EDITORIAL
RINSING OFF THE MOUTH PIECE
R.I.P. Chuck Hull
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Chuck Hull, a ring announcer
for many of the big Las Vegas fights of the 1980s, died Tuesday. He was 75.
Hull, who estimated he was the ring announcer for at least 130 world title fights until he
retired in 1995, worked such bouts as the first Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns and the
Larry Holmes-Muhammad Ali and Holmes-Gerry Cooney fights.
Hull was also the boxing ring announcer for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and was
the first sportscaster for KLAS-TV, a Las Vegas television station.
********
The flotsam & jetsam left over from the detritus of The Hurricane,
continues in the media. In last month's editorial, the Ol' Spit Bucket railed against the
reeking b.s. that permeates the film.
I can hear the collective yawn in cyber space already, but don't worry, dear
readers, the Bucket is gonna spare you, I ain't gonna go off on another rant ... I spoke
my piece last month & I will stand by it. But I do want to
turn everybody on to a chilling story about one of Carter's victims that the movie
completely ignored. The link is: (http://cyberboxingzone.com/pedro/ta2800.htm).
I will let you readers come to your own conclusions. The article speaks
eloquently for itself. Also, look for an interview with the venerable champ himself, Joey
Giardello, in our next issue.
Lastly, kudos must be given to Max Kellerman & Pedro Fernandez for
helping the champ get the truth out about the distortions & misrepresentations of the
movie. The CBZ contacted both of them on Giardello's behalf & they immediately stepped
up to the plate & facilitated getting the champ on their respective TV & radio
shows.
Good goin' guys!
*********
I think our readers will find that our February issue will help quench
their boxing Jones ... As usual we have a wide variety of boxing articles that span an
extensive range of boxing issues. For me, the center piece this month is by Richard
Meltzer, partially entitled, My Century, Your Century, Bobo Olson's Century.
We pride ourselves on maintaining the CBZ as an open forum for all boxing
fans. While we do publish a lot of articles by well known boxing scribes & historians,
we also, every issue, publish many articles by unknown writers.
The criteria for writing for the CBZ is this: You can write an article as
long or as short as you want, you can use strong language or not & you can write about
anything you want as long as it is well written & has at least a peripheral connection
to boxing.
Which brings me back to Richard Meltzer. His piece is about as peripheral as
it gets, boxing wise. It's also, in my not so humble opinion, one of the most brilliant,
ranting, screeds I have ever read.
I have showed Richard's piece to some of the staff & the reactions have
ranged from, "genius" & "awesome" to, "What is this
freakin' crap, Bucket? This guy must be on the same drugs as you are ..."
Yeah, well ... What can I say?
A little background on Mr. Meltzer: Richard was one of the first & one of
the most influential rock & roll critics extant. His mordant wit & cynically
skewed view of the music business was priceless. His critiques for The Village Voice were
a must read for anybody in the music biz. I asked Richard if he would send me some
biographical info on himself & this is what he sent me:
"Richard Meltzer, no
youngster, has been writing professionally for almost 35 years. One of the founding
fathers of rock journalism, he is the author of between eight and twelve books, including
the novel The Night (Alone), and has written on such subjects as TV, politics, boxing,
whiskey and sex. His essay, "The Wisdom in Our Underwear," was originally
published in December by the San Diego Reader. A 600-page collection, A Whore Just
Like the Rest: The Music Writings of Richard Meltzer, is scheduled for spring release by
DaCapo Press.
I STILL think Hurricane was framed, but I have no intention of seeing that
stupid movie. (And by the way, the original Hurricane, Tommy "Hurricane"
Jackson, one sorry mess-and-a-half, went to my elementary school, P.S. 44, Rockaway
Beach.)"
Richard
Anyway, to say the least, Mr. Meltzer's
article may not be everybody's thang. & as editor of the CBZ Journal, a boxing
magazine, the Bucket knows some heat will be generated by some of our readers who don't
expect or feel this is appropriate for a publication that deals with fistiana ... But I
also know there are a lot of readers who will be delighted with Mr. Meltzer's unequivocal
views. At any rate, please feel free to e-mail me your thoughts.
& with that I'll take my leave & let y'all enjoy the new issue.
GorDoom
Roy Jones
Jr...The Way Things Should Have Been.
By Thomas Gerbasi
1994 Mar 22 Danny Garcia Pensacola, FL KO 6
May 27 Thomas Tate Las Vegas TKO 2 (Retains IBF Middleweight Title)
Aug Abandons Middlewight Title
Nov 18 James Toney Las Vegas W 12 (Wins IBF Super Middleweight Title)
1995
Mar 18 Antoine Byrd Pensacola, FL TKO 1 (Retains IBF Super Middleweight Title)
Jun 24 Vinny Pazienza Atlantic City TKO 6 (Retains IBF Super Middleweight Title)
Sep 30 Tony Thornton Pensacola, FL TKO 3 (Retains IBF Super Middleweight Title)
Between 1994 and 1995, Roy Jones Jr. had six fights (listed above). Thomas Tate and Vinny Pazienza are passable as contenders, and Garcia, Byrd, and Thornton were no hopers against the skills of Jones. The big name which stands out among the above six is James Toney, who at the time of their matchup was considered to be one of the best in the world, pound for pound; a distinction now held by Mr. Jones. In their November 18, 1995 matchup, Jones dominated Toney completely, winning an easy 12 round decision. Since then, the names on Jones' ledger have ranged from the obscure to the ridiculous, with a moderately well known name sprinkled in here and there. Thus, those who debate about such things rate Jones not as one of the greatest to ever lace up the gloves, but one of the biggest talent squanderers to step into the ring.
But let's suppose Jones chose five opponents in 94-95 other than Garcia, Tate, Byrd, Pazienza, and Thornton. For instance let's put Roy in the ring with Steve Collins, Gerald McClellan, Frankie Liles, Chris Eubank, and Nigel Benn. Odds are very strong that the naysayers would be pointing to Jones as an all-time great, and not as a reluctant warrior. Jones vs. Steve Collins - WBO/IBF Middleweight Title - London, England
Wembley Arena is
packed to the gills for this title bout, and the local boy Collins didn't disappoint in
the first round, surprising Jones with some deft defensive moves and quick
counterpunching. Jones quickly caught on to Collins' scheme though, and proceeded to
issue a steady beating to the Irishman in rounds two through four. One judge even
scored a 10-8 round for Jones in the fourth.
Collins would not go quietly though, and a steady body attack was starting to affect the American. Rounds eight and nine featured Collins' finest work as he caught Jones on the ropes and pounded him about the arms and body. The tenth and eleventh rounds were tepid affairs, as the two tired warriors circled each other, with only sporadic jabs by Jones winning him the rounds. A second wind was had by both men in the final frame, and the two traded blows until the final gong.
Jones' early lead and late finish made the decision academic: 114-113, 116-112, 116-111 for Roy Jones Jr.
Jones vs. Gerald McClellan - WBO/IBF/WBC Middleweight Title - Las Vegas, Nevada
One of the most anticipated bouts in recent history got off to a slow start, as both men spent the first round feeling each other out. Jones stepped on the gas in the second round, wobbling McClellan with a left hook , and cutting him over the right eye. All three judges scored the second 10-8, and what was expected to be a classic was looking more like a blowout. McClellan crawled back into the fray in rounds three and four, and with the esception of the second round, the fight was shaping up as a chess match. In the seventh round, both men finally went toe to toe, and all sorts of heavy artillery was piercing the outdoor air at Caesar's Palace. The G-Man kept the heat on, and knowing that he was trailing on the scorecards, launched an all out assault in round nine. A well placed left hook to the liver sent Jones to the canvas for the first time in his career. He climbed up at 6 and the bell intervened. With Jones in his sights, McClellan looked to finish things in the tenth. But a left hook to the jaw sent the G-Man sprawling into the ropes. He staggered forward on rubbery legs, and referee Richard Steele didn't allow McClellan to take another punch. Jones wins by 10th Round TKO.
Jones vs. Frankie Liles - IBF/WBA Super Middleweight Title -Pensacola, Florida
After successive victories over Collins, McClellan, and Toney, Frankie Liles looked to be a night off for the multi-talented Jones. No one told Liles. Frankie jumped on Jones at the opening bell, raking his body with lefts and rights, and killing any sort of rhythm Jones wanted to establish. Liles' mugging of Jones continued for three rounds, and the pro-Jones crowd was worried. But have no fear, Pensacola residents, Jones came roaring back in rounds four and five, and Roy's dazzling hand speed and power produced a knockdown of Liles in the sixth stanza. Liles rose at 7, but was dazed. A big left hook to the ribs doubled Liles over, but he remained standing. The bell halted Jones from continuing his assault, but it looked like the end was near. Once again, someone forgot to inform Liles. Gamely refusing to give ground, Liles battled with Jones, outgunned but not outgutted. When the final bell rang, the Pensacola crowd roared not only for the hometown hero, but for the gutty Liles. The decision...115-112, 116-111, 115-112 for..Roy Jones Jr.
Jones vs. Chris Eubank - WBO/WBA/IBF Super Middleweight Title - London, England
The English press warned the world that this fight would either be great or lousy, with no middle ground. They were right. Eubank preened and posed throughout the twelve rounds, fighting sporadically. Jones wasn't much better, content to dance and dazzle with his footwork, and doing just enough to win rounds. The English crowd was not impressed, and a chant quickly came up from the rafters "Benn, Benn, Benn, Benn". After Jones' unanimous decision win was announced (117-113, 118-113, 116-113), the UK would get its wish.
Jones vs. Nigel Benn - Undisputed Super Middleweight Title -London, England
Jones was now an
International star, sellling out Wembley Stadium along with local product Nigel Benn.
This one was not to be forgotten. Benn had done a lot of trash talking before
the fight, and Jones looked to make him pay early and often. A Left hook staggered
Benn in the opening minute, and after a barrage of Jones' best, Nigel walked back to his
corner on rubbery legs at the bell. Benn turned the tables in the second, and his
wild charges took Jones and the crowd by surprise. This was a fight! Jones had the
upper hand again in the third round, but in the fourth, a right cross dropped Jones to the
floor. Wembley Stadium erupted, but Jones made it up quickly at the count of four.
With the crowd still buzzing, the action slowed in the fifth, but picked up again
in the sixth. Benn tagged Jones with a couple of haymakers, but paid for his porous
defense when a counter right cross by Jones put Benn face down on the canvas. To the
surprise of everyone, "The Dark Destroyer" rose to his feet to resume
hostilities. Jones was in complete control now, and Benn was ill equipped to handle
Jones' onslaught. He survived the round, but the result was now academic. 2:36 into
the seventh round, referee Mills Lane stopped the contest, and Roy Jones had unified the
Super Middleweight crown.
What if indeed...
Note...All simulations conducted with Championship Boxing-K&K Computer Solutions http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~kkcomp/champbox.htm
SONNY LISTON … "THE MENACING BLACK BEAR"
By Tracy Callis
Liston possessed a stiff left jab and vicious hooks from both sides. He moved quickly for a big man and fought from a rather straight up stance, crouching when attacked. Never off his feet until the second bout with Muhammad Ali, his chin was pure granite. Only his endurance was a question mark since most opponents were unable to extend him.
Liston was avoided by champion Floyd Patterson and labeled as undeserving of a title shot because of his bad character and background. When he was finally given a chance at the crown in 1962, he cleaned up Patterson without breaking a sweat. His reign as champion was short-lived, but had his title match with Patterson taken place when it should have, in the mid-fifties, he would easily have been champion from 1958 to 1964 and possibly longer (since some mystery surrounds his title fights with Ali).
A few rate him as the greatest ever. They think he could knockout any man he could hit including Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, Foreman, and Jeffries. They say the only type of fighter who would have a chance of beating him would be a runner like Muhammad Ali, Gene Tunney, or Jim Corbett. And, at his best, they feel he would catch up with these guys over the long haul.
