To Wand or Not to Wand

Over the weekend New York Giants wide receiver, and rehab mastermind, Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in his already injured leg with his own gun, which he didn’t have a permit to carry, while being escorted to the VIP area of a New York City nightclub. Evidently he’s not much of a Pharoahe Monch fan. This post isn’t about Plaxico’s idiocy, though, rather it’s about what Fox sideline reporter, and former standout defensive tackle, Tony Siragusa said during Sunday’s Giants game about going into nightclubs that use metal detecting wands.

Apparently, back in Siragusa’s playing days he would occasionally find himself at the entrance of a nightclub where a member of security would go to use a metal detecting wand on him. His reaction was one more of us should have. He asked the security person if the wand was really necessary. When the reply was “yes” Siragusa told him not to bother, he’d go somewhere else. Now, bear in mind we’re not talking about a tiny kicker here, we’re talking about a 6’4’’ 340 pound defensive tackle. He just happened to have solid life preservation skills. Skills that aren’t necessarily limited to linemen.

Earlier this year Big Noyd, one of the founding members of Mobb Deep, a group that has always relied on a gangster image to go with their rhymes, told me a similar story. During a previous conversation we’d had he mentioned to me that he really wasn’t cool with all the gunplay that was going on, so this time around I asked him what he was doing about it. His response was as follows:

What I do is I just stay out of places where I know it can pop off at any minute. I'm not scared to go there or nothing, it's just I'm at a point in my life where I've been there, I've done that. I don't gotta worry about what anybody believing, like Noyd don't keep it real.

He continued, adding:

... it doesn't bother me when people say that Noyd don't be in certain places because I don't. When I know there's a certain area where there's a lot of drama going on I try to stay away, man. It's like I said, keeping it gangster to me is raising my daughter, man, and hopefully being around one day to see her get married and do something great.

I think the moral of the story is pretty simple here - if the security team feels like there’s a possibility for a real level of violence, do what the likes of Tony Siragusa and Big Noyd would do, avoid the possibility altogether by being smart enough to say “I can have an equally good time somewhere else.” If you don’t party with knuckleheads you won’t have nearly as many problems.

What does everyone else think of this? What kind of feeling do you get when you go to a club and get the wand treatment? Do you think it sets a bad tone for the evening? Would you be willing to gather your friends and bounce to a different club?