target practice

so needless to say, this first real blog entry is a long time coming.

what started off as an attempt to chronicle my early mid-life crisis in the making by taking boxing classes and shedding my cassius, quickly became another reminder of the almost, shoulda couldas. if you know me, then this is by no means surprising. i could quote at length from all those middle school and high school report cards that forewarned of vast potential left unfulfilled. but i'll spare you the melodrama. at least for the first installment.

in many ways, i've spent an entire life (and the years are a-tickin' on that age-o-meter) being the anti-ali. if sonny liston had managed to come up with a moniker as catchy as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" who knows what direction this would be going. better yet, what if he'd made it past the first round. well needless to say, there are a googol reasons why this blog shouldn't have existed. there's only one reason why it does.

i got off my ass and decided to do it.

over the course of the following months, i will chart my ruminations on everything and nothing (nothing and everything) through the metaphor of boxing. ali is merely the conduit for that metaphor. sugar ray would have done just as well...(okay maybe not). you are welcome to challenge me, shoot little allegorical darts and arrows at me, or (please don't) simply ignore me.

as first steps go, i admit this entry is no neil armstrong on a hollywood soundstage (yes i'm a theoritical conspirator) - but i'll take it. for now, i'll suggest reading loic wacquant's brilliant examination of the pugilists paradigm in body & soul: notebooks of an apprentice boxer.