Liston flattened Floyd Patterson on two occasions, each fight lasting only one round. He took Patterson’s best punches without blinking. He twice stopped the thunderous puncher Cleveland Williams and took his best shots with ease. He required only fifteen rounds to finish off the following top eight contenders - Billy Hunter, Julio Mederos, Wayne Bethea, Frankie Daniels, Nino Valdes, Roy Harris, Zora Folley, and Albert Westphal.
Odd (1974 p 59) said if any man was ever equipped advantageously to be heavyweight champion it was Sonny Liston. Muhammad Ali said of Liston, "He was everything they said he was, a mass of muscles, power, force …" (see Durant, 1975 p 106).
Houston (1975 p 100) called him "one of the most formidable heavyweights in history … powerfully-muscled former convict who oozed menace." He goes on to say (1975 p 101) that Liston’s fighting was so impressive that it was difficult to find a weakness. Sonny had a "pole-like" left jab, hit heavily with both hands, and seemed impossible to knockout due to his tremendous neck muscles.
Carpenter (1975 pp 125-126) said he was massively broad with impressive measurements. He added that Liston’s left jab compared favorably with Joe Louis’ jab, that he appeared to be impervious to punishment, and that he looked like the best champion since Rocky Marciano. According to Reg Gutteridge (1975 p 19), Marciano once told him that he would not relish being in the same ring with Liston.
McCallum (1974 p 300) said about Liston, "There was just too much dynamite in both hands for most fighters to handle him." Joe Louis predicted that Liston would be champion as long as he wanted to be (Durant 1976 p 150).
In spite of his punch, chin, and menacing attitude, there are many who ignore him in the all-time rankings. His personal life was a disgrace as he was constantly in trouble with society and its laws. One of 25 children, Liston could barely read or write. Grombach (1977 p 86) called Liston "probably one of the most illiterate top performers in modern boxing. He was a mental deficient, hardly able to read and write."
Cooper (1978 pp 149-150) stated, "People didn’t like him, and he didn’t like people" and called him "a man with a grudge against everything and just about everybody." He later described Liston’s fighting by saying "looking after himself without needing to use science was nothing but second nature."
Cosell (1973 p 169) wrote about an interview he did with Liston saying, "Suddenly, I realized that at heart he was just a big bully."
In the same book, Cosell discusses the possibility of Sonny’s involvement with gangsters and a fixed fight in Liston’s loss of the title to Muhammad Ali. Of the knockout punch in the second fight, Cosell quotes Jimmy Cannon, boxing writer, as saying "I was sittin’ right there. I saw the punch, and it couldn’t have crushed a grape" (see Cosell 1975 p 181). Cosell goes on to say, "There was a look of absolute relief on Liston’s face. I don’t think I ever saw Sonny appear so content in his life, and I wondered about that."
Robert Lipsyte wrote, "It must never be forgotten that he was a very good
fighter" (see Litsky 1975 p 205).
In the opinion of this writer, Liston was the #8 heavyweight of all-time – this only after giving in to pressures of colleagues and consideration of a possible lack of stamina in Sonny. At times, there is a strong feeling he was among the four best heavyweights ever.
References:
Atyeo, D. and Dennis, F. 1975. The Holy Warrior – Muhammad Ali. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Carpenter, H. 1975. Boxing : A Pictorial History. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.
Cooper, H. 1978. The Great Heavyweights. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, Inc.
Cosell, H. 1973. Cosell. Chicago: The Playboy Press.
Durant, J. 1976. The Heavyweight Champions. New York: Hastings House Publishers.
Durham, R. 1975. The Greatest – My Own Story (Muhammad Ali). New York: Random House Publishers.
Fleischer, N. and Andre, S. 1975. A Pictorial History of Boxing. Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books.
Grombach, J. 1977. The Saga of the Fist. New York: A.S. Barnes and Company.
Gutteridge, R. 1975. Boxing : The Great Ones. London: Pelham Books Ltd.
Houston, G. 1975. SuperFists. New York: Bounty Books.
Litsky, F. 1975. Superstars. Secaucus, NJ: Derbi-books Inc.
McCallum, J. 1975. The Encyclopedia of World Boxing Champions. Radnor, Pa: Chilton Book Company.
Odd, G. 1974. Boxing : The Great Champions. London: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited.
A Walkabout With Lionel Rose
By Rick Farris
On February 26, 1968, Mashiko
"Fighting" Harada, the greatest Japanese boxer of all-time, was scheduled
to defend his World Bantamweight title against number one challenger Jesus Pimentel of
Mexico. It would be Harada's fourth defense of the title he'd won nearly three years
previous by upsetting the great Eder Jofre of Brazil.
Pimentel was one of the hardest hitting bantamweights ever and had been in contention for
a title shot throughout most of the sixties. However, just days before
the fight, Pimentel's manager Harry Kabakoff demanded more money
from the Japanese promoter. When the promoter refused to renegotiate, Kabakoff
pulled his fighter out of the match and returned to the United States. The story was
that Pimentel had taken ill.
Desperate to save the promotion, the Japanese promoter sought a qualified challenger
for Harada. The champion had struggled to make weight for the bout and after doing
so insisted on fighting. Harada's plan was one last title defense before moving up
to the featherweight division. However, none of the contenders were interested
in taking a title shot on such short notice, except one, the Australian
Bantamweight Champion Lionel Rose. Rose was considered the perfect replacement
because he was not considered a hard puncher like the thunderous punching Pimentel.
Rose had a 27-2 record and had scored only 8 KO's.
Rose and his manager Jack Rennie jumped on a plane for Tokyo and three days later the
20-year-old Australian won the World Bantamweight title with a unanimous fifteen round
decision over Harada.
Six months later, after defending his title against Japan's Takao Sakurai,
Rose made his U.S. debut in a 10 round non-title bout against perennial contender Jose
Medel of Mexico. Medel was one of the greatest bantamweights
to come out of Mexico but had the misfortune of coming up at the same time as another
Mexican great, former bantam king Jose Beccera. Medel had fought and beaten most of
the top bantamweights in the world during the previous decade. He had KO'ed Fighting
Harada prior to Harada winning the title from Jofre. My father and I had seen Medel
fight two years previous when he defeated Jesus Pimentel by decision at the L.A. Sports
Arena.
Also on the card would be future bantamweight champion Chucho Castillo, who had just
beaten Jesus Pimentel two months earlier in the Forum's first boxing show. Castillo
would be fighting Scotland's Evan Armstrong and was expected to be Rose's next opponent in
a title defense.
I remember when Rose arrived in Los Angeles. I was 16-years-old at the time and was
anxious to get a look at the Australian who was a heavy underdog when he won the title.
I had read a lot about Rose and wanted to watch him train. I had no idea that
less than a year later I would have a chance to spar with Rose while he trained for his
last title defense against Ruben Olivares.
At the time, Forum boxing promoter George Parnassus' office was located in the old
Alexandria Hotel in Los Angeles. The Alexandria had been one of Los Angeles' finest
hotels around the turn-of-the-century. During the 20's it was a place where many
celebrities and dignitaries stayed, including Jack Dempsey. However, in 1968
the Alexandria was in no better shape than most of the buildings near 5th & Spring St.
It was one step above a flop house.
However, George Parnanssus loved the Alexandria. He'd gotten his first job
there washing dishes after arriving in America from Greece in 1909. He would turn
the old ballroom into a boxing gymnasium and showcase the fighters he was promoting on
Forum cards and charge $1 admission to anybody who cared too watch.
The Alexandria was located right around the corner from the Main Street Gym where I would
train on weekends. After I'd finish my workouts on Saturday & Sunday mornings
I'd hurry over to the Alexandria where I could watch Rose and the other fighters on
the card train. One of those fighters was another Mexican bantamweight contender,
Ruben Olivares. With Rose, Castillo. Olivares and Medel on the card, I
was able to see the four best 118 pounders in the world up close as they prepared for
their matches.
I remember how impressed I was with Rose. He was tall for a bantamweight, about
5'7", and had the best jab I'd ever seen. It was rare that I was impressed with
any bantamweight having been around the best 118 pounders from Mexico, I was always
partial to the great Latin bantams. However, Rose was special, kind of a
throw back to another era. This guy was a master boxer and he was only 20. He
had several sparring partners including Jorge "Alacrancito" Torres, younger
brother of flyweight champ Efren "Alacran" Torres.
Rose ended up defeating Medel easily, winning a unanimous decision in his American
debut. Chuchu Castillo KO'ed an over matched Evan Armstrong in three rounds, putting
himself in line for a title shot. Another winner that night, also making his U.S.
debut, was another future champ, Ruben Olivares. Olivares KO'ed Filipino Bernabe
Fernandez in the third round
This would set up Rose's second title defense. Four months later, Lionel Rose
and Chucho Castillo would be involved in a war. A war that resulted in a riot.
Mexico has produced many of the greatest bantamweights to ever step into a boxing ring.
1968 was no exception. With Jose Medel past his prime and Jesus Pimentel
heading in the same direction, a new crop of Mexican bantams were beginning to rise.
Chucho Castillo was one of them.
Castillo was the Mexican Bantamweight Champion and had defeated Edmundo Esparza, Jose
Medel, Memo Tellez and Jesus Pimentel. You have to understand that in Mexico,
being the Mexican Champion is more important than being the world champion. Often
the Mexican Champion was, or would become, the World
Champ. When Chucho Castillo stepped into the Forum ring to fight Lionel Rose for the
title, he had the support of thousands of Mexican's who had spent hard earned money
to travel to Los Angeles from below the border. They expected Castillo to
return home with the title, and he almost did.
Rose and Castillo put on a great battle for 15 rounds. Rose boxed brilliantly, using
his darting left jab and sharp counter punches to hold off the charging Castillo.
Castillo landed the harder blows and in the 10th round floored the Australian which drove
the Mexican fans crazy. "Chucho, Chucho, Chucho"" the fans
chanted. However, Rose made it to his feet and went right back to his original
plan. He held off the furious attack of the Mexican and continued to box. At
the end of 15 rounds ring announcer Mario Machado read the verdict. Lionel Rose was
awarded a split decision victory over Castillo. The Mexican fans went crazy and
literally tore apart the
brand new 18,000 seat Forum.
I had attended the match with one of friends, amateur heavyweight Al Boursse.
This was one time Al and I were glad our seats were nowhere near the ring. After
the decision was announced there was booing, then cups of
beer were tossed toward the ring from way back. Then cherry bombs began to explode
and fights started breaking out everywhere. Cushioned seats were slashed open and
the stuffing set afire.
After Rose and Castillo left the ring, featherweights Dwight Hawkins and
Fernando Sotelo were set to fight in a ten rounder. However, the crowd was so
unruly the fight was halted after the third round to protect the fighters
from all of the debris being tossed into the ring.
Al Boursse and I had come to see our stablemate Hawkins or we'd have left quickly after
the title fight. When they stopped the Hawkins-Sotelo bout, Al and I
headed up the aisle, away from all all the missiles being thrown
down. People were pushing and shoving each other trying to escape. As we
passed through a tunnel toward an exit we ran into another one of our stablemates, Ruben
Navarro. Navarro said he knew of a short cut so Al & I
followed Ruben back down to the floor and slipped out through the dressing room area.
As we headed up the ramp to the parking lot we saw Canto Robledo, an old
trainer who was totally blind. Robledo had been separated from his guide and had
been hit with several bottles and was bleeding. Navarro took Canto by the arm and
led him away from the trouble. Outside, cars were being tipped over and the riot
squad was arriving just as we pulled out of the parking lot. All over a close
decision.
Eight months later, in August of 1969, Rose returned to Los Angeles for
another title defense. This time he would take on one of the greatest bantamweights
of all-time, Ruben Olivares.
I was 17 at the time and had just grown into a bantamweight. I was still an amateur
but had an opportunity to spar with Rose as he trained for Olivares at the Alexandria.
I learned a lot from Lionel and found him to be one of the most interesting
characters I've ever met. I only worked out with him twice and wasn't one of his
regular sparring partners, however, I picked up a few things from him. I
began to use my jab much more effectively after
watching how Rose used his.
