t make a big deal about it. Even deferred to my initial offering for him to go ahead of me in line.
As it was, it was a fucking trip.
I can’t help but think about with this Black Lives Matter movement, how many people Suge Knight has had killed, and how many people know the truth about the murders of Tupac, Biggy, and a ton of other black guys of varying gang affiliation that everyone has forgotten about.
Knight may be a psycho but he’s not stupid.
He’s not going to death punch the stupid white guy who runs into him at the 7-11.
The cops might be all over that.