first round, first minute

greatness.

2009-06-28T07:06:00.004-04:00

Michael Jackson's death on Thursday from what is believed to be a fatal mix of prescription drugs has shocked the world. Invincible wasn't just the title of his last studio album, but also how most of the world saw him. How else can we explain the treatment he received from the media, which is ultimately a placeholder for 'us'? We pile on because he can take it. Nevermind that a 50 year old man has been working for forty-one years, bearing his soul - a soul rife with the insecurities that even the smallest amount of celebrity amplifies. HIStory vividly illustrated the exacting toll of greatness, and how unwilling almost all of us are to bear it. This part is indisputable - he was the greatest entertainer there ever was.

I remember a retrospective video about him that I used to watch when I was a kid. There was a montage of Michael, wearing his various military-themed outfits, running ahead of a platoon of uniformed bodyguards from around the world. The King of Pop as Field Marshall! That he chose to entertain is perhaps the loss of whatever other field he could have gotten in - Joe Jackson permitting of course.

Wait, you're probably saying. What does this have to do with M

uhammad Ali?

Nothing. But when you lose an icon, you make space to recognize any and everywhere.

That said, here's Michael with The Greatest and his wife, Veronica Porsche taken in the 1970s. You will be missed.

target practice

2006-09-27T23:21:00.000-04:00

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.

first blog, first entry

2006-05-11T13:54:00.000-04:00

okay, i've finally done it.

well maybe tomorrow.