After one of Rose's workouts the local press wanted to get some pictures of the champ
doing road work. Rose had already done his running for the day but to accommodate
the reporters he walked down to Pershing Square, a little downtown park located
above an underground parking structure. I had nothing to do so I followed Rose and
the reporters down to the park to kill time. Rose was an Australian Aborigine
and was like a character out of a Crocodile Dundee movie.
After the photo session was over, he pulled a tiny little pipe out of his pocket, like the
ones you used to see old ladies smoke in movies. He filled it with tobacco, lit it
with a match and then announced to the rest of us, "Well, it's time for a walk
about". Suddenly Rose disappeared. None of us saw him leave, he
just vanished.
A week later Ruben Olivares would end the 18 month title reign of Lionel Rose,
knocking him out in the fifth round.
Rose would move up to featherweight but with little success. The last time I saw Rose was
in 1976 when he came to Los Angeles to fight Bazooka Limon. Rose was KO'ed in that
fight and retired shortly afterward.
Recently I was introduced to former world champ Jeff Fenech of Australia who was in
Phoenix visiting Mike Tyson. I couldn't help but ask Fenech what had become of
Lionel Rose. Fenech just shook his head and said things weren't going well for Rose,
but did not elaborate.
Last week I received a video tape in the mail from my friend Ted Luzzi, a regular poster
on AOL boxing boards. There were several bouts on the video tape and one was the
Rose-Castillo title fight from '68. Watching this tape
brought back a lot of memories and inspired this story.
I hope Lionel Rose is doing better. He was a one of the most unique boxers I have
ever met and one of the best.
CHRIS DUNDEE'S LAWS OF BOXING AND PROMOTIONS
BY ENRIQUE ENCINOSA
When I met him he was
already a legend. Chris Dundee was then in his late sixties, but still promoting a dozen
fight shows a year, booking fighters to Europe and Las Vegas, running his beloved, termite
infested Fifth Street Gym, the house where legends trained.
Chris Dundee's boxing career stretched for seven
decades, from the age of speakeasies to the age of computers. In his lifetime, Chris
promoted over a thousand professional boxing shows, handled the careers of several
champions, dozens of contenders and a small army of preliminary pugs.
When Chris Dundee became involved in boxing, people
listened to a new sound called jazz, played by young gods of the horn named Armstrong and
Beiderbecke. Liquor was outlawed but all drank bathtub gin and admired the daring of
Lindbergh. It was the time when Dempsey was champ, the Babe was Sultan of Swat and John
Barrymore had a dashing profile. Hitler was a little known local political figure in
Germany and the stock market crash that brought the age of economic depression had not yet
cast its dark shadow over Wall Street.
By the time Dundee called it a day, the depression, a
world war, conflicts in Korea and Vietnam had concluded. Juice bars with avocado protein
drinks had replaced the speakeasies, techno-rock was the new vogue sound, fax machines and
the Internet were changing world communications and Dan Marino was a seasoned football
star.
In between those two moments of beginning and end, Chris
Dundee promoted title fights that included the birth of the Ali legend, managed world
champions, and was a top booking agent.
In his lifetime, Chris Dundee knew such literati as Hemmingway
and Mailer, smoked Cuban cigars with Errol Flynn, attended parties with George Raft and Ed
Sullivan, played cards with Rocky Marciano. At his place of business, a termite-eaten gym,
The Beatles met Muhammad Ali in a gathering of icons moment of the sixties.
The seven decades of boxing began when a young Chris Mirena
became the boxing manager for his brother, a club fighter who battled under the name of
Joe Dundee. When Joe retired, Chris kept the Dundee name. Although most of his fighters
were older than he was, Chris learned the tricks of the trade with the skill of a
virtuoso. At the age of twenty-three, the young manager guided Midget Wolgast to a world
title as king of the flyweights.
Chris Dundee sailed through the Great Depression promoting club
fights, managing and booking prelim boys and topnotch fighters. Crowded by New York
competition, which included some totally unscrupulous characters, Chris looked for a
virgin territory in which to establish his kingdom.
Chris fell in love with Miami Beach, the land of art-deco
hotels, golden beaches and exotic rum drinks. Boxing had been promoted with some success
in the Magic City, but at the time Chris made his move, in the forties, Miami Beach was
ready for a hard working fight impresario.
So was born the Fifth Street Gym, the revered temple of sweat where the
Ali legend was to be sparked, where Luis Rodriguez, Willie Pastrano and other
Hall-of-Famers plied their trade. From the mid-forties to the early nineties Dundee
promoted boxing, often at a loss, making up income on wrestling shows and an occasional
circus troupe.
He was a real promoter. In this modern
age of pay-per-view and television contracts, promotions feed on media advertising to make
deals. Chris Dundee did all that, the title fights, the television shows, closed circuit
theater fights and hundreds of cheap cards to keep the fighters busy.
"He was a hustler when it came to
promoting ticket sales," the great historian Hank Kaplan remarked, "Chris would
visit the track, local hotels and all sorts of public events. Since he was so well
known, many strangers would come say hello and Chris
would pitch his upcoming card. He always had a book of tickets with him and would sell
them ringside or general admissions on the spot."
Dundee guided the careers of champions
Ken Overlin, Ezzard Charles, "The Cincinnati Cobra," and the first Bahamian to
win a world crown, Elisha Obed. Dundee promoted the first Ali-Liston bout, when the Great
One still used his slave name of Cassius Clay.
"The title fights and TV fights are
easy," Chris once said, "It's the club fights with five hundred paying customers
that are hard. There's no budget."
Since the budget was limited, Chris was
often unable to afford fighters from other cities. The Dundee solution was to have a
couple of dozen local prelim fighters fight each other over and over. In 1963 and 1964,
peak years for Chris, his crew of featherweights and lightweights was made up of Jerry
Powers, Sandy Seabrooke, Winston Green, Bobby Marie, Berlin Roberts, Santos Flores and
George Sawyer. This was a busy little group that fought each other over and over, for
years.
Jerry Powers fought over a hundred fights in
his all-prelim career, but almost seventy of those bouts took place in 1963-1964. In those
two years "The Prince of Second Avenue" fought Sandy Seabrooke twelve times,
Berlin Roberts eight
times, Winston Green seven, George Sawyer six and Santos Flores only five. In the same
two-year span, Bobby Marie fought Seabrooke on five occasions and went three against
Sawyer. Winston Green, who faced Powers on seven prelim fights, also traded leather twice
each with Seabrooke and Flores and once with Roberts.
"If two guys put up a good scrap,"
former lightweight contender Frankie Otero remarked, "Chris would book a rematch. If
you were a prelim fighter who wanted to fight and were not too picky about your opponent,
Dundee would give you work."
"Mostly he had fights," Ferdie
Pacheco once told me, "shoestring budget for some shows but he kept it going. Even
when he wasn't scheduled to fight, Jerry Powers would show up with his gym bag and if
Chris was one bout short, it would be a four-rounder with Jerry and any of the other seven
or eight guys like him who fought each other all the time."
I learned much about the fight game from
Chris Dundee. In the early eighties when I was part of the promotional team of Hank
Kaplan-Ramiro Ortiz in Fort Lauderdale, Chris was our consultant guru. His short
statements defined situations so well, that among his friends, the statements were
jokingly called "Chris Dundee's Laws."
"Chris Dundee's Law on Betting," Frankie
Otero remarked, "was -Never bet against an unbeaten fighter."
His laws on promotion were similar pearls of wisdom
gathered since the days of Dempsey and Tunney.
"When you put on a card," Chris told me,
"always put on your worst bout first and your best fight at the end. This way, you
get the worst match out of the way while the people are sitting down or buying hot dogs,
and then they go home remembering the last bouts, which were the best fights."
Dundee's Law of Prelim Fights: "The perfect undercard fight is
when you have two guys who like to throw a lot of punches and neither one of them can
crack an egg. Then the fight goes the distance, no one gets hurt and the fans are
happy."
Dundee's Law on Heavyweights: "Anything can happen when big
guys clash."
Dundee's Law on Complimentary Tickets: "Once you give a
complimentary ticket to a paying customer, you will lose a paying customer forever."
Dundee's Law on Cutting Purses: "Always cut a purse. If you
don't, because the kid is just making small change on a prelim fight, then six or seven
fights later when you cut the purse for the first time the fighter will look at you like
you are raping him. Always cut the purse. It's important the fighter understands the
business relationship."
Dundee's Law on House Fighters: "Protect a house fighter but
never to the point it hurts the reputation of the promotion. Give the local fighter an
edge but the house pays to see a fight. The first priority of a promoter is to put on good
fights."
"Chris was really good at matchmaking," Frankie Otero
remarked, "I had a great corner with Richie Riesgo, Luis Sarria and Ferdie Pacheco,
but I owe my career to Chris. He knew how to match me. -This guy is going to make you work
hard, Frankie- he would say -but if you are in shape and box him you will beat him- Chris
knew something about every fighter.if the guy was
in shape, if he took a shot, if his reflexes were fading. Chris was very sharp. When he
made matches for me with Kenny Weldon and Jimmy Trosclair he knew they would be
competitive fights, but I won them because Chris understood both my talents and my
limitations as a fighter and the same for my opponents. He made me a local hero and a
contender."
Dundee made significant income over the decades by booking Florida
based fighters in Europe. Local prelim boys with so-so records would fly across the
Atlantic, lose to a European or British champion and pick up a payday five times the size
of a hometown stake. Chris would book fights for a ten to fifteen per cent fee.
During the years I was also matchmaking and booking fighters, my sleep
was often interrupted by a Chris Dundee call.
"Wake up," he would say, "I need a welterweight for London.
Ten rounds against the British and Commonwealth Champion. It pays three thousand. Can you
get someone?"
"Chris," I would answer, looking at the digital numbers on the
nightstand clock, "It's three o'clock in the morning."
"Not in London," Chris would answer from his Miami Beach
home, "they just called me and they need a welterweight now. See if you can get
someone. I'll call you back in a half an hour."
Chris was a persistent salesman who could drive a hard deal. When
a hotel in the Cayman Islands staged a pro card, Dundee called to offer a fight. I had a
welterweight prelim fighter with a nine-and-three record that Chris, in his matchmaking
wisdom, had figured as a pleasing opponent for a good prospect on the edge of contender
status. Chris offered $ 800 for an eight rounder, plus expenses. I turned it down.
"Why?" Chris looked at me with a convincing countenance
of stunned disbelief.
"Ralph Twinning is undefeated in seventeen fights and is a
southpaw. It's a very tough fight for very short money, Chris."
"Think about it."
"The answer is no, Chris."
A month later I was matchmaking a card in Hialeah. Needing to
complete an eight-rounder, I dropped by Dundee's small office at the Miami Beach
Convention Center.
"I need a cruiser to fight Dynamite Perez," I said,
"it's an eight rounder."
"The Bahamian fighters are training here now," Chris
said, "and Gary Clark is experienced. We can do it for fifteen hundred."
Chris nodded his head vigorously, hoping I would nod back in agreement.
"Same deal as with Ralph Twinning," I said, "eight
hundred for eight rounds and he doesn't have to travel far to fight."
"No!" Chris answered, "this is a good fight."
"Sure it is," I answered, "an even fight that could go
either way. It's good."
"A thousand," Chris said, "It's a main event."
"It's a small promotion and the money is tight."
"A thousand," Chris repeated like a mantra.
"Thanks but I have to go make some calls," I said "If
you won't take it for eight hundred I'll get some farm boy from Homestead to go against
Perez for five hundred in a six. It won't be much of a fight but the rest of the card is
solid."
"A thousand."
"Bye, Chris."
He followed me to the parking lot.
"Nine hundred."
"Okay."
"Young man," he said, shaking my hand as he smiled, "you
have learned the business."
Although he drove hard bargains and could argue with a booking agent
for an hour over a fifty-dollar expense, Chris Dundee had a warm heart. He donated money
to charities and once a year, every Thanksgiving, he would host a huge dinner for his
boxing people at a local restaurant.
Sportswriter Tom Archdeacon called it a "Pug's Thanksgiving
Feast," and it was a moving moment of camaraderie among men whose bond is the
communion of pain in a squared ring.
Chris Dundee's Thanksgiving Dinner was attended by the successful
and the destitute, by upcoming prospects and old prelim fighters with scarred eyebrows, by
paunchy old men who once strutted their stuff under bright lights, when their muscles were
young and supple.
It was a spectacular group. There was ancient Sellout Moe
Fleischer who had known Bat Masterson, had managed Kid Chocolate and trained Tom Heeney.
Across from Moe, sat Sully Emmett, a little man with an incomprehensible chatter and an
eternal, well-chewed cigar stub on the corner of his mouth. There were also several
generations of prelim fighters represented, men who talked amongst themselves of six hard
rounds fought for meager paydays, yet rejoiced in the retelling of the hard fights,
wishing they could turn back the clock, to do it all over again. As many as thirty people
attended the once a year dinner and Chris paid the full bill.
Chris Dundee died at a nursing home in Florida in November
of 1998. The funeral home was packed with familiar faces. Angelo, Robert Daniels, Uriah
Grant, Frankie Otero, Chuck Talhami, faces from the Fifth Street Gym.
Tommy Torino was once a competent welterweight, a veteran of
several dozen pro fights while in his teen years, a boy who grew to manhood in the gym.
Tommy is a full-time promoter and manager, a disciple of the Chris Dundee constant hustle
promotional system. Standing in front of the funeral home, looking at the crowd, Tommy
looked glum. Chris had been his guru in
the fight game.
"Hey, Tommy," I said, "look at this crowd. This is
Chris' last public appearance. We should have put on a couple of sixes and charged
admission."
Tommy's glumness seemed to vanish. A slight smile appeared on his
face.
You know what?" he said, "Chris would have loved
it. Just loved it."
encinosa@hotmail.com
Harry Scott -- A Boxing Pro By Thomas Gerbasi
Not only a champion, but a hero to the
South African people. Jake Matlala, 38, has been fighting professionally since
February of 1980, when he won a four round decision over Fraser Plaatjies. Over the
next 11 years Matlala learned his trade on the South African circuit before facing Dave
McAuley in Ireland in 1991 for the IBF junior flyweight title. Matlala was stopped
in the 10th round, but rebounded with four straight wins, the last being an eighth round
kayo of Scotland's Pat Clinton in 1993 for the WBO crown. He defended his title three
times before losing it to Alberto Jimenez in 1995, but he regained the belt by defeating
Paul Weir nine months later.
Matlala's biggest win, and according to
Jake, the highlight of his career, was his ninth round knockout of superstar Michael
Carbajal for the IBF championship in July of 1997. Since then, Matlala's activity
has been sporadic (he sat out all of 1999), but he hopes that a win against the unbeaten
Makepula will kickstart his career again. "If I put on a good show on the 19th,
winning the title, I can go all over," said Jake. "I can come to the States and
defend the title against any contender which is available."
One future opponent may be Carbajal, who
was scheduled to defend his WBO title against Matlala on February 19. Carbajal was
stripped of his title and now Matlala and Makepula will fight for the vacant crown.
Is Matlala disappointed that he isn't taking on his old rival? "I was
disappointed. That would have been another good fight for the South African people.
But this is boxing. Anything that comes up, you take it. Like a
soldier. Anytime you must be ready."
And South Africa is ready for
Matlala-Makepula, which promoter Rodney Berman called the biggest fight in South African
history. Makepula, an unbeaten knockout artist, has called Matlala his idol.
Jake's reaction: "It makes me feel excited to influence people to like boxing and to
train in boxing, like the Hawk. But on the night of the fight, there's going to be a
change. I'm going to show him that I've been there for years. He's good, but
he's still a youngster."
Be that as it may, Matlala is still the
underdog to his opponent, who is 12 years his junior. "The good thing for me is that
I'm the underdog," stated a confident Matlala. " They look at my age and the
youth of Makepula, but I'm confident. It's going to be good to prove people
wrong."
If 'Baby' Jake can turn back the clock
again, how long will he continue to fight, and what is the source of his fountain of
youth? "If I win, why would I quit? Why not continue? I'm very religious.
For me to wake up and go to training, to do my running, to excel in my sport,
that's the power of the Almighty."
font face="Courier">
MY CENTURY, YOUR CENTURY, BOBO OLSON'S CENTURY By Richard Meltzer
By Harry Otty
Jack
Dempsey: Society's Most Adored. And Boxing History's Biggest Fraud?
By Alex Hall
Right at the height of the
prohibition era, Dempsey's violent style made his fights so exciting that for just a few
short rounds, the crowd forgot the need for alcohol as other basic lusts and violent
instincts took over. Dempsey was the first Mike Tyson minus the biting and outside
fighting. What more could one ask for? His image outside the ring was clean
and the leather on his gloves was stained with the blood of countless victims.
From a personal perspective, Dempsey and Tyson have little in common
other than a taste for a 'dandy' style of clothes at times. But in the ring they
might have more in common than one initially suspects. Both were savage but fast and
with a good mind for defense on the attack but there was more. It is now accepted by
many that Tyson was lucky to come along among a crop of weak heavyweights. Was
Dempsey a truly great heavyweight or was he just a man who lifted the popularity of the
sport and gave us thrills?
Dempsey is regarded as being on the same level as Ali, Louis, Marciano
and Johnson or whomever else you regard as a great heavyweight? Did Dempsey really
beat anyone of such importance that we should hail him as a boxing legend? The
definition of an all-time great is very flimsy indeed. Basically, you have to
dominate your particular era no matter how weak it may be. By that measure we would
regard Tyson as an all-time great too. But we don't do we? Why not, you may
ask. In one word: Holyfield. Tyson fought on with the wrong people
backing him and got caught out by a seasoned old pro. But wait, was not the same
scenario acted out 70 years earlier with Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey? Indeed it
was.
If one looks closely one will see that it was not just Dempsey and
Tyson who were extremely similar but their chief adversaries were extremely tough, skilled
boxers from the division below heavyweight who's defining fight came against a menacing
man despite being small for a heavyweight who happened to be leaving their best years with
the second of the two encounters being a huge attraction and one of the biggest
controversies in boxing history. Was this coincidence or has Dempsey just been
grossly overrated? Come to think of it, a better case can be made for Tyson's
greatness than for Dempsey's. But Dempsey has been regarded as a great heavyweight
and Tunney is dismissed by all but a select few hard-core experts, Tyson on the other hand
is dismissed by all but a select few while Holyfield is regarded as an all-time great by
all but a select few. My personal views on Tyson on Holyfield will not be discussed
here nor will the worth of Gene Tunney but the general opinion of Jack Dempsey will be
heavily questioned and criticized below.
The Hurly, Burly, Early Years Of The 'Manassa Mauler'
Here we see one of the few areas of Dempsey's boxing career that did
not mirror Mike Tyson's. Dempsey's rise to the title included several four round
defeats to the Buster Mathis of the day - Willie Meehan. The decision of those
fights has been criticized but it is generally accepted that Dempsey lost at least one
most likely two of their encounters. The length of the bouts - four rounds (note: in
California four rounds was the maximum number of rounds allowed.) - has been used as a
sort of scape-goat. If we were talking about Julio Cesar Chavez or some other
notorious slow starter that argument might be prudent, but with a savage killer like
Dempsey it must be said that the argument might well have been quickly established with
little care or thought as to the true facts of the case. People will criticize my
argument by saying that despite Meehan's blubber, he was a good mover, yet these same
people worship Dempsey for his speed. That in a way is like saying that Ali can be
forgiven for almost getting clocked by Henry Cooper because 'Our 'Enry' was a hard hitter
and then say Ali had the greatest chin of all-time. So which is it? You cannot
blame the losses on Meehan's speed and then praise Dempsey's for his. The best
argument most can come up with to counter that is to question the validity of the
decisions recorded. This argument does hold water as fixing the fights in order to
win big by betting on Meehan would make sense (although that is mostly just a theory that
happens to fit the facts). However, if Dempsey knew he was likely to get jobbed no
matter what then would it not be sensible to adopt a new fight plan that would enable him
to flatten the 'Phat Boy'? Of course it would, yet Dempsey did no such thing which
strongly suggests a total lack of ability to adapt to a new style when his usual one
proves ineffective. He had the tools to knock out Meehan. Pernell Whitaker
suffered horrendous decisions but the only way he could beat most fighters was to go the
distance with them, this is not so of Dempsey.
Fred Fulton is a name known to many common boxing enthusiasts.
His name eludes most though in all but one situation: His first round knockout
defeat at the hands of Jack Dempsey. His name rarely crops up again and when it does
it is usually to mention his amazing size (note: Fred Fulton stood 6'4). Is
Joe Louis revered for his demolition of Abe Simon or looked up to for defeating Primo
Carnera? Certainly not, so why must we credit Dempsey for knocking out Fred Fulton
even if it took a mere 23 seconds. Here I will relieve that nagging bug at the back
of your mind that implores you to find out where else you have heard of Fred Fulton:
He holds two victories over Sam Langford. Langford is regarded as perhaps the
greatest fighter ever to walk the planet. Langford had everything a heavyweight
could possibly want - well, almost everything! It is regarded as a miracle that a
former lightweight like Langford could compete so successfully with boxing's biggest
men. Jack Johnson was credited for beating Langford. But Johnson also beat
every other heavyweight of the day, beat a younger version of Langford, was smaller than
Fulton and was not stopped in one round by Jack Dempsey. There you see it.
Fulton's credentials rest on beating this small man who was past his prime.
Therefore Dempsey's victory over Fulton would not equal Evander Holyfield knocking out
Lennox Lewis or Michael Grant today, but rather a considerably smaller version of one of
the Klitschko brothers or a smaller Andrew Golota or maybe even Mount Whitaker.
Note: Jack Dempsey suffered a one-round defeat to former title challenger Jim
Flynn but I did not use that argument as it was almost certainly a fixed fight.
Tuesday, Bloody Tuesday: The Day Jack Dempsey Became Champion Of The World
It was a terribly hot day when the crowds packed the stadium to see
Jess Willard defend his title 
for the first time in three years.
The champion was physically imposing but woefully lacking in talent. To this
day he does not stand out as the best 'Great White Hope' of his day but only as the most
resilient and tough - the only one who could out-last the hated, black champion Jack
Johnson in a 45 round fight. Willard won the title in 1915, and defended on one
measly occasion. Willard's defense of the world crown against Frank Moran was the
equivalent of waiting until you are dealt a royal flush before betting in poker as Moran
had no chance of knocking out big Jess and if the fight went the distance (which it did)
it would be declared a no-decision. Willard was a nice enough man, but not a great
fighter by any standards, had not fought in three years and was 39 years old.
Willard was a huge man, and so at first glance, scoring seven knockdowns in one round
against him seems incredible until one looks over the rules of the day. In those
days, men stood over their fallen opponent and could hit them the instant they rose from
the canvass, even if they still lay in a vulnerable position. Such was the tactic
Jack Dempsey used against the rusty and aging colossus. In figurative terms, he woke
the sleeping giant and proceeded to kick him in the balls before he even got
up. This would be like Holyfield knocking out Bowe in 2000 if Bowe had never had any
skills in the first place. One must also watch the film (there are many available, I
have three copies from various sources myself) to see Willard carry his left hand by his
waist and throw crude counters to keep off the challenger. This clearly lessens the
achievement of knocking out Jess Willard.
A Dandy And A Destroyer: Jack Dempsey as the Champion in the Roaring
Twenties
Dempsey's first defense of the title must come as one of boxing biggest
disgraces of the times. The gross mismatch against Billy Miske was a disgusting
exhibition that stands out as a blight on the credibility of the sport (ah for the days
when boxing had credibility) in the 1920s. Miske was suffering from Bright's Disease
and although not totally shot, was certainly no longer a threat due to high-activity and
the disease that ravaged his kidneys.
One thousand dollars! One thousand dollars! It just doesn't
have much of a ring to it anymore. At least not since 2 July 1921. That was
the day that Jack Dempsey and Tex Rickard carried boxing through to a new era. An
era in which anything with less than five zeroes simply wasn't enough. Almost
exactly two years after Dempsey's title winning victory over Jess Willard in 1919, Dempsey
defended for the third time (he had scored a come-from-behind KO of Billy Brennan).
Rising in weight, 175 pound king Georges Carpentier challenged Dempsey. Carpentier
was a talented boxer, and Dempsey was not huge for a heavyweight, but the fact that
Georges still scaled almost three pounds under the light-heavyweight limit for this fight
brings to mind the old phrase ''A good big guy always beat a good little guy''. This
was very true here. The bigger and stronger champion simply overwhelmed the smaller
champion. Basically, it was a case of the 'Manassa Mauler' vs. the 'Manassa Smaller'
as Dempsey outweighed Carpentier by between 15 and 20 pounds (I have been unable to find a
reliable source that gives Dempsey's weight, but Carpentier was 172½ lbs). All
those who have seen the fight must surely see Carpentier's left hand at his side (just
like Willard) as he tried to keep off the champion with several wild punches a couple of
which appeared to stun the heavyweight champion in the first round. Still, the low
left hand and big weight advantage for the champion were too much for Carpentier.
His face was badly marked by the end of the first and he was floored twice in the fourth,
the last time for the count. Beating a smaller man who carries his hands by his
sides (at time Carpentier's right hand would join his left at his waist) while still
getting stunned is hardly impressive. Why was this ignored? Simple, read any
report of the fight and you will hear little of the action itself, only of the fact that
the fight was boxing's first million-dollar gate.
Dempsey next defended his title on 4 July 1923 (exactly four years
after he won the title from Jess Willard) against Tommy Gibbons. Again, fight
reports record only the disaster that was Jack Dempsey-Tommy Gibbons (the fight nearly
bankrupted the town of Shelby Montana where the fight was staged). Gibbons was a
very fast and talented boxer but had competed in the professional ranks for the last 12
years and was 34 by fight time. Gibbons clinched his way through most of the fight
and neglected his jab in many rounds. Dempsey supporters will try to try to counter
me by saying that Gibbons was very fast, but again, this is coming from those who worship
Dempsey for his speed. Gibbons was also giving away 15 pounds in weight. So,
it all adds up to Dempsey winning a 15 round decision over a much smaller man who made him
look dreadful despite being 34 years old.
His last three fights having come against smaller men, the champion
signed to fight Luis Angel Firpo. Nick-named the 'Wild Bull of the Pampas', Firpo
weighed over 220 lbs and was strong. However, one must not get the impression that
Firpo was Jimmy Wilde but twice his size. Every time I watch the fight I must
grimace in displeasure. I have always loved watching the master boxers of the ring
(I regularly found Pernell Whitaker's fights very enjoyable), and watching the sickeningly
crude Firpo is just one of those things that I am compelled to endure. Carrying his
left hand by his side (sound familiar?), Firpo clubbed away with right hands that would
make Butterbean look like Willie Pep. Dempsey simply swarmed from the start and took
advantage of the rules of the time by hitting his opponent the moment he rose from the
canvass (something else that sounds familiar). But still, Firpo gave the champion a
licking with one punch, then punched him out of the ring. Dempsey was helped up
again by the ringside reporters and hung on for dear life until the bell saved him from a
further beating. Dempsey recovered quickly and knocked out Firpo in the second
round.
The fight with Firpo was the last successful defense of his world
crown. In total it added up to beating a badly sick man, two smaller men one of whom
was past his prime, a come-from-behind KO of Billy Brennan (Not mentioned above) and the
defeat of one of history's crudest fighters. In these five defenses of the title,
Dempsey was hurt in two of them, made to look very unskilled in two others and look
impressive in one (against Billy Miske). Dempsey's 'brutal and dominant' title reign
is merely a collection of victories over tainted opposition and the champion still failed
to impress.
Jack's Run Ended By A Runner: Gene Tunney Wrests The Title From Dempsey
An exciting if unimpressive title reign on 23 September 1926.
Making his first defense in over three years, Dempsey was easily out-boxed. One can
blame it on age, but Tunney had little trouble taking the crown as his use of the jab
caught the champion coming in, and enabled the former American Light-Heavyweight Champion
to soar ahead on points. Of course, Dempsey was not as young anymore, but the weight
advantage (not the first time he had fought a smaller man) should have helped to offset
that a little. It did not. Tunney himself, was not wonderfully young either,
and would have just two more fights before retiring and had had five grueling wars with
Harry Greb.
The Battle Of The Long Count: Boxing History's Most Groundless Controversy
It has long been argued that Jack Dempsey beat Gene Tunney on 22
September 1927 (almost exactly one year after the first fight). This argument is in
a word: Rubbish! Dempsey himself claimed that he did not agree with the notion that
his foul tactics had cost him victory. Tunney does appear dazed at first but can
clearly be seen to be ready for action before ten seconds (official or not) had elapsed.
This was almost exactly like Tyson's knockdown of James 'Buster' Douglas. But
Jack Kearns (Dempsey's manager) made no attempt to reverse the decision as he was no
longer working with 'Manassa Jack'. So that leaves us with what? Nine rounds of
beating in which Dempsey got caught by jabs and right hands coming in and was even knocked
down and badly hurt in the eighth round. You can say that Dempsey's reflexes were
shot, but his chin certainly was not, and this former light heavyweight beat him up.
The Aftermath
Dempsey did little in the ring after the second Tunney fight. It
was his last fight of note. And so his credentials in the early days were failing to
get the better of Willie Meehan, beating Fred Fulton who's only claim to fame was beating
the tiny marvel Sam Langford. His credentials in the championship days were looking
bad against three skilled boxers, beating up on two crude giants, knocking over a sick
opponent and a partridge in a pear tree. So there you have it. His legacy was
his huge service to the popularity of the sport, but that is nothing to create a legend
out of. He took advantage of the lack of neutral corner rules, beat either small men
who carried their hands at their sides, or big men with skills that would embarrass Mia
St. John. Smaller men and bigger men stunned him and his 'brilliant defense' was
just ceasing his forward momentum when fighters threw shots back at him. A fellow
boxing enthusiast that I know claimed that Dempsey was regarded as the definite
pound-for-pound greatest fighter ever by all those who saw him. And that is just it.
We thought the same of Tyson until a certain cruiserweight made us look twice.
People saw him and got caught up in the atmosphere of it all, and ignored the major
flaws that Dempsey possessed. He fails to make my all-time heavyweight top ten, as
all those that did held their hands just a little above the waist. And if
light-heavyweights could stun him, think what Louis, Johnson, Marcianno, Frazier, Foreman,
Liston, Fitzsimmons and any other hard hitting heavyweight would have done.
Last Stand For
Baby Jake?
At 4'8, Junior Flyweight 'Baby'
Jake Matlala is the smallest fighter in the world. It can't be easy to be a fighter
at that height, can it? What could be the benefit of being that small? "Hitting the
tall guys," laughs 'Baby' Jake, taking time out from his busy schedule as he prepares
for his February 19 clash with Masibuele "Hawk" Makepula for the vacant WBO
junior flyweight title. But seriously, has being 4'8 been a challenge in the ring?
"Boxing is a sport where you have to use your brains," says Jake. "If
you hit them in the body, the guy will come to your level. I've been a champion for
years with my height."
<
Century's short
but centuries long
should be
limited.
--"Microwave," William Carlos Williams
It ended abruptly around 1970, or slightly earlier. '69 would be a good likely date.
If you were born after that and care about such biz, too bad--and too bad, yes,
'cause it is too bad--but everything since then has just been Out There somewhere,
off the frigging Map. After the century and its representatives tossed it all away.
The century where it all went to hell--but WHAT went to hell?
Where the means were found to sweep all wisdom, all true sass, and most (if not quite
literally all) beauty under the rug, to brush it off humankind's underwear.
Where the distance between the real and the acceptably fake narrowed and narrowed to
functional insignificance.
New new NEW, lotsa freaking N*E*W, but ultimately (and merely): new bread, new circuses,
new repression.
But nothing as utterly new, as new w/out historical precedent, as terminal closure.
Termination 4-ever. Although Burroughs used to claim it closed, ending all
real earthly Possibility, in the 18th century. Or was it the 17th?
Dunno. (You could ask him if he weren't dead.)
So many, so-o-o many things happening only to unhappen; to be trivialized and marginalized
by failure, success, and the oversight of Crowd Control Central (which you bet your ass
exists); to undercut their own being, deflavor and denature their own act, to
wet-tissue-paper nullity. And I ain't just talking rock rock rock and ROLL...
On the shortlist of things/lost, or even not-lost (and possibly lookin' quite healthy),
but still g-g-GONE:
The NF fucking L (NB fucking A) (March--ha ha ha--Madness).
Boxing as an event staged in venues other than cow pastures.
Wrestling, for crying out loud.
Hollywood, anyone? (Independent cinema, ditto.)
Did I hear the word "journalism"?
TV. TV? Tee vee??
Democracy as even a phantom cliché tendered as a sop to rubes (still the major
mega-demographic).
Cultural liberation. Sexual freedom. Civil, y'know, rights.
Public...what was it?...education.
Anybody in the house remember graduated income tax?
Watergate, by golly. What'd it lead to besides Nixon being SAINTED? (Century
of the Bully.)
Marx proven right! And right ON! Again and again and AGAIN! (You bet
your mom's rosy ass he was.)
Capitalism (which in endgame = Hedonism) and Puritanism: two nasty trains, always running,
but now running in sync: the scare of nastier, more existentially calamitous
mortifications (like another Depression, or nuclear snuff-out, or no more dirty mags) to
keep us neurotic, force us to settle for less dire plights and lower-yield varieties of
(ever more expensive) symptomatic relief.
Kicks??? A concept nuked back to the Stone Age; a shell game, at best, translucent
as a broken bay window.
A century in which some odd couplings have occurred, where (for most intents and
many purposes) a familiar face named Jesus, for inst, got mated with this new guy named
Hitler, yielding one awesome composite force, a unitary "belief" generatrix for
some kazillion-plus population units...something t' do with racism...discipline...robotic
obedience...and of course Clean Living. (Is anyone paying attention?)
It was the best of shit.
It was the worst of shit.
It was the best of shit.
It was the worst of shit.
It is the worst of shit.
It's the shittttttttttttttt.
(Forever.)
*
PROPHECY AND POSTPHECY
"2000 Man"--who'd have thunk it?
What seemed at the time like a bit of comic relief, a topical joke on side one of Their
Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones' entry (11/67) in the Sgt. Pepper
overproduction sweepstakes, now reads like one of the great, and maybe the last
great, documents of future-think.
"My name is a number, a piece of plastic film"..."I am having an affair
with a random computer"...even a dose of multiplanetary multiculturalism:
"Oh Daddy, proud of your planet; oh Mommy, proud of your sun"--how's that
for prescience?
Who'd've thought such a lampoon of future-think would come to pass so quickly, so
thoroughly--or was it a truism even then?--and nobody'd even be snickering?
And that other more-than-date: 1984.
By which time, compared to the hand history had actually dealt, "1984" (the
concept) had become a mild little what-are-you-complaining-about?, the Orwell vision
having been superseded by something far more weasely and malevolent. Big Mean Uncle
certainly did watch you, but more than that you were watching him (his 8-ring
circuses, his news and commercials, his Master Program), addictedly, on a monitor YOU paid
for. (More effective and cost-effective.)
And the year itself, diggit: Reagan had to be Prez; the Olympics had to be
staged in L.A. (Vegas wasn't ready yet). There was no irony left in the world.
A year later, when Terry Gilliam's Brazil came out, a reviewer or two copped to its
taking place, perhaps, in not so much the future as an alternate present, but nobody
picked up on it as a film in fact about the past--1965, say--a time when Control
was still analog, and occasionally (in both theory and practice) fallible. A
nostalgic little period piece.
*
AS I LAY DEAD (CHAPTER FROM A NOVEL
THE CENTURY WOULD NOT LET ME FINISH)
It's 2035. I've been dead 30 years. Welcome to my treasure trove. My
hand-chiseled mausoleum. You and eight or nine others have stumbled in here: lots
of goodies, take 'em and enjoy! And take your merry time, they ain't going anywhere.
Where the hell were you when I was alive?
Ah! the thudding frustration of "slipping through the cracks"--"dying
invisible"--or even worse: being branded a "cult writer" (whatever that
is. Sounds like caves and dungeons. Moonlight); the bitter exhaustion of
having to cheerlead my own act, my so-called career (why do we strive? why do we
strive?)--fuck me. Luck was never mine. Whatever could go wrong, did.
Now that it's over, what's the diff? What ever was the diff?
But anyway, come in, take your shoes off, probe and grope me. While I was alive I
didn't care much for the notion of scoring--being "discovered"--after I died.
It means nothing to me now. "Me" doesn't exist, not anymore,
"I" don't either, and "we" never did.
Don't wanna sound like a frigging solipsist (I die...it's over...I take it all with me),
it has nothing to do with such biz. Obviously life goes on--the last reader isn't
dead yet--so here's how we maybe should play it: I was generous then (i.e., now: my
now), always gave the whole wad away, squandered my fluids on writerly whims with but the
most esoteric of payoffs, spent 5-6-7 years on books that didn't get me laid, didn't earn
me a can of clams, and the bounty of that generosity lingers on. If I can have a
corpse, if I can be a corpse, so can my work...consider it dead. Bountifully.
Does death fascinate you?
(While we're on the subject, I sort of doubt my corpse wishes were heeded: to be left
naked in the street for the flies to feed on. Please be sure my grave is kept
clean.)
Anyway, here 'tis: a gen'rous helping of smut, rant, provocative grocery lists, reviews of
wrestling and lubricated condoms, bon mots, lively filler, evidence galore of the author's
having ripped the eyes off his face, ripped the skin from his bones and poked it with an
icepick, hammered the bones with a claw hammer, lopped them with poultry shears...a
carload of fine "stuff" from a deadman who knew how!
Hey, I was a contender--almost--in the final uneasy days of writing as we the
still-living know, er, knew it. Or am I lucky I ever got published at all?
None of which exactly matters, y'understand, but it can still be a pisser, still
living, to live with it. The taint of "failure." Non-recognition.
Something almost like "shame." A cheesy burden on waking
consciousness. (Fuck me fatuous.)
And why do we strive? Why in the face of setbacks and etc. there aren't
sticks (bats) (clubs) enough to shake at, do we persist in believing it matters?
Damned if I know. (Don't give me any hogwash 'bout the
"indomitability of the human spirit.")
Listen, I grew up at a time when TV was new...none in my home till I was five years old.
Imagine such a world (a world also without rock-n-roll). Now you're probably
six steps beyond laser discs--I'm talking your now. Do "novels"
exist anymore? Books as such (without compulsory audio/video/smellorama)? Is
"text" just something you at your option download off a CD-ROM, database
X or the Internet, or whatever's replaced them? (Do eyes exist anymore? Do
teeth?) This is not a science-fiction novel. Or maybe it is. I
don't care if you don't.
In any event, behold the document: a "kitchen sink" (as we might once have
called it) of life-wish and death-wish and grandiloquent nullity...a swag chest knee-deep
in glowing all-for-naught...a rich accumulation of aromatic dust.
Early in the final decade of the last century, I got interviewed for a French documentary
about a 1960s band called the Doors. Their singer was hot shit for a while.
"How," I was asked, "would you describe the sexuality they
projected?" Well, I told the guy, making it up as I went along, it wasn't basic
rock whiteboy sex of either the '50s or '60s, it wasn't black, y'know, R&B sex, the
blues, and it wasn't British-style androgyny or anything especially kinky or even all that
topically macho. It wasn't specifically any of that so much as--well--it
seemed from this end, seeing them in this crummy little club every night, like
nothing less than a musical evocation of MY OWN dick.
May this heap-o-pulp likewise serve as the ur-expression of YOUR vanity. A foretaste
of your own aftertaste, of your own extinction. Don't be shy: use me. I don't
mind at all being useful. Let my legacy be your legacy. Fuck legacy.
Fuck fuck--I'm a duck.
*
CONSPIRACIES (1)
Personally, I don't think the CIA killed JFK, and the first click in my head after
something reminds me of his snuffout is its position, of all things, in sequence with the
rebirth of rock and roll. The snuff occurred in November '63, late, and by the
dawning of '64 rock was back again, full force, after being dead in the water since 1958.
Really, trust me on this, that was the sequence, one two, bing bing,
in the consciousness/mindset of callow American whiteys my age (18-19)--I was THERE,
believe it.
Anyway, back again: doing its trademark mind-body-heart-soul redemption number: the second
flowering of rock-roll as such, as an officially so-named whatsit, or if we're talkin' real
history (or izzit prehistory?), counting the '20s--Delta blues--as the first, and postwar
Chicago as the second, early '50s R&B as third, maybe throw in '40s jump blues too,
we're looking at possibly the fifth or sixth time it happened (no sweat, tho--it worked):
but in any case also its LAST flowering (punk as long as it was punk was something
else).
But flower and flame it did, and no matter how you slice or critique it, by '65-'66 it was
like this torch held high in the World--as bright as your proverbial 10 thousand
suns--which in congress with certain other factors more or less formed the mid to
late 1960s--where, regardless of what Clinton and his ilk would prefer you to believe,
something, as they say, OCCURRED.
The frigging SIXTIES!--the buzzword, the stereotype, the noumena & phenomena!--plenty
of bullshit, too, of course (too kneejerk an Us-versus-Them, too fat and specific a brand
new style sheet)--but what did happen was elemental and massive, involving tens of
millions of people, a third (easy), maybe even half, of the youth of America, in a
just-say-no to toomany things to grocerylist here, and a hogwild hell-yes to even more.
If you wanted to, heck, you could try and isolate a few of the chickens and eggs, some
primary causal "culprits." Drugs (natch). Consciousness as a
tangible whoozit (and nascent Force). Probably some residual sadness (cynicism) over
Kennedy. The ur-loathsomeness of tootoomuch mainstreamamerican life (revealed!)
(along with the means, and the warrant, to burn every BRIDGE to it). The hoodoo of
the too-long "forbidden," its allure magnified by context to the breaking point:
forbidden no more. The demotion of God (from boss to player) in the court of the
cosmic and eternal. A provisional end to manymost variants of Judaeo-Christian
guilt. Vietnam, the last war with a draft (fear of death at its most functional)
gave the whole show mega-sufficient urgency and gravity, but England and Canada didn't
have 'Nam, and it happened there just as elementally, and maybe even as massively.
And one of the most telling, and most underrecognized, aspects of the whole business is
kids, the cognoscenti, having better, livelier things t' do, DIDN'T WATCH TELEVISION.
What they did was hang out with friends, play records, smoke reefer and take pills, stay
up all night, carry on, meet and greet the world, and if all else failed they might
have turned a TV on with the sound off, smoked more reefer and GOOFED ON IT. (These
wags nowadays who wanna claim TV helped radicalize people in the '60s--news pics of
action in the War, for inst--are only looking at a sampling of Old Squares too numb and
dumb to have "known" such stuff without the see-Spot-run--not the already
converted.)
Oh, and it didn't end suddenly somewhere towards the end of the
decade--"decades" have nothing to do with anything, and certainly nothing to do
with this--but in increments, and by sections. The rock side of things--the torch
held high--was hanging much less high by the three-quarter point of '67.
Corporatization was rapid-fire and crass. "They can't bust our
music," read a Columbia Records promo for several of the bands in their
"stable," including the hapless Moby Grape (in whose behalf they pulled the
inane grandstand play of simultaneously releasing five singles, thus dooming the
truly terrific LP from which they were culled). Too many labels across the board
signed (and would never stop signing) too many bands. MGM tried to pull off an
"instant scene," the Bosstown Sound--Boston, y'dig?--featuring such happy hokum
as Ultimate Spinach. "Alternative culture" came to mean nothing more,
nothing less, than alternative product (in the same old, if resized and repainted,
marketplace).
Even before the '68 Democratic Convention, before even Martin Luther King and Bobby
Kennedy got shot, the political wing--the "Movement," the "Revolution"
(ha ha ha), and more concrete (and practical) manifestations like the Panthers--was
already gimpy and staggering under the weight of reactive brutality and internal
frustration, coupled with diminished ideology. "Purity" is never an easy
stance to maintain.
When at last it finally did end, it was clear it was over. Thuddingly.
By the spring-summer of '69 (Easy Rider, say, then the fucking Moonwalk),
everything in counter-land was down the tubes, the toilet, sixty feet under, and with it
the last vestige of interest ('cept to necrophiles, archivists and profiteers) this
century. Events after that, from within and without, were just nails in coffins,
coffins, too many coffins to count. And Manson had nothing to do with it.
Anyway, I don't think the CIA killed JFK (with a chessplaying org so concerned with
Control, it's hard to believe you would take the KING, and I don't mean Camelot, off the
chessboard--especially one whose politics were prob'ly more their own than their founder
Truman's, for inst--and expect to retain the social order...like he was one of our more
RIGHTWING postwar presidents, f'r godsakes, and one so natural to the PR of it all--the
source of Reagan!--he had the masses considering him "liberal," a populist, how
absurd...as to a "splinter group," some buncha renegades, acting
independently--against the dominant Agency grain--you've gotta imagine there would've been
repercussions, retribution and whatnot, heads would have rolled or at least bounced,
conspicuously...and mustn't Kennedy have had his PARTISANS inside the Agency? wouldn't
there have been some ripples of reaction from them?...anti-Castro Cubans as
perps?--while meanwhile, way after the Bay of Pigs, which the Agency botched, not him,
he'd never lost his enthusiasm for KILLING CASTRO--checking the agency's progress towards
which was a daily task assigned to brother Bobby--I'm not sure why we're s'posed to
believe the Cuban faction wasn't a party to, or at least privy to, that number...as
to the need to even shoot the prez, make a martyr out of him for whatever the hell he was
or wasn't, there had to 've been e-z ways to neutralize and subdue him--White House fuck
tapes? photos of him "doing" Marilyn?--if in fact there was much of anything to
subdue...heck, if the Agency, if some agency, had a hand in undoing Nixon w/out
murdering his weird ass, why the need for bullets with Kennedy?...not to mention he
was a literal IVY LEAGUER like manymost of them, an elite goddam player from the getgo,
unlike Ike/Dick/Harry/et cetera...whereas the prospect of, say, the Mafia--some mob guy
whose girlfriend Johnny mighta diddled--committing the deed, eh, now that seems
eminently credible), yet they certainly didn't waste any time TAKING CREDIT for the deed
(so future idiots like Carter and Clinton would be certain they'd done it and never risk
"stepping out of line" during their own presidencies), doctoring and creating
evidence to the point where relatively little of it, especially the sort of "new
evidence" still surfacing at this late remove from the event, is to be trusted; nor
do I believe in Conspiracy Theory in general.
Very few designated conspiracies, in fact, would seem to be the outcome of collaborative
intrigues, of confederates sitting down at a table, planning you do this, you do
that, and together we'll fuck with history, by gum--they're usually just the
inevitable consequence of manypeople--way beyond those at any and all conceivable
tables--being simply on the SAME TEAM. Like Foucault, I don't think you need
sinister coalitions willfully scheming anything--whole entire SHITLOADS of folks
who'll never meet are already on the same team, and the way teams do their thing hasn't
changed much since the dawn of civilization. Did Reagan have to "ask"
Hollywood to make the cultural cornerstones of his presidency (the enlistment films
of the post-braindead multi-decade), Rambo and Top Gun--or even, for that
matter, the soft-sell slop of Stripes? Was it really necessary to
bean-count heads in "both" parties to guess the upshot of Clinton's
"impeachment"? Did Bonnie Raitt need to be "cajoled" into
vacating the bench of that other team, the long-in-a-slump Peace Team, to lend her
careerist "support" to the we-love-our-boys-in-the-fucking-Gulf fandango?
(Or might it be, apropos of how a fellow sing-songer had put it, that she jus'
wanted to be on the side that appeared, for the moment, t' be winning?)
There are, however, some historical scenarios that look too, too scripted, where
unscripted is extremely implausible--as if, well, some well-oiled think-tank or
somesuch MUST HAVE conceived, coddled, brought them to fruition. "Been
responsible" in an originative sense. In this category I put MTV.
Fact: the '60s, whatever did or did not (in reality) go down, scared the shit out of lotsa
people in lotsa pockets of power and privilege, your so-called "entrenched"
interests, including the grimgrey forces of Death-over-Life per se (you know them).
Fear. Trembling. A taste of vulnerability (for the previously
invulnerable). Were instilled.
Is it plausible that such slaphappy fuckers, their "world" thus threatened,
would hesitate a second, once the threat had passed, in tossing 'round the
bigbucks, funding to the TEETH any and all nefarious efforts to ensure that nothing
similar would ever go down again?--or at the very least, failing to achieve such
omnipotence, and since accidents do happen, to see to it that some failsafes be in place
to limit the damage?--is it plausible they'd pass THAT up?
Enter: one or more mercenary "study groups," gaggles of amoral
brainstormers--pay 'em, they'll without compunction piss on any world including their own.
If happyfolks at the Rand Corporation (as we later were told) dropped acid and sat
around discussing ways of winning nuclear war--fun & games w/ the Apocalypse--imagine
what a hoot some favored colleagues had in running down the psychedelic '60s.
And a prime ensuing "project," it sez here, was to make sure the youth of
America got its full dose of TV like ev'ryone else (come rain or shine).
Becuz here were these pricks who (upon reflection, and after research) DID notice how many
kids had passed on "the tube" from such a date to such a date. And why
didn't they watch? For starters, the obvious: the sorry dearth of televised rock on
a regular basis. There was all the Dick Clark shit, sure--ersatz till you puke--and
occasional name guests on Ed Sullivan or The Smothers Brothers, but nothing
to set your watch by. As a youth sop, Mod Squad fooled no one with two-tenths
of a brain (and it didn't have cameos by actual bands). (Only 8-year-olds watched The
Monkees.)
Needed: a viable means of both showcasing and neutralizing (compromising) a steady stream
of frontline rock on the home screen.
So however these things work...seeds planted...circumstances tweaked...record companies
goosed (dig this new marketing tool)...a slow, steady groundswell of greed
fomented...advertisers felt up and out (let 'em think it's their idea)...greasing
the wheels (c'mon, somebody greased 'em--y'don't buy the MTV "instant success
story," do ya?)...say, isn't that former Monkee Michael Nesmith over there?...until
finally, early '80s, here 'tis: an actual rock-roll channel. Network.
Crowd control module. Whatever.
By which time, in the wake of punk having bit the dust, then circled back itself t' join
the marketplace, rock on its own was already not about redemption (or liberation)
(or empowerment) or anything close, and couldn't wait to comply: the wundaful
world-o-videos. (Monkee-ization of the whole shebang.) When the frigging
MINUTEMEN did a vid you knew it was completely over. The commercial, the
come-on, was the product, the thingie, the "art form." Where once
there had at least been a semblance of polarity, of a dialectic (the Big Score vs.
unbridled Whoopee Per Se), now you had none. Rock and the marketplace were indivisibly
one, no separation, not even an argument, just like TV and the 'place: an early warning
that dialectical materialism (as we knew it on earth) would soon give way to unrepentant
MATERIALISM. For the rest of our lifetimes, anyway.
*
FINE TIME TO BE BORN
Couldn't be finer.
May 11, 1945. Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" is recorded in New York.
Though not the original version, this is the ONE, with players including not only
Charlie Parker but Sid Catlett, arguably the greatest drummer jazz has produced (more
sizzling in context, it could be shown, than Elvin Jones at his Coltrane-era best),
and it's probably produced more great-great A-1 drummers than A-1 alto sax players.
Parker, 24, the highwater mark for alto, jazz's most mind-blowing soloist (any
instrument), and prob'ly the greatest musician (period) ever to record a note, would be
dead in less than 10 years. Gillespie, a more cautious breed of hellion, would live
to perform "Salt Peanuts" at the White House, with guest vocal by once and
future peanut farmer Jimmy Carter: great moments in kitsch.
I'm one day old.
If I'd been born just two days earlier, my parents would later claim, they'd've named me
Victor--for V-E Day--lucky me.
And luckier still for THIS, and its ilk, to have been the music vibrating the air, if not
down the block then close enough, in the very town where I entered this life, though it
would be 17 years (during one of rock's major down times) before I would
fortuitously get t' hear it: frenzied, frenetic, frantic--stop, start, fly, floop, over
and out--go 'head, call it nutty. But not nutty like Spike Jones, or Hellzapoppin
or a Bugs Bunny cartoon: nutty like a miracle in the wilderness.
*
NUTTY, RECENT, WHITE
Twenty anagrams for "Twentieth Century":
THERE WENT UN-CITY T. (Trumancapoteville: g-g-g-gone!); HENCE U RENT TWITTY (y'need Conway
for a party, so you pay for him); WHUT TEN-C ETERNITY? (what endless import, 10
centuries?--"millennia" debunked); IRENE NETTY "T.W." CHUT (1914-76,
proponent of "tough weakness" therapy for substance abuse); TENT-CUT THY WIENER
(so sayeth Leviticus, one O.T. scholar insists); W.C.T.E.: 'NUTHER ENTITY? (is the Women's
Christian Temperance Enfederation really diff'rent from their Union?); HY TRICE
WENT T' UTNE (Hyman Trice, co-founder of the Utne Reader, went there
straight from McCall's); WET TEN-INCH RYE TUT (medium-size Egyptian novelty bread,
after the rain); TENTH WETT-URINE CY. (nine, make that ten cyclopses, consecutive,
whose pee ain't dryy); CHEWY TINT-NET--TRUE (no lie about edible colored women's
hose); TUNNEY ET IT W/ "H" CERT (Gene followed lobster with a heroin-flavor
breath mint); HEY, T.R. WENT T' TUNECI (no shit: Teddy Roosevelt attended classes at the
Technical Univ. of Northeast Connecticut, Illimantic); NEUTER THE WITTY N.C. (Noël Coward
should be desexed, humorless critics contend); TEEN WINE TRUTH: C.Y.T. (choose your
toxin, kids); TWIN TRUENCY TEETH (geez: she cut school twice t' visit the dentist!);
RECENT N.U. WYETH TIT (exceptional breast painting by Andy Wyeth's unheralded
cousin, Napoleon Ulysses Wyeth); WUTHERIN' TENCTETY (Emily Brontë's turgid, yet
still unpublished, sequel to Wuthering Heights); T. IN THE EYE, 'TWURN'T
"C" ('twas only English Breakfast, not cancer, thank fuck); TUNE THE
Y. WIRE (CTNT) (made-for-Canadian-cable film o' the year for '93); YET THE WINTER
CUNT...
*
RAUNCH CORRELATION
Obviously, centuries don't exist. Not like days, nights, seasons, or years do.
Ten fingers (Caesar had them, as do we), hence the decimal system.
In long retrospect or short, sequences, chronologies, linkages could doubtless be
otherwise. All ascription of the squawk of moment, of its raunch correlation with
neighboring moments (and the longer haul), more than, oh, two years after the fact is
purely revisionist.
It so happens the 20th ends now. If it ended in 1956 or '57, unencumbered by
the anathema such truck would entail today, we could conceivably be discussing, even in
this exalted weekly, gross inanities like GREAT CHICKS (HOT BROADS) (BOSS BABES) OF THE
CENTURY (Josephine Baker...Harlow...Lana...Ava...your ballot on page 52!); might
even be proposing, in the afterglow of her lurid bump through The Girl Can't Help It
(co-starring Little Richard), Jayne Mansfield as THE manwoman of the whole cha-cha-cha.
Is there not something grossly revisionist, in a very real sense, that only a current menu
of options--contexts--perspectives is "legitimately" considered?
*
THE TOWEL
Complicity.
We all comply at times in our own undoing.
Lots-o-persons in most lines of etc. have thrown in the towel, but for writers to
have done it as early as they did was a particularly bad omen, a foretoken of just how
quickly and nastily all the dominoes would fall.
Sheesh...it's downright tragic.
Writepersons, who at least in theory should know better, and who dealing in words and
ideas and such crap--keepers as they are of the oldest flame going: the flame of
MEANING--bear a certain, uh, responsibility for and to the welfare of all livingthings,
well they shoulda knowed right off the bat what it meant.
Publishers of newspapers & mags, to save money, make things "go faster,"
started firing typesetters, and the writers for these rags became typesetters, what they
turned in was already set, but no savings or perks of any sort were passed on to
them. Editors, editing on these little screens, fucked up more than before, stupider
typos, more ridiculous line breaks, as copy routinely got mangled. The only side of
writing that one could argue had been improved was the clerical side (hey, y'mean I don't
gotta retype? it'll check my spelling?--gosh), never the creative side.
Nor the economic side. Where once all anyone needed t' write was a pencil, suddenly
you had to INVEST IN all this ugly machinery, the equivalent of a
washer-dryer-airconditioner. And that clickety-clack typer that'd served your techno
needs--manual; electric; even a Selectric--well it won't write to disc or double as a
printer, so chuck it: a useless antique.
In '91, after being told by every paper I worked for that if I didn't submit copy on disc
I would hafta come in and retype it into their computer anyway, I succumbed to the
coercion and bought my first computer. Not wanting to be distracted by superfluous
opticals--I'm a writer, 's not a hobby, don't insult me with toys--I got a
monochrome monitor. My first impression was of having to drive to work--to work at
home. A bleary-eyed commuter. It made the process of writing so unpleasant
that the genesis of paragraphs, pages, pieces ultimately took me longer.
Today, with e-mail and the Internet and truckloads of unwanted "applications"
and vid-games and Zip drives and scanners and all the standard compulsory whatnot--shit I
don't want, and don't want to need--it feels like I've bought this car that was out
of my range, and I also had to shell out for 7000 teddy bears and a million pairs of
purple socks and a 300-year subscription to Field and Stream. Ninety-nine
percent superfluity. (Every second I'm sitting at the fucker, I feel like I've been
HAD.)
"Personal" computers: nobody needs th'm. It isn't about need!
Well, animators for the graphics on Monday Night Football need th'm, but FUCK
the animation on Monday Night Football. The world would go on fine without
it.
Coercion. Fooling ostensibly all of the people closer, ever closer, to all of the
time. Soon we'll be expected to pay our goddam bills online, and if y'ain't on it
yourself you'll have to subscribe to a service that does it for you. How long before
we gotta pay to breathe? Don't know your take on this madness, but it's the bitter
END of mammal life as I used to know it.
The stations of my loathing...
I basically haven't watched TV news since 1980, or about the time Jimmy Carter reinvented
the Cold War, table-setting the Reagan years. The fraudulence of this prick's daily
TV PERFORMANCE, the sick macho gesture of an Annapolis wuss who'd used coverage of Three
Mile Island (him in a spacesuit) to prime the pump--this to me was what the Cuban Missile
Crisis had been to others...never again. My decision wasn't driven by
escapism--an attempt to avoid knowing "what was going on." I simply no
longer wanted any part of Master Control's by-the-numbers show & tell--the sights, the
sounds, the easy trifling with every sinew of our being.
Likewise, with computers, it is not bad enough that they exist and are heinous and more or
less mandatory. Knowing that is merely knowing that, but to SEE its ubiquitous face
is to BE THERE yourself, witness to the SAME pinks, luminous greys, cerulean blues, all
the dings and dongs from cyber hell, which constitute the universal workspace of the
damned, lockstepping to the horror, the horror.
A future-vision straight out of Disney, or to be precise, Disneyland the original
weekly series. Several times each, they'd served up pap from Fantasyland,
Frontierland, and Adventureland before finally, in '54 or '55, they aired the first
Tomorrowland segment--some unremarkable animations of space flight shown-and-told by
Werner von Braun. With much cash, effort, and national sacrifice, said the
denazified Nazi of the hour, we might make it to the moon by the year 2000...ooh, wouldn't
das be wunderbar.
Well, they never did get us there, the bastards, but they also never lost the pre-rock
fiftiesness of the dream, which they assault us with today WITHOUT MERCY: Eisenhowerland!:
whitebread über alles!: thesauruses w/out the word "shit"!: mall-world before
malls! A perfect formica simulation, now that they don't even make that stuff
no mo'--that's what I see on MY so-called desktop (don't know 'bout yours). On which
must be endured an endless procession of ads for shit I don't want/need/wanna know about.
Every screaming icon is a product i.d. How long before you click on
"save" and there's an ad for some fucking bank?
All this "virtual" bullticky--addresses that aren't addresses, access that isn't
access, e-mail "relationships"--is an imitation-of-life more ludicrous (and
hideous) than made-for-TV movies of the '70s and '80s. "User friendly,"
what a laugh--as bogus as "have a nice day"--while an elite core of PLUMBERS are
the only ones who even sometimes know the bowels of the operation, what's indeed going
on. This isn't relative unreality, but the absolute unreality of it
all--as sham as a speech by Pat Robertson. Or is an absolute anything no
longer feasible?
Why don't people read books anymore? Because after a day at the office in front of a
freakin' screen, they're TOO BLIND to read a book. Fewer books being read, and fewer
being bought, "literature" is no longer a category at a single major U.S.
publishing house--true!--you could call 'em up and ask. Coffee table garbage,
self-help, textbooks, designated bestsellers, and of course computer books--such is our
current literary lot. And I'm not talking "good writing" vs. "bad
writing," I'm talking language as a solemn goddam cross to bear, writing by people
who take risks as large as life (when it was still large) itself.
There is more need right now to unplug from the prevailing "real world" scam
than there was in the '60s. Are you man/woman enough?
*
1969
The year instant replay became standard for major league baseball, not merely for
homers and crucial fielding plays but practically every pitch ("Curve ball, low and
away, Ralph").
An accursed season not even redeemed by the up-from-the-sewer N.Y. Mets snatching the
World Series.
This wurn't no simple, gratuitous recoverability number, like reruns of old films
or "oldies but goodies," the concept/package introduced on AM radio around 1960,
but something (in the scheme of things) genuinely pernicious: the undermining of spectator
consciousness.
An end to unidirectionality...to events in time heading somewhere...to time/expired
actually meaning something.
PLUS: the root beginnings of nonstop cross-cut sports editing (with hyperactive fans and
players' wives and the crippled kid who's got a month to live and all o' that),
employing "cinematic" means to manipulate the perception of real-time events in
real time, thus rendering space permanently unreal (first done
"experimentally," and with major malice, in the live broadcast of the JFK
funeral some five-plus years before), a follow-the-dots aimed at more than a quaint li'l
studio audience: the stay-at-home sporting masses, bub!
Our first taste of such as STANDARD MALICIOUS BROADCAST PROCEDURE.
*
1920
A very early warning.
In his first novel, the Less than Zero of its time, F. Scott Fitzgerald plays the
hole card of socialism, only his socialism is quitelike fascism, and not just the way it
might transmute into something like fascism, y'know down the road, like when Stalin
would go and do all these purges (and pogroms) in an excess of institutional whatever, but
fascism already, originally, pretty much by definition.
In short order, This Side of Paradise would sell 2 million copies, a prototype of
the literary killing for ages-to-come of young American doodooheads, and make its author
(the emperor's new clothes of mock-modernist trend-think; jock-sniffer to the Rich decades
before Capote, Tom Wolfe, or P.J. O'Rourke; debaser of the concept of "jazz"
before it was even a third of a concept; grandfather, godfather--or simply
harbinger?--of the Yuppie) the toast of who fucking gives a shit.
Imagine the play he'd've got on Entertainment Tonight or PBS. 'S a good
thing, in those days, only the literate were subject to such crap.
*
CONSPIRACIES (2)
Why do you think Nixon abolished the draft? Not from compassion, that's for
sure. No draft = no draft resistance. Or much resistance, or protest--as
opposed to mere objection--to anything, really. Why do you think there's no
perceptible leftist presence, nor even much of a politics, among the formerly
draftable (18 and up) anymore?
AIDS. Not too many're claiming anymore it was custom-designed--scientists (outside
of fiction) just ain't that ingenious--or even, especially, that somebody in fact invented
it. It would still seem, howev, that at some point, by hook or by
crook--"accident"? "discovery"? "engineering"?--whoever they
were had something on their hands, this virus, this bug--what t' do with it? First
off, let's see what it can do--who'll we test it on?
And why does it seem likely it was tested? 'Cuz epidemiologically, ha, there
apparently is NO WAY (contrary to the usual "explanation") for AIDS to have gone
from being a heterosexually based epidemic (in Africa) to a homosexual one (in the U.S.,
"via Haiti"--or so the story went) as rapidly as it did. It isn't
even a longshot--it's off the actuarial page. Demographic breakdowns on early HIV
distribution--the earliest hints of outbreak--point, out of all proportion, to recipients
of an experimental hepatitis B vaccine tested exclusively on gay U.S. men, and of a
tainted batch of smallpox vaccine administered by health workers in Africa. Tested,
inotherwords, on a pair of population groups--blacks and gays--deemed expendable.
From genocide to mass-manipulating the living. Once the virus was out there, the
policy among the elite that knew (however much or little) was to let it flourish,
reveal nothing that might prove helpful in saving a life or umpteen thousand. If
junkies and hookers were soon getting sick, fine, that's cool--who needs either o' them,
either? By which point new malevolents were "joining" the plot, hopping
the bandwagon, to make damnsure there would be no needle exchanges, no free condoms, no
encouraging people to just beat off already, no advice to anyone except just say no, and
by all means keep away from queers--demonized this time around as the source of
pestilence. (And what, pray tell, is the Ameri-Christian beef with
homosexuality? That it is, bottom line, from their tightassed perspective, prima
facie sexual--the very word conjures up images of sex acts--sperm flying all
over the place--while the fact of Donnie Osmond, say, as a professed heterosexual evokes nothing.)
When the bandwag reached its broadest mass-media phase, the evil got more
omni-directed, and the goal, clearly, became one of trying to SCARE THE SEX OUT OF
EVERYONE. Hedonism = freedom...fuh...it'd gone on long enough. One
custom-designed consequence: an upswing in hetero monogamy--gee, how sweet--to nudge the
birth rate up another notch.
Disposable diapers. As the '60s were waning, the American birth rate was at a
postwar low. This at a moment when young'uns were fucking like krazy--and abortion
was still, in most places, illegal--so how to 'splain it? More important for
corporate America, how to overcome it?--to reattach babies to the sex urge?--get some
economic mileage out of orgaz and ejaculation? Whaddaya think the REAL objection to
abortion is in high U.S. places? Squeezing votes from the most easily led of
constituencies is small potatoes--there's always other ways, too many ways, to pull those
people's chains. Nah, chalk it up to corporate greed. Corporations always want
MORE mouths to feed, and bodies to dress, and suburban commuters to sell cars and gas and
garage door openers to, and more occasions to market symptomatic relief to more sufferers
from a life more inhospitable every day. If it ain't more, it's as bad as less.
Plus: more unwanted (and unterminated) pregnancies means more neurosis in the world,
which means more consumers consuming neurotically, thus micro-manageably, on corporate
dotted lines.
For the record: starting during Reagan's first term, and no diff due to a Democrat taking
office, the U.S. has done its utmost to dismantle every third-world birth control program
it helped initiate in the first place. Keep 'em hungry, keep 'em needy, sell 'em
more and bigger Bruce Willis movies--keep those debtor nations under our boot! The
Population Explosion, that late-'50s cause célèbre--when there were only two
billion people in the world--what ever happened to THAT? (And don't tell me Ben
& Jerry name flavors for it.)
So anyway...births...'60s...down...how come? And somewhere on the massive list of
"reasons" some research outfit ultimately compiled--way, way after the important
stuff you can't do much about, in some cases 'cause you caused it, oh, like the
unlivability of life (y'know at this stage of decay on the planet); the basic expansion of
people's moral conscience over their parents' (the karma stops here); the magnanimous
avoidance of the sheer ego-puke of "my son, my daughter...mein
kampf"; the polygamization of p.o.v. (even if you're only sequentially lining
up alternate partners, offspring complicate breakup and mobility); the cost of baby food,
baby shoes, the cost of...college (none o' that gettin' cheaper); a simple, basic
refusal to get sucked in, go with the program (better to stick your nose in a garbage
disposal)--down near the bottom had to be diapers: who wantsa deal with 'em?
To dissuade that marginal minipercent to whom such b.s. might somehow be a deciding
factor, voilà:
Disposable diapers (but won't they pollute the earth?)--who could ask for anything more?
Since then we've had ovarian vogue...the culture of babying...10 billion baby films...a
population increase of 70 million (U.S. alone). Dominoes, anyone?
*
RED HERRING OF THE CENTURY
Child abuse. Child abuse?
All parenting is abuse. (Sure as meat is murder, property is theft.)
Physical abuse bothers you? Well, what about spiritual abuse?
My idea of a major felony: inflicting on a child, age 0-12, the concept of heaven and
hell. Especially hell.
"Teaching" a kid hell oughta be worth a mandatory minimum of 20, no, 30 years.
On a fuckin' chain gang. No lunch breaks. (Don't let nobody say
I'm soft on crime.)
In its sorry, sordid end run, has "religious freedom" as practiced in this
country ever done much more than buck up the right, the compulsion!, of various afflicted
grownups to perpetuate the germplasm of whatever strain of fire-and-brimstone they
themselves were once branded with, i.e., to inflict their ongoing dogma on innocent,
unmolded lumps of dough? And what of the rights of goddam dough? Where are all
our "victim's rights" advocates on this one?!
If Satanism, whatever the bloody hell, in theory or practice, that even is (though a
'ligion, like all others, f'r sure), can be systematically denied Constitutional
protection, then phuck its hand-in-glove "opposite" number.
(Crowd control in the ozone, crowd control from hell.)
Likewise:
The "threat" of pornography to today's unwashed youth (on or off the Internet).
Dunno about you, but I wouldn'ta made it to 13 without pics in smutmags to cue me to what
the whole wide world of carnal oo-poo-pa-doo was ABOUT.
The aforementioned Jayne! Mansfield!--hoo wee!--tits out to HERE--first nipples I saw on
anyone 'sides my mother: oh nurture! Just a peek, mind you--mags back then didn't
really show that much--but otherwise there'd've been no peek, nothin'.
1956: forty-three years ago. We're supposed to believe preadolescents need this shit
less TODAY? (Pshaw.)
Denying them porn would be abusive.
*
MODS
Some cheezier modifications of the record:
Cus D'Amato as a "fine boxing mind"--as opposed to just the formulator of an
ultra-safe "Floyd Patterson strategy." Floyd lacked ferocity ("killer
instinct"), grit, guts, nerve, much of a punch, viable footwork, and a chin--a lot to
cover for. All he was was fast. So Cus matched him against nonentities--Roy
Harris, Pete Rademacher--and even these clowns embarrassed Floyd, knocking him down in
early rounds, though through the accumulation of punches he ultimately triumphed--big
deal--the most unloved heavyweight champion since Jack Sharkey.
Only because of his short-lived connection to Mike Tyson, whose stock-in-trade, when he
was still on, was unleashed ferocity, plus enough power in either hand to take out a mule,
things beyond being taught, was Cus, in his lifetime, ever regarded as anything but
a marginal schmuck.
The title of an article in Sport magazine around '58 or '59, before Floyd got KO'ed
by Ingemar Johansson, whom Cus regarded lightly (he was European, see) or he wouldn't've
allowed the fight, said it all: The Terrible World of Cautious Cus.
And try this on for size:
The Beatles will not fare well in the new century, if only 'cause the full gamut of their
once-accessible sonic past no longer exists. 'Cept on warped, scratched vinyl, and
when they stop making record needles, that's that. By going beyond normal
remastering to REMIX certain "classic" Beatle cuts for CD reissue, Paul
McCartney has canceled any ongoing role for them--except as an a